Major Hardware/Driver problems after Windows XP install on VAIO

[jabe13]

Ok, so this is the single biggest problem I've ever had with my
computer. I've spent countless hours talking to people and trying to fix it
on my own without success. Hopefully someone out there can help in some
way.

Here's the scoop.

I have a Sony VAIO desktop. PCV-RX860 or something. I did a complete
reinstall of Windows XP pro last week, partitioning the C drive and
leaving my other internal hard disk untouched. (the install was not from
Sony's system restore CD, it was a stand alone Windows XP disk). At
first glance everything seemed ok. Then i noticed the issues:

1) I have no sound. I immediately downloaded the driver for the
Yamaha audio device that Sony's website provides. After running the .exe to
install the driver my computer restarted and the device became present
in the device manager. However, still no sound. If I go to
Start>...Accessories>Entertainment and click on the little volume/audio tab I get an error message; it tells me that "there are no active mixer devices"
and that I should go to Add printer/hardware....which leads me to the
next dead end. The computer can't detect anything when I try to add new
hardware. In my device manager there are several yellow question marks
with tiny exclamation points. I'm assuming that one of these "unknown
devices" is my sound card (which may or may not be onboard). I've
paged through numerous forums looking for solutions to this problem...this
one (http://www.pcbanter.net/showthread.php?t=732035 near the bottom) seems to solve the problem by identifying an .inf file in the Windows system32 folder and physically altering the lines of code. Unfortunately for me i doesn't seem to exist on my computer.

2) Some of my USB ports aren't working.
3) My computer no longer recognizes that it is a Sony. I can't use the Sony Recovery disks that I now have, it tells me that the utility is not for this computer...also I can't update my DVD-R/W drive with firmware because of the same issue.

I've tried a bunch of stuff to fix this problem....any suggestions to get this discussion going would be much appreciated. I need a GURU!!!!!!

[PrairieDawg]

Just a guess but I'm thinking that you are prolly going to have to find out what motherboard that thing uses and install the correct motherboard drivers (chipset drivers etc.) and go from there. I'm not certain but I think your original install (recovery) disk may work if you reformat the hard drive and remove any partitions that you have added. You refer to two hard drives .... are these physically separate hard drives or partitions?

[jabe13]

I tried reinstalling the chipset driver off of Sony's website too.... I just tried it again for arugment's sake but nothing is fixed...

...yes there are two physically separate hard drives a D and a C.

i have my recovery disks...but when i try to use them it starts normally, asking me if i'd like to reformat/partition...then at about 1% it tweaks out and bails on me. can i reformat (basically erase everything) the C drive with my other stand alone Windows XP disk, then somehow switch over to the system recovery disk?

[Darthtanion]

If you have recovery disks you should be able to boot to the CD-ROM drive and do a fresh install from there.

[jabe13]

when i do, everything proceeds as normal until i push the last 'ok', then at about 1% the thing crashes on me. not only does the install fail, but i'm forced to do another complete windows install from the other stand alone disk, not the recovery disk.

[Darthtanion]

If you're sure that the hardware is in good working order and the configuration is set up properly then you may have a bad recovery disk. In this case you would have two options...

1- Contact the folks at Sony and get a new recovery disk;
2- Install Windows from your normal installation disks and locate all necessary drivers on the Web.

I have used the second option several times when I have to reload Windows on Dell laptop machines at work. They are older systems and the recovery disks have long since been lost so they are reinstalled with licenses we have for Win98.

[jabe13]

do you think this would work....if i started the first half of the windows install (the part where I erase the C drive) with the stand alone windows disk. then, switch over to the recovery disk once the drive had a new partition but no windows stuff had been added yet.

???????

[wayout44]

Some recovery disks still require an os be loaded before they work so read the readme.