Sony VAIO laptop won't boot from CD

[Miranova23]

Sony VAIO VGN-NR330E, Model PCG-7113L

So far as I can tell, the BIOS says that the 1st boot device is Internal Optical Drive, 2nd Internal Hard Disk Drive. No drives are "Excluded from Boot." I'm having problems getting the OS to boot on the HDD, so I've got my Win 7 Installation Disc in the DVD drive to try to do a re-image. But it won't boot from the CD!

[Urgh this is driving me crazy!]

What else could I do/check on this in order to get it to boot from the CD?

 

[theog]

Will any bootable CD/DVD boot?

 

[Miranova23]

I've tried my Windows 7 32-bit disc, and my Windows 7 SP1 32-bit disc. Only other bootable disc I think I have is a f-disc virus scanner thing. (I just took the HDD out from my rig's hotswap bay where it was scanned repeatedly. Ultimately my startup problem might be about Win7 needing the drivers for the HDD installed, but can't get anywhere with not even a cd to boot from.)

I've found posts online about people with similar problems, but they were able to just boot from a different device. The only other option I might have is a USB key, maybe, but I need to get to the re-image utility. =/

 

[seavixen32]

Tutorial here if you need it: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/2432-usb-windows-7-installation-key-drive-create.html

 

[Miranova23]

Thanks, got it booting from the usb! I'll post back in a bit. We'll see how this goes... =/

Still would love to know why so many VAIOs refuse to boot from their opticals...

 

[Miranova23]

Glory be, finally! I don't know exactly why or what it's problem was (maybe multiple things) that it wouldn't take the re-image when I was working on this hdd inside my rig, but it finally has! I took it out of the laptop & had it in the rig because it wouldn't boot from either Win 7 disc. I just redid the entire OS and put it back, but same problems started. Inaccessible disk, long, complicated, confusing...

Booting from the USB, it finally let me try to reimage from in the laptop itself, which finally worked. THANKS!

 

[Tim91]

Sony Vaio's should have a hidden recovery partition turn on and press F10.

What is model is it?

 

[seavixen32]

Glory be, finally! I don't know exactly why or what it's problem was (maybe multiple things) that it wouldn't take the re-image when I was working on this hdd inside my rig, but it finally has! I took it out of the laptop & had it in the rig because it wouldn't boot from either Win 7 disc. I just redid the entire OS and put it back, but same problems started. Inaccessible disk, long, complicated, confusing...

Booting from the USB, it finally let me try to reimage from in the laptop itself, which finally worked. THANKS!

You're very welcome.

It's always nice when a suggested solution does the trick.