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Problems Caused By Unreadable Recovery CDsProblems Caused By Unreadable Recovery CDs
Subjects > Computers (Search) > Hardware (Search) > New Pc Missing Recovery Disks
Getting here, however, was a huge problem. I started out by trying to upgrade XP to XP Pro, which (as I had forgotten) results in none of the Sony proprietary drivers functioning, and additionally didn't solve the memstick slot error. After an hour or so of fiddling with that, I decided to use the Sony Recovery CDs.
About 40 minutes into the recovery process, it told me that disc 2 was unreadable. Rebooting informed me that drive C was unbootable. *sigh* So I tried a couple more times, only to have it fail at random points each time. Bleah! I couldn't see anything wrong with disc 2, but I decided to copy the files to a new CD using Wanderer & the portable DVD recorder just in case. This is where I discovered that Wanderer's optical drive couldn't copy the files either. Weird. On a whim, I stuck CD 2 into the portable recorder, and used *that* to move the files onto Wanderer's hard drive, then copied those back to a new CD. Great!
Meanwhile, I had Mordion trying to install XP Pro from a bootable CD. The first two times, like the recovery process, gave disc read errors at random points. I eventually circumvented this by inserting a different backup of the XP Install CD each time Mordion complained that a file was unreadable, which somehow convinced it to install. Still, I wasn't terribly happy with no native drivers, so I tried the original recovery CDs again (keep in mind, what I did with Wanderer took about 2.5 hours) with no luck.
Back to clean-installing XP Pro, this time just telling the screwy installer to "retry" whenever it encountered a so-called read error. :-p Eventually I managed to get into XP and download the needed drivers, though of course none of them worked. *headdesk* For the first time -- not sure why I never did this before -- I resorted to using the "Application Recovery CDs" just to see if they'd have the weird drivers & utilities on them. Bingo! Another hour or so of installing things in a very specific order (if done out of order it doesn't work), I finally have a functional system.
I thought it'd be a great idea to back up the boot drive to CDs or DVD for use in similar crashes in the future. So I installed all of my basic software (Eudora, Mozilla Firefox, Trillian, Winamp, etc) and then set the system to backing up, using the portable DVD-writer. It took the expected long time (20 minutes?) to write the first CD, and then freaked out when the drive refused to finalize the CD. Failed backup. Argh!
So that's where I'm at now. I also spent the day hungry as there's no bleeping food in the house and drugged up for symptoms of what is either severe allergies or a headcold. Right now I'm just cranky, tired, and have a nasty headache. At least my notebook is working properly again, though. :-p
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