Vista System Recovery won't finish install

I have a used Sony Vaoi VGC-LS30E purchased from a third party. When I
started it up, it looked like it was going into some sort of PC recovery mode
(I'm not familiar with Vista at ALL, so half the stuff it was doing, I don't
recognize).

It went through a very lengthy process of installing all sort of bloatware,
and I went to bed. When I got up this morning, there was an error message
that Windows had recovered from an error, and please restart the computer.
So I did.

Now I get the following message: "Windows could not complete the
installation. To install Windows on this computer, restart the
installation." There is only one thing to do - -click OK.

Oh, by the way, the installation software is located ON the computer.

I can't get it to do anything else (have tried Safe Mode with and without
command prompt).

I feel held hostage.

Any thoughts?

JMFlint

Since Sony provides the recovery methodology (not Microsoft/Vista) I would
suggest you contact Sony or visit their web support area to see if you can
fathom what has occurred.

http://esupport.sony.com/perl/select...6,66,9,70,5,72

Unless someone here has a newer Sony, and has experienced the same problem,
you are not likely to obtain a great deal of assistance here.

--

Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)



"JMFlint" <JMFlint@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:1BFE4991-BFE4-46DB-BF83-083497807CC3@microsoft.com...
>I have a used Sony Vaoi VGC-LS30E purchased from a third party. When I
> started it up, it looked like it was going into some sort of PC recovery
> mode
> (I'm not familiar with Vista at ALL, so half the stuff it was doing, I
> don't
> recognize).
>
> It went through a very lengthy process of installing all sort of
> bloatware,
> and I went to bed. When I got up this morning, there was an error message
> that Windows had recovered from an error, and please restart the computer.
> So I did.
>
> Now I get the following message: "Windows could not complete the
> installation. To install Windows on this computer, restart the
> installation." There is only one thing to do - -click OK.
>
> Oh, by the way, the installation software is located ON the computer.
>
> I can't get it to do anything else (have tried Safe Mode with and without
> command prompt).
>
> I feel held hostage.
>
> Any thoughts?
>
> JMFlint