can I reformat sony vgc-rb30 and install standard XP ?

[whiskeykid]

I am trying to either help a friend who lost her password to either reinstall her xp operating system with the sony corp recovery disks or "Better yet" I would prefer to buy it from her and put an old copy of XP of my own on it.
After I recieved her recovery disks and installed it"s proprietairy operating system I checked it out and it seems like a good way to get into a cheep pci express gaming comp with it's unused PCI slot .I tryed to install my own operating system and got an error when I formatted it after the first reboot when the splash screen says installing windows it then shuts down and gives an error that I suspect is a lack of serial drivers that may have been on the recovery disks .I forget what but [ missing files] was part of the error code. I had tryed sony tec-support and was told if I had the recovery disks I should be able to install my own operating system . I am thinking of giving it back but thought I would give hard forum a shot.
The intel mainboard is Model D915GRO and I have been stumped to find drivers and such for it . I know I could build better but not for $50 like this one and I just wanted to " ease" into these newfangled pci graphics . The only worry so far is the little 305 watt power supply in the case but I plan to replace it before I spring for any graphics cards or other harware in case it is a proprietairy power supply
Any ideas or advice for this lost soul?

 

[DeaconFrost]

I'm not entirely sure what's going on there, or what Sony's proprietary OS is. To simplify though, If you want to install XP, you're going to need the media somehow. Assuming you can get that, or have that, you then need to check driver availability for all of it's hardware. Assuming they are available, you're good to go.

 

[whiskeykid]

I have two recovery disks that were bought with the comp . They install XP plus norton 30 trial plus an adware software as well as a 3rd party dvd player and much more .I am not sure if it would all play well with my usual clean install software . My jetaudio player freezes a lot so I haven't got into the debugging it stage, and if it were for me I would want standard xp rather than having 10 different softwares all accessing the net that I am unfamiliar with like quicken and sony auto-update and so on. I recently tryed my xp disk and reinstalled on my old MSI -1800amd system, it went flawlessly . If I can't set up with my own operating system then I will give it back with a clean install of her sony recovery disks. I hate the 2 disk system cause they are switched back and forth a half dozen times for me to get a "clean " install taking twice as long as any ordinairy XP install and needing to be babysat all the while so I can switch disks every five minutes . I suppose I could try a different dvd player and see if it a read problem but I am grasping at straws . So I was just hoping some wizard had already been thru the kind of prob like this . I've already tryed the chipset ident software for intel and it identified it but there may be some manufacturer changes in the compleated mainboard just for sony . so intell didn't want to link me to drivers and such , sony just wants me to use their disks and be happy . Sandra software said possibly this mainboard would support a dual proc. but I have yet to find a second source that agrees. I won't spend much more time on this as it can go back to it old home and she would be happy enough , I just thought I might get into the new PCI express and maybe dual core proc world like everyone else I know. Thanks for reading my question and all . whiskey.

 

[DeaconFrost]

I still may be missing something, but here goes. You can use your plain XP CD to install XP on the Sony, assuming it's an OEM CD disc. If so, the key on the Sony would work fine.

If that's not going to work, you can load XP using the Sony discs, and simply remove the software you don't want. Usually this can be done manually, and also with the help of PC-Decrapifier, which is freeware.

If you aren't sure about the hardware included inside, just take the case side off and have a look. It usually will only take a few minutes of either online searching, or just looking inside of the case, and you'll know what hardware you have.