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VGN-FW51JF_H hard-drive failure - options?

Topic started on Jun 9, 2012 12:51 PM , last reply on Jun 9, 2012 9:01 PM

Steve2381

2 posts since
Jun 9, 2012

Hi all

My Vaio 500gb 5400 rpm drive had starting giving me 'no operating system' errors, and a smart disk check tagged drive failure=true and drivedirty-true.

Therefore I am going to change it. Out of warranty, so I was thinking of fitting a:

Seagate Momentus XT 750GB Hybrid SATA-II 2.5" 7200RPM 32MB hard drive

Any potential issues? Bios should be able to configure the slightly larger drive - hopefully.

I have read that people were having issues with either a faster drive, or more importantly... that the Sony recovery discs won't work because the drive is a different size.

Any advice greatly received.

Steve

Blencogo
10,957 posts since
Dec 22, 2004

Written on Jun 9, 2012 1:33 PM

Hi Steve and welcome.

I have not tried one of these hybrid drives but I see no reason why it will not be OK.

The problems you mention with the Recovery Discs refer to Advanced Format drives where the Older Operating Systems (pre Vista SP1) do not recognise the larger sector sizes used in the formatting. This has stopped the use of the Recovery Discs to load the original OS.

As far as I can see, the conventional disc in this model does not use AF but as you have Windows 7 you should be fine.

Make several sets of Recovery Discs - just in case!
Steve2381
2 posts since
Jun 9, 2012

Written on Jun 9, 2012 5:47 PM

Thanks for the reply,

The old drive hasn't failed yet - still only an occasional error popping up, but the laptop has been running 16 hours a day for 2 years. So I will change it just in case.

Only one way to find out!

Thanks
Steve
bluvaio
2 posts since
Jun 9, 2012

Written on Jun 9, 2012 9:01 PM

Dear Sir,

Almost two years ago I encountered with the same problem while I was trying to use my lovely VGN-AR190G. I replaced its HDDs with a brand new 60GB Corsair SSD and after reinstalling the machine's operating system my Vaio backed to its original condition. By the way... recovery discs automatically recognized the disk size. And don't forget to update BIOS. Regards, bluvaio

Message was edited by: bluvaio