Bluetooth suddenly stopped working on 3 month old VAIO

[lesadrets]

I bought a new VAIO (VPCEH) this summer with built in bluetooth and straightaway managed to 'pair' it with my bluetooth mouse. While I was working at the computer over the weekend, the mouse suddenly stopped moving the cursor. I rebooted the computer, went to Bluetoothy Devices and found the mouse was no longer listed there, tried to pair the mouse to VAIO again (unsuccessfully), tried switching on and off the bluetooth connection via VAIO smart network, and finally unistalled and reinstalled the driver. I tried to pair my iphone (for the first time) with the laptop, but it would not recognise this either - making it pretty clear there is a hardware problem.

I have Windows 7 and an Atheros AR3011 Bluetooth (R) Adapter.

I contacted Sony Customer Service to arrange for them to pick up the laptop under the 4-year guarantee and change the bluetooth adapter, but they will only do the repairs under guarantee this if I do a complete system recovery first (ie put the VAIO back to factory condition, losing everything loaded on the computer).

Does anyone else find it bizarre that Sony will not honour their guarantee commitments without first wiping your computer completely clean? Doesn't logic suggest that you would first change the bluetooth adapter to see if that solves the problem, then only do a complete system recovery if this does not solve the problem. Perhaps Sony should state in the blurb that the guarantee only takes effect once you have wiped out everything on your computer, then that would give every right-minded punter the opportunity in advance to buy a different brand if they find this condition unacceptable?

Does anyone have any ideas?

[Blencogo]

To be blunt - whatever we think will make no difference and you have to make the choice yourself.  However, I do have sympathy with you - it wasn't necessary when I had a DVD Drive replaced.

To be fair to Sony, they will probably say that statistically, a very high percentage of similar faults are fixed by a System Recovery as software conflict or corruption is a major cause.  It is probably the first thing they would do to diagnose the problem at the repair centre and, even to me, this seems more logical than replacing the hardware first 'just in case'.

I would make a mirror of the hard drive to an external HDD with something like Acronis True Image and reinstall the image after the hardware has been fixed - always useful to have a total backup of everything including programs, software, drivers and settings.

[lesadrets]

I am not familiar with Acronis True Image. How does it differ from the Backup and Restore feature in Windows, which I have set to backup my hard disk once a week? Does the Acronis program reinstall all programs not just files (eg does it reinstall Microsoft Office from scratch and not require the US of the program CD at all)?

I have certain programs that I bought and downloaded from the internet (eg All Music Converter and Speedfan - will these also get 'mirrored' and reinstalled via Acronis?

[Blencogo]

Acronis True Image makes an exact full image of your hard drive (or any individual partitons you choose).  From this mirror you can recover individual files or folders as you can with a normal backup, but alternatively you can reinstate the same or a different drive to the identical state when you took the image.  You can incrementally update this mirror whenever you like.

The big advantage is that the mirror includes all the software on your drive including settings, passwords, users, data, Microsoft and Vaio Updates - you should not be able to differentiate the mirror from the original.  You can recover the image using a bootable DVD or there are other options for recovery.

http://www.acronis.co.uk/homecomputing/products/trueimage/?source=uk_googleATI_b&ad=ati&c=1390737575...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Acronis-True-Image-Home-2012/dp/B005FYFVGO/ref=sr_1_2?s=software&ie=UTF8&qid...

[lesadrets]

Forgive me if I'm being a bit dumb, but I still have a question about what you mean by a 'mirror'.

When I first received the VAIO, it came preloaded with windows 7 and all the necessary drivers. I then had to use installation CDs to install Microsoft Office and Microsoft Money and certain other similar programs. I also downloaded certain 'free' programs such as itunes and tomtom and certain 'paid-for' programs such as All-Music Converter and Speedfan, as well as Windows Live Essentials. After that, I was able to use Windows Backup and Restore to transfer data (eg files and emails and favourites) from my previous computer to the new computer.

My question is this. With Acronis True Image, do I have to go through the same procedure or does the Acronis program also install all the stuff like Microsoft Office (without having to use the original installation CDs) and Windows Live Essentials (without having to download all over again)?

[Blencogo]

I'm sorry, I thought I had been clear.

Acronis will reinstall everything.