Spartan73

As a suggestion - to recover some money, and if your capable of doing so. Strip the machine down into as many parts as possible and sell them ( known working ) off on ebay as spares. They will sell eventually I'm sure. I did this for an old Sony laptop with a dead MB, but got a bit back for a good screen, keyboard, power supply etc... Sony parts sell quite hot on eay, as Sony themselves are very difficult about supplying parts ( and or make them very expensive) to justify normally economical repairs. Laptop parts are hard to find generally. Its better than throwing the machine away. Or if you cannot be bothered to strip it, sell the whole thing for spares and repairs ( expect to get less this way round ) Just an idea! ;)

Lol thats what I said its a very good bit of software ;)

Umm i was playing with ms office accounting last night. Great for small business people like me. I was looking for an invoicing software, and this seems to be perfect ( ish ) - and its also FREE Free from Microsoft? yeah i had to see it to believe it, but its true! Easy to use accounting software from Microsoft Its also advertised on a banner at the top of this page sometimes. :D

Nice one - looks like were getting something that might resemble a List! Surely there are more that people know of..... :rolleyes:

Keep them coming people! Maybe if we get enough contributions, I will write up A List - with a brief description of each, and maybe Wolfey can put it at the top of the page ( if thats possible ) ;)

I think free software is fantastic. There are obviusly many people ( and in many poor countries ) that can't afford hundreds of $'s for software - many students out there who need certain software, for merely submitting assignments etc. It curbs piracy to a degree, people wont need to hunt down pirate copies of expensive versions of these programs, for general everyday, and basic tasks. I dont need MS Office to type a letter! Some very talented programmers out there, who can apply their knowledge to creating basic versions of these programs for the less "proffessional" amongst us, as opposed to ripping them down and creating cracks and keygens etc. This will/should ALSO get them ( the programmers ) noticed of course, and could be headhunted for big jobs. A bit like putting out a white label out in the music industry. As well as being known as " the guy who made that brilliant bit of free software ! " We can also do our bit, buy donating ( even a tiny bit ) in way of gratitude to the humanitarian hours that have gone into these programs ( and this fantastic forum of course - that saves us ALL hundreds of £'s of otherwise chargeableTech Help ) , and dare i say it, give others incentive to follow suit and make great free software ! Wolfey made this a STICKY ICKY - so please share your freebies knowledge with us! Thanks to all. Spart :D

Thanks for that Wolfey - getting it now. ;)

If not make a small donation to this place for getting them for free ( well sort of ) :p

Yep! Precisely! Im also finding Inkscape a Breeze to use comapred to Adobe Illustrator ( £hundreds.) Its nice and simple - ( just like me :) ) :D

Hi guys - Most, probably already know this - But I didnt till last night, so doing my bit for this place, and the excellent freeware I have recently come across. A few weeks ago - I downloaded Inkscape - a design package, which is quite brilliant and best of all - FREE Inkscape. Draw Freely. And then yesterday stumbled across OpenOffice.org ( while downloading Java ) - An office program with Word processing ( that opens and creates MS office files ) Math - basically excell - a version of powerpoint and MORE! www: OpenOffice.org - The Free and Open Productivity Suite Great for students Id imagine! Any more free software going around? Spread the word!

I will mate :D

So you got the HP setup you were talking about a few months back huh? thats reassuring cos i got the same one for mum after reading your post! LOL Thanks for that mate, she really loves it! :D Im setting up my folks wireless broadband tomorrow, I better get the old dear some recovery discs made too! :rolleyes: Have a nice weekend Wolfey matey, and all :D Also forgot to mention maynardvdm in my many thanks for input above - cheers bud ;)

Mate I used the corner of a folded micro fibre cloth and wiped the lens gently, and also noticed a small grubby smudge on the disc ( even though I always handle discs v carefully and checked it before :rolleyes: ) and i gave that a good wipe ( from inside to out ) with the micro cloth. Phew!!! Thanks again fellas! Ps wolfey - she bought the back up discs from sony mate £30 i think she said ( as she didnt create back up discs from the hdd as recommended , actually she thought there WERE discs in the box till this happened, lucky she backed up her work regularly, so nothing major lost - Sony dont give out the recovery discs anymore i dont think! How TIGHT! ) A LESSON to me ( ALL? ) also - getting a new lappy next week, will be creating recovery discs before anything else!;)

I feel all happy and warm inside now! LOL you guys are the best Wolfey, Kelly, Seth and Dalo - a TRUE credit to this place - and the Human race ! Many thanks indeed guys - wish i could buy you all a beer, but I'll have to settle for making a small donation ( soon ! ) Cheers loads guys.

