sturmchaser Posted November 10, 2020 Share Posted November 10, 2020 I have searched the forum and haven't found this topic. I have a Sony Vaio laptop model PCG-61A11L, manufactured in 5/2011, pre-loaded with Win 7. I upgraded to Win 10 in 2017, and everything was peachy-keen until a few months ago, when, after an apparent automatic 'upgrade', the laptop appears tp be trying to load from the X drive, not the C drive. After Winblows runs its so-called automatic 'repair' diagnostics, I can't recover shit from any of the options. Thankfully I have a backup flipbook so I could research this phenom, but the 50% effective 'fixes' are beyond my technical capabilities. So my question is, have any of you experienced this before, and if so, how did you fix it? I have done everything short of cracking open the case and removing that all important watch battery, and if that doesn't work, taking it to a professional and spending $$$. I would really like to save this excellent laptop, as it has never failed me in the past 8 years (except for the wifi capability going tits up about 6 months prior to this debacle) and I really don't want to do a FORMAT: C:\ or a DEL *.* on it because there are valuable files I'd like to keep. And yes, I have learned my lesson to back up every damn thing to ext HDs. Any helpful hints would be appreciated! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StnCld316 Posted November 10, 2020 Share Posted November 10, 2020 44 minutes ago, sturmchaser said: I have searched the forum and haven't found this topic. I have a Sony Vaio laptop model PCG-61A11L, manufactured in 5/2011, pre-loaded with Win 7. I upgraded to Win 10 in 2017, and everything was peachy-keen until a few months ago, when, after an apparent automatic 'upgrade', the laptop appears tp be trying to load from the X drive, not the C drive. After Winblows runs its so-called automatic 'repair' diagnostics, I can't recover shit from any of the options. Thankfully I have a backup flipbook so I could research this phenom, but the 50% effective 'fixes' are beyond my technical capabilities. So my question is, have any of you experienced this before, and if so, how did you fix it? I have done everything short of cracking open the case and removing that all important watch battery, and if that doesn't work, taking it to a professional and spending $$$. I would really like to save this excellent laptop, as it has never failed me in the past 8 years (except for the wifi capability going tits up about 6 months prior to this debacle) and I really don't want to do a FORMAT: C:\ or a DEL *.* on it because there are valuable files I'd like to keep. And yes, I have learned my lesson to back up every damn thing to ext HDs. Any helpful hints would be appreciated! Shut the Laptop off. Restart using a Cold Boot and enter the BIOS Settings by selecting the proper key. Every make of Laptop has different setting for entering the BIOS. Some use F10 and some use F2. Make sure your Boot Order is the Hard Drive with the O/S installed is the First Boot Device then followed secondary with the CD/DVD. If the BIOS first Boot Device is FDD (Floppy Disk Drive) this is likely where the error is caused from. Since Laptops are not designed for FDD usage it cannot Boot. The FDD action should be set to Disabled. Save the changes and Reboot your Laptop. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sturmchaser Posted November 10, 2020 Author Share Posted November 10, 2020 Thanks for the response, Stone, but unfortunately it didn't work. The boot order was set for optical drive then internal hdd, so I switched it to internal hdd, saved and exit, but it started back in diagnostic repair mode (and none of the repair options succeed). So, I'm back to square one. 😑 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StnCld316 Posted November 10, 2020 Share Posted November 10, 2020 1 hour ago, sturmchaser said: Thanks for the response, Stone, but unfortunately it didn't work. The boot order was set for optical drive then internal hdd, so I switched it to internal hdd, saved and exit, but it started back in diagnostic repair mode (and none of the repair options succeed). So, I'm back to square one. 😑 On your image you have entered "C:\" That is not recognizable to Windows. The proper one is "C:" do not include the " and see what happens. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sturmchaser Posted November 11, 2020 Author Share Posted November 11, 2020 Silly me, my DOS 5 skills have obviously deteriorated since the 90s LOL. The result is below. "File not found" *sigh* However, I AM able to reach the registry editor, if that helps. However, I've learned with past desktop towers, messing around in the regedit can cause catastrophic results 🥴 But I'll try anything at this point. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StnCld316 Posted November 11, 2020 Share Posted November 11, 2020 43 minutes ago, sturmchaser said: Silly me, my DOS 5 skills have obviously deteriorated since the 90s LOL. The result is below. "File not found" *sigh* However, I AM able to reach the registry editor, if that helps. However, I've learned with past desktop towers, messing around in the regedit can cause catastrophic results 🥴 But I'll try anything at this point. When you reboot your Laptop press the F8 key and go to the Boot Menu and select boot from Hard Drive if it shows. If the Hard Drive is there it should show in that menu. