Error loading operating system

[gulabg]

Suddenly my operating system vista on my Sony laptop computer does not load. I have shut off the computer several times and turned it back on to no avail.

I have a recovery disc, but my floppy drive in the computer is non functional. So I do have an
external floppy drive. How do I load the recovery program from external floppy drive? Is there any
way I can press some function key and boot us from external floppy drive.and Use the recovery disc?

 

[DelJo63]

FLOPPY. What boat anchor is your hardware & OS?

 

[holdum323]

Hi! Are you saying you have a external CD drive? You will have to change the boot order. Here's link from Lifewire.
https://www.lifewire.com/change-the-boot-order-in-bios-2624528
Let us know how things go.

 

[gulabg]

Hi! Are you saying you have a external CD drive? You will have to change the boot order. Here's link from Lifewire.
https://www.lifewire.com/change-the-boot-order-in-bios-2624528
Let us know how things go.

I have a Sony VAIO laptop. It clicked F!2 button to get into BIOS, but I keep getting a message PXE-E61 Media Test Failure, check cable, PXE-MOF Exiting PXE ROM and Operating system not found. So I am lost at this point. Any help is welcome.

 

[DelJo63]

... I keep getting a message PXE-E61 Media Test Failure, check cable, PXE-MOF Exiting PXE ROM and Operating system not found....

This is an attempt (PXE---) to boot off the network and no server can be found.

That really means that your MBR is no longer connected to the boot partition; perhaps even that the boot partition is corrupted.

 

[holdum323]

I have a Sony VAIO laptop. It clicked F!2 button to get into BIOS, but I keep getting a message PXE-E61 Media Test Failure, check cable, PXE-MOF Exiting PXE ROM and Operating system not found. So I am lost at this point. Any help is welcome.

Here's what Computer Hope says about your problem.
Let us know how things go.
https://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000706.htm
Here's support from Sony. https://esupport.sony.com/p/support-info.pl?info_id=773&template_id=1&region_id=1
Here's more help from Sony.
https://neosmart.net/wiki/vaio-recovery-disk/

 

[DelJo63]

Most of us have the bios boot sequence

1. cd-rom
2. hd
3. network

When you find that the BIOS and jumpers a just fine (it's unlikely that you were messing with this- right?), then with the CD drive empty, the HD corrupted, the only thing left for bios to try is the PXE

 

[holdum323]

Here you go!
What is PXE function in BIOS?
Short for Pre-Boot Execution Environment. Pronounced pixie, PXE is one of the components of Intel's WfM specification. It allows a workstation to boot from a server on a network prior to booting the operating system on the local hard drive.

 

[DelJo63]

Here you go!
What is PXE function in BIOS?
Short for Pre-Boot Execution Environment. Pronounced pixie, PXE is one of the components of Intel's WfM specification. It allows a workstation to boot from a server on a network prior to booting the operating system on the local hard drive.

Or even to boot from the network without a local OS being installed Sunmicro Systems sold systems like this, but today it's quite rare. There's an obvious drawback to this approach - - overloaded networks due to paging and too many clients per network segment.

see diskless workstations
see also thin client solutions

 

[holdum323]

Hi So the solution is to boot from the recovery disk? You can create a recovery CD for windows Vista. I think this is the right link. If not maybe @jobeard can give you one.
https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/15074/Recovery-CD-for-Windows-Vista-

 

[DelJo63]

I believe that some conditions can be corrected - - with the right tool & sufficient skill. Frankly that leaves me out. I have shrunk, merged and expanded healthy partitions before, but never personally EDITED a partition table to correct errors.

Perhaps someone else might lead the OP from a position of hands-on experience.

 

[Paul Haywood]

I recommend Partition Magic or EaseUS for that problem. https://www.easeus.com/ppc/partitio...vIm71g.0&utm_referrer=https://www.google.com/