Copying Sony recovery partition to new harddisk
For those whose harddisk (HDD) are dying or simply looking to upgrade to a bigger, faster drive, here's how to backup your hidden Sony recovery partition to the new drive.
Firstly, plug both disks to a computer. For me, I plugged both disks to my desktop (with my original desktop HDD unplugged to avoid accidentally messing with it).
Next, get a Linux live CD. There are a few variations available, most commonly Knoppix and Ubuntu. I'd go with Ubuntu for this example. Boot the live CD run the software Disk Utility in Ubuntu to check that both HDD are detected. Make note of the drive letters for each. For my case, as the original is the master drive, it is detected as sda and the new one is detected as sdb. Create a partition in the new HDD about the same size as the hidden partition (around 10GB).
Fire up the Linux terminal and copy the hidden partition over. (Note that your partition number may vary. Use Disk Utility to check for the correct partition numbers.)
Shutdown and plug the new drive with the hidden partition copied into your laptop. If you're lucky, pressing the F10/11/12 during bootup should get you into the Sony recovery console and you can start the restore process. If you're like me, chances are the bootsector on the new hdd is messed up and the F10 key won't work.
The following steps to recover the Vista bootloader is taken from NeoSmart's EasyBCD guide. Grab a Vista disk (recovery disks will work too) and boot from it. Select the Command Prompt option and set the recovery partition as active using the following commands:
Then get it to fix your bootsector like this:
Exit the command prompt and reboot. The F10 key should work in getting you into the Sony recovery console now. =)
Firstly, plug both disks to a computer. For me, I plugged both disks to my desktop (with my original desktop HDD unplugged to avoid accidentally messing with it).
Next, get a Linux live CD. There are a few variations available, most commonly Knoppix and Ubuntu. I'd go with Ubuntu for this example. Boot the live CD run the software Disk Utility in Ubuntu to check that both HDD are detected. Make note of the drive letters for each. For my case, as the original is the master drive, it is detected as sda and the new one is detected as sdb. Create a partition in the new HDD about the same size as the hidden partition (around 10GB).
Fire up the Linux terminal and copy the hidden partition over. (Note that your partition number may vary. Use Disk Utility to check for the correct partition numbers.)
sudo dd if=/dev/sda5 of=/dev/sdb5
Shutdown and plug the new drive with the hidden partition copied into your laptop. If you're lucky, pressing the F10/11/12 during bootup should get you into the Sony recovery console and you can start the restore process. If you're like me, chances are the bootsector on the new hdd is messed up and the F10 key won't work.
The following steps to recover the Vista bootloader is taken from NeoSmart's EasyBCD guide. Grab a Vista disk (recovery disks will work too) and boot from it. Select the Command Prompt option and set the recovery partition as active using the following commands:
X:> diskpartWhere XX and YY are the number of your harddisk and partition respectively (usually numbers 0 and 1).
DISKPART> list disk
DISKPART> select disk XX
DISKPART> list partition
DISKPART> select partition YY
DISKPART> active
DISKPART> exit
Then get it to fix your bootsector like this:
X:> bootrec.exe /fixmbr
X:> bootrec.exe /fixboot
X:> bootrec.exe /rebuildbcd
Exit the command prompt and reboot. The F10 key should work in getting you into the Sony recovery console now. =)
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