After motherboard replacement, Sony VAIO recovery utility does'nt work

joslohan

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Nov 16, 2012
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My notebook VAIO VGN-TX1HP/W motherboard was fried so I replaced it with an identical one from TX2HP/W. All other components remained the same. I have the recovery partition intact and recovery CDs made but SONY VAIO utility won't let me install/recover my laptop. Soon as I start the utility I get an error about installing software on another machine not authorised.

Is there a way to get around this by maybe changing configuration or imaging drive exactly as the vaio recovery utility does??


 

unksol

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Sep 12, 2011
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joslohan

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Nov 16, 2012
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Windows is booting up but its been corrupted with many drivers and system files missing so I wanted to use the recovery utility to reinstall XP Pro that was provided with the notebook. It did not come with any installation codes/keys, if I remember correctly.
 


You should run the System File Checker to let XP find files on the Vaio CD that it needs to repair itself then run driver updates to sort the hardware out. Your new motherboard only had to be a month older or younger than the original for different chipsets to have been used. If Sony didn't provide a CD, a borrowed XP CD will do the job. Just asssure the owner that it's only for repair purposes and not for a new installation. The Command Prompt syntax you need is sfc /scannow including the space.



 

joslohan

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Nov 16, 2012
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After searching for almost 2 days, I came across the solution I was looking for, in case in future some one needs it, here's the details,

You'll need either VAIO recovery discs OR recovery partition intact.

TURN OFF AUTORUN on the DVD-Drive and insert System Restore DVD in Windows. You well see a VAIO Applications Folder on the DVD which contains all drivers, Sony Utilities and even Windows Hotfixes for your VAIO (no need to use SONY site at all to get them). Just copy the VAIO Applications folder to your PC after Clean Install and use it for installing drivers, utilities etc...

Now the Pre-installed applications:
Insert the second DVD (Applications Restore).
This one has all the pre-installed applications but you cannot select any of them because they are all packed with SONY proprietary packer and there's apparently no mean to selectively install any of them. right? wrong ;o)

Copy the entire Restore Applications DVD on your hard drive
Download this file (kcap.exe) at:
http://pages.sbcglobal.net/jefn/kcap.zip

,this file will expand any xxxx.pac file. You will then get the application setup for each and also get user name (generally Sony Customer if not for all of them) and serial number for each that requires one (read inst.wsf in Notepad (in the BAT folder of the expanded xxx.pac file)).

Do not drag drop on kcap as this will not do anything but use the command window (Start, Run, type CMD, enter) and type:
[path to kpac.exe] kpac.exe [path to the pac file] xxxx.pac [destination of the pac file].
Important: The destination Folder MUST be created before!!!

example: d:\kcap.exe d:\VAIO_Save\APR\SP-010849-00.pac d:\VAIO_Extract

(In this example the DVD content was copied to d:\VAIO_Save, kpac.exe is on d:\, the pac file SP-010849-00.pac is located in VAIO_Save\APR folder and the expanded pac.file will be extracted in d:\VAIO_Extract (you may want to create this folder first).

The kcap utility will create a folder with the pac file name with all files in it. Use setup to install the application (read inst.wsf (or other available files) from the BAT folder of each extracted pac file in notepad to know what application it is if it's not obvious and to get username and serial number when one is required).

Once you have extracted all pac files, it would certainly be a good idea to burn all of them to DVD. At the end of the day you should end up with one OEM retail XP CD accepting you Windows Licence number and several CDs or DVDs with all pre-installed sofware. Thanks SONY for not providing them in the first place (but at least we now know how to get around).


1.)at first, disable AUTORUN in the drive, you put the VAIO-Recovery 2 (Applications)

2.) create two folders in drive "D"
(par example: VAIO1 and VAIO2)

3.) you copie Recovery-CD 2 (Applications) to VAIO1

4.) because, there are a lot of "sony.pac" folders on the Recovery CD2, i created at first such as folders in VAIO2 as there are
"sony.pac" folders on the Recovery CD.

The first is just named "sony.pac" the second is: "sony2.pac" and more.

Any way: it don't has to be "sony.pac" - it's enough, to create just: 1 2 3 4 5
happy (bla bla bla:)

4.) the destination for "kcap.exe" is in this case defenitly drive "d"
just copie kcap.exe to drive "D" ! not in a folder ore somewhere else! - just to drive "D"

Than click on "Start" then "Run", type "CMD" and hit enter.
in my case i did (if i remember it well)
: after start - run cmd -
i did it like this:
d:\kcap.exe -space- d:\VAIO1\APR\Sony.pac -space- d:\VAIO2
And than "ENTER"

================================================
Above was the procedure for VAIO application and System recovery.

For system only, you can also browse to your existing I386 folder (if its intact) and restore OS from there by clicking on Winnt32.exe. This info should apply to all OS before Vista.