Sony VAIO - XP downgrade

Dogboy73

Dogboy73

Dogboy73

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Joined
27 May 2004
Posts
693
Location
UK
I recently had a HD failure in our Sony VAIO laptop. I replaced the drive myself with, on the advice of the Sony VAIO tech support, the exact same size, make & model HD. Unfortunately the recovery disks I'd made when I turned the laptop on for the first time wouldn't install onto the new HD. The tech guy had warned me this may be the case & couldn't offer much more advice beyond, 'send it back to use & we'll sort it out for you' ........ at a cost (he quoted) that could total around 200 pounds!

Not wanting to go that route and not really wanting Vista back on the machine I decidedto install XP. This involved using nlite to make a slipstream disk containing the SATA controller so the installation would recognise the HD (I bunged SP2 in there as well for good measure). This is all worked okay & XP installed no problems .........

........ But my problems were only just beginning! I'm now having problems locatting the chipset drivers for my machine. I've got no sound, a screen that only fills 2/3rds of the display, a mouse pad that doesn't work as it used to (no side scroll feature), missing keyboard characters (no pound sign for some reason) etc....

Bit stumped on this one. I've tried geting the chipset drivers from the Intel site but they don't seem to work. A utility on that site that scans your hardware tells me the latest drivers are installed! Yet in Device Manager I just see 2 explenation marks next to the items under displays.

Can anyone help? I'm just about to throw this bloody Sony VAIO out the window. I never thought it would be such a pain to install another OS on this thing. I've looked at guides for downgrading VAIO laptops to XP but they seem to be model specific & I can't find one for my model.

The model is Sony VAIO VGN-NR21M

Thanks so much in advance for any assistance you can give.

Here's a screen grab of DM;

b341ba1a01.jpg
 
Perhaps worth asking on the NotebookReview.com forums, someone there might know where to get XP-compatible drivers. Just had a glance on the VAIO support site (as you may have already) and they've only got Vista drivers, so unless you can find device-specific ones you may be out of luck.
 
TheVoice said:
Perhaps worth asking on the NotebookReview.com forums, someone there might know where to get XP-compatible drivers. Just had a glance on the VAIO support site (as you may have already) and they've only got Vista drivers, so unless you can find device-specific ones you may be out of luck.
Click to expand...
Thanks. I'll check out that forum.

Yes I did look on the VAIO support site & saw that they had only Vista drivers. I guess that's why the guy on the phone said Vista only for this laptop.


optitech-uk said:
This may help.

http://rapidshare.com/files/89909560/Drivers_VAIO_VGN-FZ240E_Win_XP.rar

Rapidshare XP drivers :)
Click to expand...
Cheers. I'll give those a try.
 
Dogboy73 said:
Thanks. I'll check out that forum.

Yes I did look on the VAIO support site & saw that they had only Vista drivers. I guess that's why the guy on the phone said Vista only for this laptop.



Cheers. I'll give those a try.
Click to expand...

WAIT. I posted the wrong driver set. Try these.

Chipset
http://downloadcenter.intel.com/con...All&OSFullName=All Operating Systems&lang=eng

Intel Matrix Storage
http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Det...tID=40&DwnldID=17296&agr=Y&lang=eng&PrdMap=40

Audio Microsoft Unified Audio Architecture
ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp33501-34000/sp33867.exe

Realtek High-Definition Audio Driver
ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp37501-38000/sp37743.exe

Video
www.4shared.com/file/45701128/1f1e7472/winxp_14331.html

WIFI
http://downloadcenter.intel.com/T8C...D=15800&url=/15800/eng/11.5.1.2_X_DRIVERS.zip

Lan
http://www.marvell.com/drivers/driverDisplay.do?driverId=175


Modem
ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp36001-36500/sp36089.exe


Card Reader.
ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp33001-33500/sp33416.exe
 
Last edited:
Thanks for the links, opti. Some of them seemed to go on okay even though I'm not sure what all of them were doing or if they have actually worked. However the Audio & video drivers both failed. The video driver with the same message I got with the other drivers I tried (not validated for this computer) & the audio drivers just displayed a 'failed' error message.
 
In the end I gave up, nabbed a Vista disk from work & installed that. All the drivers from the VAIO support site worked & I think I'm back up & running okay now. Trying to get XP working on there was just to much of a pain in the arse to be honest. Didn't really want to go back down the Vista route but needs must as the devil drives.
 
One more problem with this that I've only just realised - The shortcut buttons (function key + numeric keys for volume, brightness, monitor output etc.) are not working. To my knowledge I've DL'd & installed all the relevent drivers for the laptop. Does anyone have any idea as to why these are not working &/or how to enable these functions?
 
Dogboy73 said:
One more problem with this that I've only just realised - The shortcut buttons (function key + numeric keys for volume, brightness, monitor output etc.) are not working. To my knowledge I've DL'd & installed all the relevent drivers for the laptop. Does anyone have any idea as to why these are not working &/or how to enable these functions?
Click to expand...

Those are very picky about drivers on Vaios. When I reinstalled mine, I had to install certain drivers and utilities in a specific order or the keys wouldn't work. What I did was downloaded a package containing all the drivers from the Vaio sites - these were in folders called 'Driver1', 'Driver2', etc., so I knew which order to install them in.
 
Mattus said:
Those are very picky about drivers on Vaios. When I reinstalled mine, I had to install certain drivers and utilities in a specific order or the keys wouldn't work. What I did was downloaded a package containing all the drivers from the Vaio sites - these were in folders called 'Driver1', 'Driver2', etc., so I knew which order to install them in.
Click to expand...
I've just phoned up Vaio support to see if they can offer any advice. They couldn't! Oher than something not to disimilar to what you said, Mattus. They suggested going through each of the drivers & re-installing them to see if it would work. Be the guy said he was doubtful because we had installed a new copy of Vista & suggested we could buy the recovery disks. What is it Sony Vaio do to the OS to make it seemingly unique to their systems?! It causes so many issues if you get problems down the line like I did.
 
I don't think the software for the function keys is OS-specific at all, because mine came with XP and I managed to get it going on a standard copy of Vista.

Do you have an archive called 'Drivers' and an archive called 'Utils'? I had to install both to get the keys to work.
 
I don't believe this!! :mad: It's gone up the wall again now! The VAIO laptop was working fine last night when I was using it. Today it's dead again. When I power on the standby/power on light comes on, the battery light comes on, there's a single flicker from the HD activity light, a whir from the disk .......... then nothing! Nothing appears on the screen at all! ARGGHHHH!!! What now?! Has the screen packed up?
 
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