Stressing about sony recovery disc use to reboot

[lawdylaw]

OK, so the notebook will not start up and keeps coming back to the start up options, of which none of them are giving any joy. I have tried the recovery discs that I made and the option for "recover windows" system restore is not available. All other options lead to a complete C drive restore which will delete everything. I really really do not want to do this..it's all a bit scary right now and I need some advice. Will re-installing Windows help if I buy the Windows XP home cd? Windows was already installed on the laptop so no discs came with computer. I have no idea why this has happened and am in a mild state of shock right now....
Please, anybody, help me if you can.......

 

[fastco]

Ok... First call Sony and tell them that you need a restore disk or Windows XP cd that should have come with your computer. Next question is, do you have a floppy drive on the laptop? If so download the XP boot disk from here
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=310994.

Boot the computer from the floppy (if you have one). Or borrow a WIndows XP cd from someone and boot from that and do a REPAIR of windows so you don't lose any data. To do that you will need an XP key that you should have on the documentation that came with your computer. If you can't find that use this program called KeyFinderPE.. http://www.geocities.com/acid_zebra/.

 

[lawdylaw]

Right, typically there is no floppy drive but I do have the product key for the original OS that was already installed on the pc which is xp home. So now I just need someone with the original installation cd for the same OS and a whole lot of luck.....unless the hard drive has given up?

 

[fastco]

It doesn't sound like the drive is bad. An XP cd should get you going.