I am trying to dual-boot the Sony TR3a with XP Pro and Red Hat Linux. This is my attempt to wipe the partitions and first upgrade to XP Pro from XP Home.
I attempted firstly to make the Vaio Recovery CDs in accordance to the XP Pro Update Tutorial on this site. Tried two times, and both on the last CD it crashed into windows. (ie, trash = 14 CDs) After that, in order to return it to its original pristine state to remake the Recovery CDs, I tried using the C: Reformat with Viao Recovery Wizard to reformat my C: drive back to factory specs. After attempting that, I keep getting an error ‘
‘INF file txtsetup.sif is corrupt or missing, status 14. Setup cannot continue. Press any key to exit.’
The problem is, this error keeps popping up everytime I boot, so even after attempting to access BIOS and using factory default settings, the error still prevents me from viewing the XP gui, or even booting. I dunno, but right now, Sony is equalling :twisted: to me. Please advise as to how to continue. :?
As it is, I haven’t mde the recovery CDs yet. So basically you’re saying that, the only option I have is to shell out MORE money to buy the recovery DVD straight from Sony?
I am a little bit confused here. You said you wasted 14 CDs, then you encountered problem at 8th recovery CD, not the 9th one.
There are total 9 Recovery CDs. When you create, the last one, ie. 9th , is a boot disc. ...
Copied from above site.
““Posted by: Josh P at March 7, 2004 01:07 AM
If I remember correctly, the last disc is simply a boot disc in the restoration process. If you clean, fresh install XP, you should be booting from XP CD. You would only need the last disc if you plan on restoring the system with Sony’s boot image.
I think what he’s saying is that if you’re planning on installing a fresh copy of XP Pro, just boot off the XP CD. Booting from that should allow you to reformat and repartition. You should have the proper drivers and programs you need on the remaining CDs.
My suggestion is to call Sony Tech Support, (say “operator” as soon as you can if you hate the voice mail program) and tell them about the CDs you wasted and demand a recovery DVD shipped to you. Some on this forum got the DVD and were only charged for shipping.
Well, after about an hour on the phone with the Sony support people, I have realized that my initial misconceptions about Sony tech support was wrong. They’re not that bad. Basically, I had to wade with some idiot with a foreign accent about the boot problem. Once she realized that she knew as much as I did, she forwarded me to their supervisor, who was actually rather competent about the situation. After a little bs, they offered to send me the Sony Recovery DVD free of charge, w/ FedEx overnight too. Though I think they should’ve just bundled the stupid thing before with my TR3a (already 2000 dollars, come on) I think they handled this situation pretty well. Just gonna wait for my Recovery DVD now. Go sony.
6 hours of wasted time = 120 dollars
24 CD-Rs = 12.40 dollars
getting something free out of Sony support = priceless
[quote author=“nox”]After a little bs, they offered to send me the Sony Recovery DVD free of charge, w/ FedEx overnight too. Though I think they should’ve just bundled the stupid thing before with my TR3a (already 2000 dollars, come on) I think they handled this situation pretty well. Just gonna wait for my Recovery DVD now. Go sony.
Nice job. You’ve done a rare and beautiful thing: gotten actual help from Sony. You can’t blame the lack of recovery media on Sony’s lap directly. It’s part of Microsoft’s new licensing program. Other vendors are doing things like this too. IBM for example is using a screwy BIOS-protected hard drive recovery partition on their laptops.
Haha, still, i’m a little miffed that they couldn’t have broken the laws for a 2000+ laptop. i mean, i know it’s m$ and all, but dang, this has taken too much time/effort to upgrade to XP pro/*nix.
[quote author=“Drachen”]It’s part of Microsoft’s new licensing program. Other vendors are doing things like this too. IBM for example is using a screwy BIOS-protected hard drive recovery partition on their laptops.
Do you have any details on this licensing program Drachen?
Are you sure it’s part of the licensing program? I mean they do allow you to make a set of recovery CD’s which once completed in theory is the same as them shipping the laptops out with them in the first place.
My personal opinion on this is that they don’t have to workout how many CD’s to make at a pressing factory when they send off for a shipment. This way if they under sell or oversell on a particular model they aren’t left with CD’s they don’t need or requiring more CD’s for popular models which they increase manafacturing on.
HP/Compaq also don’t supply CD’s with their desktops, probably their laptops too but not checked recently. Neither does NEC with their Packard Bell brand of machines, 2 large OEM’s in the UK. However e-Machine who are also a large OEM do supply recovery CD’s as do a few other makes so that just makes me question if it’s in the license agreement with MS or not.
Can’t really substantiate my claim other than say it’s what I’ve been told. The IBM and Sony solutions are different, but the net effect is the same: no OS CDs are shipped with the unit. That could mean that both companies are trying to get around the specific wording of the hypothetical agreement. The fact that the change is relatively recent and pretty consistant across the larger vendors seems to suggest that there’s more at work here than coincidence. One could argue cost, but pressing CDs is cheap and I’m not sure it works if a significant number of people want the CDs shipped to them anyway. (as above) It would require a similar number of CDs on hand as your oversell/undersell reasoning too, because you’d need some floating around to ship CDs to people who call tech support and need them.
Over and above everything else: always blame Microsoft.
I have the same problem now. Here’s the story. Surfin the net, and somehow accumulated around 12 spyware programs. Decided to backup the important files. I was then going to create the recovery cd’s and recover the computer.
I started the wizard and it told me that I was going to create 9 cd’s. Well, it then said to input cd 8 of 8. I did this till cd 1. At the end of cd1 it brought up to the system restore menu…i opted to restore for all the space on C: It then told me that it would need to restart the machine…okay no problem…it restarted and now is telling me that txtsetup.sif is missing and keeps leading me in circles. I figure my recovery cd’s are screwed…so does anyone have the cd’s contents online so that I may burn them myself? Being that it’s Thanksgiving…and no one is working and that this computer has to be up and ready to go by tomorrow….can anyone help me?
——————UPDATE————————————-
Went to this thread http://www.siliconpopculture.com/sonytr/viewtopic.php?t=1653&highlight=download it’s where Rahul put down the dealies that make the TR unique…I found my copy of Win XP Pro, i’m just going to reinstall win xp pro with a fresh install and then add these little cajiggers. Thank you so much Rahul for posting those…I could kiss you right now. :D :D :D :D :D :D
I’ve also heard that it’s MS’ doing that has led many of these companies to not ship OS CDs. It’s not that they’re forcing them to do this but I’m sure there’s some special deal they get for following these guidelines. It was part of them curbing piracy. Back in the days, systems used to come with the CDs. I have about 30 Windows NT4 CDs from all these Compaq’s I installed. We never used them.
I think another reason why they don’t ship them is that the images are always changing every couple of months with product refreshes, new versions of software installed, etc. It’s easier to just update the image and dump it on a hard disk than it is to press new CDs/DVDs.
This has really helped. I’m up and running with my Win XP Pro like before…but I would like to restore to the original…does anyone have the startup disk and disk one of eight online? That’s the only way I think I can do this.
