Hi tpolis,
welcome to Questions & Answers..
Are you sure you formatted the recovery partition.?
Start your Vaio and when you see the Vaio logo press the F10 key repeatedly, hopefully this should start the recovery process using the hidden HDD recovery partition.
Then follow the recovery instructions to complete the process
If the F10 option does not work then you can contact Vaio support and purchase a set of recovery disc's for your vaio..
Even though your vaio is out of warranty you can, if you wish, purchase a set of recovery discs from Vaio support which should allow you to restore the original Vaio supplied OS and applications..
You can find the contact details for vaio support via the following link: Contact Support then selecting Vaio & computing..