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StnCld316 Posted November 11, 2020 Share Posted November 11, 2020 1 hour ago, sturmchaser said: Silly me, my DOS 5 skills have obviously deteriorated since the 90s LOL. The result is below. "File not found" *sigh* However, I AM able to reach the registry editor, if that helps. However, I've learned with past desktop towers, messing around in the regedit can cause catastrophic results 🥴 But I'll try anything at this point. Get your command Prompt out of Administrator mode. Show as normal without Administrator. Then when the command shows just type dir if there is a hard drive present it will show the directory of it's contents. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sturmchaser Posted November 11, 2020 Author Share Posted November 11, 2020 Ehhh... unfortunately, nothing worked, so I decided to try one of the "fixes" I Googled (big mistake), and ended up fucking things up even further! I now get "BOOTMGR is missing" and it goes no further. I can still access the BIOS, and change the boot order, so I am now downloading a Win 10 recovery program onto a USB drive, so hopefully I can boot the brick up via the external drive option in BIOS. But I have a feeling this isn't going to work either, I'll probably fuck it up even further. It looks like I'll be making a trip to a PC doctor soon 😒 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StnCld316 Posted November 12, 2020 Share Posted November 12, 2020 3 hours ago, sturmchaser said: Ehhh... unfortunately, nothing worked, so I decided to try one of the "fixes" I Googled (big mistake), and ended up fucking things up even further! I now get "BOOTMGR is missing" and it goes no further. I can still access the BIOS, and change the boot order, so I am now downloading a Win 10 recovery program onto a USB drive, so hopefully I can boot the brick up via the external drive option in BIOS. But I have a feeling this isn't going to work either, I'll probably fuck it up even further. It looks like I'll be making a trip to a PC doctor soon 😒 If there are files you need to get from the hard drive that's easy to do. Just remove the Hard Drive and insert it into an External Hard Drive enclosure and plug into a USB Port. The Hard Drive will act as a slave on another machine and then just get the files you need from the Hard Drive. Be as when the Laptop was made you may need an Adapter for the enclosure depending on whether the Hard Drive is EIDE or SATA. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SPYING 1 Posted November 12, 2020 Share Posted November 12, 2020 Since your laptop 💻 is 9.5 years old, I would say don't spend any money on it & buy a new one Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sturmchaser Posted November 12, 2020 Author Share Posted November 12, 2020 UPDATE: Well! After creating the Win10 USB drive from this laptop (took forever) and plugging it in to the facked laptop and starting it up, it read the USB and I started the install on the only partition it allowed (out of 5 available), and after a couple hours, a fresh install of Win 10 was loaded! I was afraid that it had overwritten everything, and I had lost all of my files, BUT I remembered the re-install would store all my old data in a folder called windows.old, so after I went through the whole battery of fresh install questions and crap, I navigated to the windows.old folder, and BAZINGA! There were all my old documents and pictures, all accessible! 😃 I was apprehensive as hell about restarting the unit, afraid that it would default back to the X drive, but, after holding my breath during the restart, it came up smooth as glass. SHEW! 😌 What an ordeal, futzing with this thing for over a month, finally success! Lesson learned: make a recovery disc, and backup, backup, BACKUP! Thanks for your assistance, Stone! 👍 20 hours ago, SPYING 1 said: Since your laptop 💻 is 9.5 years old, I would say don't spend any money on it & buy a new one Ehhh, you have a point, except there's nothing wrong with it (now) for what I use it for, essentially as a spare or backup to my primary unit, this Vaio flipbook. I also have a Toshiba Satellite running Win XP lol, God knows how old that thing is. But I do need to purchase something updated sooner or later, I guess. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StnCld316 Posted November 13, 2020 Share Posted November 13, 2020 52 minutes ago, sturmchaser said: UPDATE: Well! After creating the Win10 USB drive from this laptop (took forever) and plugging it in to the facked laptop and starting it up, it read the USB and I started the install on the only partition it allowed (out of 5 available), and after a couple hours, a fresh install of Win 10 was loaded! I was afraid that it had overwritten everything, and I had lost all of my files, BUT I remembered the re-install would store all my old data in a folder called windows.old, so after I went through the whole battery of fresh install questions and crap, I navigated to the windows.old folder, and BAZINGA! There were all my old documents and pictures, all accessible! 😃 I was apprehensive as hell about restarting the unit, afraid that it would default back to the X drive, but, after holding my breath during the restart, it came up smooth as glass. SHEW! 😌 What an ordeal, futzing with this thing for over a month, finally success! Lesson learned: make a recovery disc, and backup, backup, BACKUP! Thanks for your assistance, Stone! 👍 Glad to hear you got it going. Now that you got your files from Windows.old you can safely delete that folder and free up valuable disk space. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.