Sony Notebook

[zirconium]

Ok after much searching my laptop will be either a

Sony AR71ZU

or

HP 8710W

My question is this, sony have a partition on the HDD which enables you to do a restore, can I totally format the HDD removing all trace of sony and install my own retail version of Vista Ultimate?

 

[beermonster]

Yes should not be a problem, obviously you will need all the drivers also. I know on the older Sonys it can be a problem getting the FN Brightness + - key to work, not sure on these new ones though.

 

[LanceCrossfire]

HOLD ON!!! most warranties require the recovery partition to be intact, and if work is to ever be carried out on it then the manufactuar usually wants the OS that shipped with the machine installed...(unless it states otherwise)...

Why not use your Vista Ultimate to upgrade the version thats currently installed???(if thats possible, not sure dont have Ultimate edition to try) then if anything were to go wrong, you can always recover to the original OS etc...

 

[beermonster]

warranties only cover for hardware faults, but in order to test certain hardware they may require the original software build. but most likely things that fail such as the hd or cd drive etc can be tested indepently of the os. I personally would be inclined to leave the original OS on it and just remove the unecessary stuff. But its down to the OP's choice and does not void the warranty.

 

[yak.h'cir]

HOLD ON!!! most warranties require the recovery partition to be intact,

Really? That seems pretty strange. Especially since most warranties will still cover the computer if you upgrade certain parts including the hard drive so do they expect you to copy across the backup partition?

The first thing I did when I got my laptop was to replace the drive with something much larger and faster and do a fresh install whilst formatting the original and using it for storage.

 

[Emlyn_Dewar]

You can format it and be happy, just make sure you use the installed backup software first, should use about 2 dvd's.
The recovery partition gets recreated upon reinstalling off the created backup media/vaio recovery disks.

Edit: For Sony notebooks.

 

[Dano]

You can format it and be happy, just make sure you use the installed backup software first, should use about 2 dvd's.
The recovery partition gets recreated upon reinstalling off the created backup media/vaio recovery disks.

Edit: For Sony notebooks.

And before doing the fatal format verify your backup media by using them to restore the system at least once.

 

[Emlyn_Dewar]

And before doing the fatal format verify your backup media by using them to restore the system at least once.

lol, do this also.

 

[L33]

Buy the HP