I have a sony vaio pcg 7h1l. Had it for a little over a year now. Got a virus a while a go, but took it off. Then it would take about 4-5 times just to be able to log on. So i decided to upgrade from Windows XP media center to XP pro. In that i accidently made my system a multiboot system. I could log on and it worked just fine but absolutely no drivers. So I went back and did it again but this time it keeps freezing at the installing windows screen. The cursor still works and the scrolling bar at the bottom is still going but nothing is going on. The screen says Approximately 39 minutes to complete and have left it for way past an hour and still no change. Under normal circumstances I would wipe the hard drive and start from scratch but I have very important files on it and can't afford to do that. What can I do?
You can boot from the CD in DOS mode and get the important files off.
You can take the HDD out into a USB enclosure, connect it to another PC and get the files off.
Based on your story (and even the possibility that a trojan could still be lurking in there), I would scrap the HDD contents after your backup of important files using FDISK and Format and start again with XP Pro.
No doubt in my mind at all. It's what I would do even without the possibility of a lurking trojan.
Thank you. Now, I have just reinstalled a full version and now I am missing my ethernet controller, mass storage controller, network controller, PCI devise, SM bus controller, USB controller USB2.0 web camera, video controller, and video controller (VGA compatible). What can I do?
Can we be sure what you've done? You've got your files off, FDISK'd the drive, Format'd it and done a clean Windows install. So it appears you're missing the Sony release device drivers although I would have expected Ethernet to be generic.
Does this mean that if you boot in Safe Mode with Network you can't use the network?
Also what messages do you get at what stage of booting up to say what's missing? Did the install report that it couldn't find the files?
If you haven't go those .sys or .dll files available, you'll need to download them. They can be introduced to your system using the tip below pulled from http://www.dynamiclink.nl/
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Register DLL & OCX files in Windows
To add .ocx and certain .dll files it might be nessecary for you to use the Windows build-in utility "REGSVR32.exe" WINDOWS/SYSTEM/REGSVR32.EXE from the command line or Start > Run and type "REGSVR32". To add a file to the register: Start > Run and type "REGSVR32 c:\windows\system32\nameofthefile.dll" or just "regsvr32 nameofthefile" It's preferable to use the complete file location if the file is not located in the Windows/System32 folder.
Another option is to use Windows CMD. The following commands and switches are allowed:
regsvr32 [/u] [/s] [n] [i [:cmdline]] dll name or ocx name
/u (unregistered server)
/s (silent; display no message boxes)
/c (console output)
/i Call dll or ocx install passing it an optional [cmdline]; when used with /u calls dll or ocx uninstall
/n Do not call dll Register Server; this option must be used with /i
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Ok, Here is what I was getting. In my device manager is where I got all those ?'s. I was able to get a driver update for the ethernet and it worked. So I went to the sony website and updated all the drivers for my comp. Now it works but I am having 2 minor problems. First, the cd drive is DVD-RW and in my computer it is reading it as 4 different devices: MemoryStick0 Device, SD1, HTS541010G9SA00, and Sony DVD RW DW-Q58A. Is this perfectly fine or do I need to do something else? Second when I shut down the comp. freezes on the stutting windows down screen. Whats going on here? I am just trying to get this thing running right so I can update to modern hardware with no forseeable problems cuz this thing has got to last me through school. Thank you all for your advice. I really appreciate it.
I'd guess that you have the following devices attached at the time you looked:
A USB memory stick
An SD memory card
An internal Hitachi Hard Drive
A sony CD/DVD drive
Anything wrong there?
Freezing on shutting down:
1. Details of where in the shutdown cycle it happens
2. Confirmation that it always happens
3. The Microsoft KnowledgeBase may be helpful to you for this
It freezes about 10 seconds into shut down. I don't understand why. Yes this happens every time. As for the drive, no usb stick and it has no sd card but is showing as one. The drive it does have does not read it. When I did the update for it, the comp. thinks its an external device and can't find it. I deleted the two I know it does not have and then it showed that there was no D: drive. I pulled the drive out and double check the model and its the right update but does not read it. Also, because of the shut down problem it can't restart so the updates do not take effect. Microsoft Knowledge base has no answer for the shut down problem.
Also for the internal hard drive there is no problem that i can see.
ok, I just reformatted and started over. I think I just uploaded the wrong updates. Now it shuts down and reads the cd drive just fine. Thank you for your help.
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