Vaio Operating System Not found, tricky problem

Right hi guys I’ve been racking my brains for a couple of days now and can’t seem to find a solution.

I’ve got a Sony vaio laptop which had a broken DVD drive which would read DVD’s but not CDs anyway I’ve replaced that but the data on the hard drive was only slightly corrupt and won’t let me boot, obviously because I’ve not been able to install the drivers for the new DVD drive i can’t boot from that and I can’t boot from the hard disk either, any solutions

any help would be greatly appreciated

 

I have a strange feeling you will have to rebuild the HDD in another computer, because this sounds like one of those nasty "catch22" situations. Sorry.. It's the only way we have found to get access to the dvd drive with machines that have no floppy drive.

 

wow that was quick thanks, hmmm i was thinking the same, ok next question if i was to buy a 2.5" external case can i use my pc to reinstall windows onto the laptop hdd??

 

That's an extremely good plan ddp.. I have to call in the shop tomorrow and will pick a few brains.
I think I know what you are getting at too.. Like a boot floppy with dvd drivers (mscdex?) to get the installer running? Something like a win98 image on usb perhaps?

http://www.bootdisk.com/

 

thanks alot im know thinking i might need to re flash the bios tried another hdd drive in the laptop and still no luck any ideas how to do this,
Thanks

 

dont think the bios supports it, im trying to reset the cmos, where abouts is the battery or the jumpers its a Intel 915GM board
cheers

 

Intel 915GM is the chip set the board uses not the board itself. What Sony Vaio is it exactly? With that chip set, I am inclined to think boot from usb is an option, but one never knows with sony.

 

ahhh ok, its a sony vaio vgn-fs485b.
thanks everyone for trying to help my stress levels are reachin an all time high at the moment!!!

 

got the laptop open at the moment but cant see the motherboard name anywhere or locate the battery for the cmos any ideas???

 

UK

 

From doing a bit of searching on google I found someone that is trying to make the laptop a US system. It seems to be a system that was intended for China only. They seem to have found everything they needed but the mass storage controler drivers. I would think a bit of searching at intel site would locate that. I still think with a closer look inside the bios you will find an option in there to allow it to boot from usb device which would save a good bit of problems. It could be needed to be set in 2 places in the bios. First in usb device order then in boot order.

 

any ideas of how to clear the cmos

 

thanks but doesnt show the motherboard diagram. i need to know how to clear the cmos, is there anyway?

 

nope tried to look but cant see anything else which stands out, could it be hidden somewhere?? are they normally close to the cpu??

 

looks like im about out of options then? anything one of my local pc stores could do ie change the bios chip or??