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In a real mess - sony ultrabook SVD1321M2EW

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ladypatricia

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I am in a real bind with my ultrabook purchased in February of 2014.

 

Problem:   Windows 8.1 - on the metro screen most of my live tiles stopped responding - flashed to full screen for a split second and then reverted to either metro tile screen or sometimes desktop screen.   Tiles working are - Windows Store and one other software app.

 

When I press the down arrow to show all apps - most of the apps show 'error' on further clicking it says these must be repaired via the windows store.   This shows (on most) as having been repaired/installed, but they still do not work.

 

During my many attempts to solve this problem via web page suggestions I now find that 'change computer settings' on the charms bar does not work either.

 

I have full Panda security software suite running and showing no errors, I regularly use Malaware and C Cleaner.

 

I have progressively removed anything downloaded in the last month - I am not a big downloader anyway, did not help, have run Disk Cleanup, defragged and run a series of other 'fixes' to no avail so decided to try system restore, non of which worked getting error message saying could not restore, try another restore point, none worked.

 

So, decided to completely restore to factory settings using the 'assist' function.   This falls at the first hurdle - insert backup/restore disks - I do not have any as I have no optical drive!.    So, try another route an get ' The drive where windows is installed is locked.   Unlock the drive and try again'

 

Only help I found on this went into pages of 'bios' and other workings none of which I can, or would not attempt.    I consider myself fairly competent on a computer and can follow most step by step instructions (not at the depth required for this) but have now completely come to a 'fatal' end as far as my ultrabook is concerned.

 

Is this a 'fault' that could or should be repaired under warranty?

 

Or any other help would be grateful appreciated.

 

Sony helps only suggestion is to purchase repair/restore disks from them at £50 - no help as I do not have an optical drive!

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This is not really the right forum, sadly.

At a guess I'd say some combination of Windows Update and your various anti-spam anti-malware anti-virus.

The really "good" malware will never be stopped by any of these products. So I would recommend not using any of them, but simply practise "safe computing".

I think maybe you have to hit f8 (function key 8) as the machine boots and see if there's a restore option.

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This is a solution that has worked for me, however, no guarantees are made, and no one is responsible for any damage if you try to follow.it, okay? All prior data will be lost by doing this.

 

If you can take the hard drive out of the laptop, move it to another system with an optical drive, blank it, and try to install Windows 8 on it.

 

REMAIN IN FRONT OF THAT COMPUTER WHILE WINDOWS INSTALLS AT ALL TIME. THE INSTALL WILL REBOOT AT SOME POINT AFTER COPYING FILES. THIS IS IMPORTANT.

 

Once the computer with the optical drive goes dark, TURN IT OFF. DON'T LET THE WINDOWS BOOT ANIMATION APPEAR. Remove all power, and move the hard drive back to your ultrabook. Turn it on, and let setup continue. It should work without an optical drive, since the install program is being run from the hard disk. This will make Windows "wake up" on your laptop, and it will assume it was originally installed from there.

 

Again, not responsible for any damages. Good luck.

 

PS: See if your computer works with Windows 7, and get it. 8 blows hard, as you have just witnessed.

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I'm worried about the drastic nature of Syrius' solution.

Surely you can easily get your hands on a USB DVD/CD drive? The ultrabook should have enough smarts to boot from that drive somehow. Once again it may be a matter of hitting F8 or F2 or <Del> or some key to tell it to boot into the attached drive. But there should be support for that, certainly laptops have had that for a while.

If you don't understand anything in what I just wrote, please feel free to ask. Or maybe you're already sorted.....

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SFBP, I've seen myself in the need to use such a solution because some computers (even with an optical drive) are BIOS-locked to boot from an MBR on a hard drive alone. They won't try to boot from an optical drive even if it's visible to the BIOS.  I had to do it with a VAIO and an ASUS, and worked. Yes, it's extreme, but so is LadyPatricia's situation.

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Fair enough.... wow and double-wow. Locking is fine until something goes wrong. Then it's back to first principles.

There should be a Windows boot option (on such machines) saying "Restore" which will reinstall Windows from a hidden partition. But if the MBR doesn't work, all bets are off, of course.

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