SVP1321S1EBI recovery

[gbromov]

I've bought sony vaio pro 13 ( SVP1321S1EBI ) few days ago, installed all updates from vaio update, all windows updates and upgraded to windows 8.1 after. After the upgrade I got unrecognized device in device manager which was driving me insane so I decided to revert to 8.

Starting the recovery from assist menu (shutdown and powering it on using assist button that is) failed with "a required partition is missing". No idea what that partition might be, the computer came with like 6 assigned partitions, which are eating almost 20% of the hard drive. One of those clearly named "RECOVERY" and ~16G in size.

Tried restore function from within windows, which failed with "Insert media: some files are missing the media will provide them" or something very similar to this.

Since restore was obviously broken, I've written down the wndows product key and cd key using some third party tool and started a fresh installation with "untouched" windows 8 iso image. To make it even better I got rid of the recovery partition - the hard disk is small enough as it is to waste it on non-functioning recovery. The installation went well, installing drivers after was a nightmare but finally got it to work. Windows wont activate though. Product key is invalid it keeps saying.

So basically I have no cd key (well not officially, got something out of the running system but not sure whether it's actually correct), no recovery disk and no recovery partition on a 4 days old laptop. What should I do to fix that?

Thanks.

[Nobody-in-particular · Accepted solution]

Hi gbromov, as you do not have a legit windows key probably the cheapest solution would be to purchase some recovery disks from the Vaio support team using the Vaio support contact number or email link

[gbromov]

Thank you for your answer.

My saga continues.. I got in touch with sony support after some trying and they asked for some insane amout ( like $50 or something ) to send me recovery disks. Somehow they decided to "make an exception" though and sent those for free. 12 (!!!) DVDs. What the hell is on those is beyond me.

Finally found an external dvd ( forget about making bootable usb drives out of those, it wont happen) and started the recovery only to see a screen asking me - Do you want to keep your existing partitioning ( single 120gb ) or factory default ( 15Gb recovery + rest for you). 

Of course I have absolutely no desire of losing almost 15% of my hard drive, but it seems the question is quite rhetorical. Even though it asks, the only option I can choose is - go ahead and take those 15Gb, I have plenty of space anyways.

So, really, is there a chance to actually install without losing 15GB, or I should just pirate away (and never buy sony again)?

Thanks.