KELLY! you ARE the ONE! Heehee gave the disc and the laser a good wipe and its booting!! Way Hay Im well chuffed! It all seems to be going OK Thanks very much to EVERYONE who gave their time to this. I cant tell you how really grateful I ( and my friend ) am ! Thank you , Thank you, THANK YOU!!! Spart :D

:confused: Discs are new, and I will probably do more damage to them trying to clean them, but Ill dig out my micro fibre cloth and try that - I mean - what else is there to try? LOL I dont have ( or know anyone that has ) and external drive I could borrow :confused: Thanks LOADS for your help guys

Wofley mate: 1. The drive boots up a vista disc ok 2. The discs are MINT - never been used or taken out of the package before 3 days ago. 3. The disc boots in another machine! :eek::eek::eek:

Hi Guys , thanks for your replies, I was on the late and long shift at work yesterday, hence my late response. Maynard, it doesnt ask to press any keys, Dalo - yeah I tried both discs ( one at a time lol ) :) :confused:

My sentiments exactly! Really baffling! Hmmm SOmething just isn't right. :o

Well the cd drive seems to spin for a bit and its like it is looking for something, but after about 10 - 15 secs it says " Operating system not found " By the way the new drive is back in now - and the same thing is happening. When the old drive was in, the Bios would not see it OR THE OPTICAL drive ( in the advanced menu anyway ) In boot menu - it wouldnt open the sub menu for the drive revealing its numbers, as it does with new drive in. :confused:

Can't get the system to boot any which way :confused:

Yes Wolfey matey I saved the settings. :) Seth, The boot disk works a treat in an old compaq laptop I have here. Popped in the CD , restarted, and was prompted immediately that the Sony Recovery utility was starting. Just before i crapped myself that i was going to wipe all the data on the compaq and so speedily hit the eject button :) Re installed Old HDD in Vaio, and tried using the discs that way ( even tried pressing F10 on logo screen as I read somewhere this might help ) and still no OS found. ;)

Care to fill us in mate? ;)

Seth Yes I can Buddy as soon as i get back, have to pop out for an hour or 2, but I will get the boot disks upstairs to my desktop and try them there. I will also put the old HDD in and see what happens try to boot with the CDs ( I think my friend tried that ) - Let you know. Thanks LOADS! ;)

Also they say only to be used with Sony Personal Computers and will not function on any other computer. I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that it is possible to change the hard drive, and these discs do have verify 4 things, heres the quote The recovery process is locked to the specific model machine. This was done deliberately by Sony in order to keep the powers that be happy, and to also make it harder to use the disks on other machines. Now when you start the recovery process there are 4 pieces of information that the software looks for in the machines BIOS. There is the Model Name, the 8 digit model code, the 7 digit serial number and a country specific code. If any of these pieces of information are not within the necessary range then the recovery software will not work. In Europe the machines are divided into country regions. The UK is designated by GB, Germany is DE and so on. Each model has a specific 8 digit model code. This is not to be confused with the 7 digit chassis code on the machines. For example the VGN FS215Z(UK) model has a model code of 28198260 and a chassis number of PCG 7A1M. Notice that I put the (UK) after the model name, this is because the model code changes with the country code. The FS215Z (ES) has a model code of 28198266 but it shares the same chassis code of PCG 7A1M The machines have a specific serial number range. The FS215Z(UK) serial range is 5200001 to 5229999. The FS215Z(ES) serial range is 5260001 to 5269999. If these 4 bits of information are within range then the recovery software will run. If not then you get the good old Please check your model error message DOes this help? The discs are deffinately for the correct machine! ;)