Hello, (If you don't have time to read all this, skip to the bottom)
I've been having many issues trying to upgrade my mom's Sony VAIO VGN NS240E Laptop to a 64 GB King spec SATA III SSD
First off, when I tried to load the Windows 7 DVD to do a fresh install, it gave me an error saying "windows 7 cannot be installed to this disk. this computer's hardware may not support booting"
So I took it out, hooked it to my gaming desktop (I have a SATA to USB Adapter) and formatted it, as well as tested it. It's perfectly healthy. I loaded the setup back up and I was able to proceed.
It got through the first part of the install w/ no problems (Expanding files, etc.) but when it restarted, I received a "Disk Read Error, press CTRL ALT DEL To restart" Message. I did that a couple of times, and then it got past and started booting. Or so I thought.
Instead, all I got was "Starting Windows" without the four little colored balls animating. It just said "Starting Windows." It stayed that way for about a minute, then a blank screen. After that, it rebooted and BOOM! Disk read Error. One time, it actually DID get to the "Completing installation" phase, and the screen resolution changed and everything, until I was met with a "windows could not configure one or more components..."
As a last resort, I took a known working 250 GB HDD, put it in the laptop, installed W7 with the DVD, and everything went smooth as butter, w/ no problems at all! It booted up perfectly. I took the 250 GB Drive with the fresh copy of W/7 installed, and hooked it to my gaming pc, with the SSD on the external adapter, wiped the SSD, then cloned the fresh copy of Windows 7 from the HDD to the SSD. I tried booting it up on the laptop.
You'd think that work right? NOPE. