Sony vaio all gone wrong

[matthab]

Hi

yesterday me and my mate were fixing his pc and decided to use the onboard recovery program that sony provide to return the laptop to factory state.

During doing this it said "Failed to read the image file becuase a stream reading error occured. recover your your pc again". so we did this 4 times each time it said the same and was stuck at 13%. So being 11:00pm at night we decided to call it a night and come back to it the next day. WELL this where the fun begins, we started it up and found it says "Error loading operating system". SO we rang sony and we described are problem that basicly the included recovery consol has ****ed it up.

My mate spent an hour on the phone to ask if we could have some xp discs sent out so my mate can get on with course work (he backed it up but has now no pc to run it). Sony say they will send us the dics for £53 . And considering all my laptops came with discs to reinstall windows. I dont see why we have to pay for a disc when a recovery partition hasnt done the job that it was meant to do.

Basicly where do we stand, have they got a right to charge us? (they did offer to send it away but its a job we can do in a day and not 10)

Also i have 2 xp home discs we can use but im not sure if were allowed by warrenty and by microsofts rules. Can we use another copy of xp home to install on the sony laptop using the laptops cd key without voiding the warenty?

Thanks for any help, Matt

 

[chrisds]

Yes, they do have the right to charge you! they are not obliged to send you the disk!

I would imagen that it would be ok to install XP home on the PC, as you do have a valid CD-Key on the laptop I donot se a problem with doing that, as you have paid for the serial.

as for the warenty, I belive that the warenty only apllies to hardware, and since the laptop is running XP Home anyway, you are effectivly doing nothing more than using the revovery console.

The only thing is, I would possible refraing from deleting the "Recover Drive" partition during windows setup as this MAY void the warenty (but I am unsure)

Chris

 

[vas]

As chrisds said before they are not obliged but you are not responsible either! He is also right about the warranty applying only to hardware.

Go ahead...in cases like that you have every "moral right" to do whatever you like...even use pirated software!

Sorry pal but piracy sometimes can be "good"!. Everything has a positive and negative side depending on the circumstances.

So go ahead and help your mate get on with his coursework!

 

[matthab]

Update.

We got my dad on the phone (were 16) and the guy is sending them when we send them a pics of cd keys etc!!!

 

[KSoD]

Plain and simple when you order a PC from a Vendor you have a right to physical media. They can charge you ONLY for the license of the software. Since you have already purchased this thru Sony all you should have to do is give them the order # and they have to send you the CD.

They can not double charge you!! Sorry ChrisDS but after 4 years of Business Law there is a limit to what they can do.

As stated in their ordering offers they say that you get Windows XP *(whatever edition you get). That means you have the right to the physical media and do with it whatever you please. It is your right since you have purchased the License to that copy of XP. If they dont send you a CD and say that the Recovery Console is what you got you can fight them.

Also to download/use another XP Disc is completely LEGAL as long as you use the Serial/License that you purchased. If you do not that is Piracy. If anyone says otheriwse they are wrong. But to use your serial with any copy of XP is completely legal. You have purchased that serial. It doesnt matter what disc you use since each disc of XP home is the same.

So you can get the media. You shouldnt have to send pics just give them the order # of the original purchase. If it is still under warrenty they are liable to fix the PC since it is their Recovery Console that caused the problem in the first place.

 

[matthab]

yeh i thought it was abit tight as it wasnt are fault the recovery partition failed on us. leaving my mate with no pc to do his course work on.

I think sony handled the situation really badly. And working for a computer company my self i knew they could send us the discs free. But to charge us is just so stupid i couldnt beleave it!

But thanks for the help guys, i think ill write a nice little complaint email when the discs arrive so other people dont have the same problem!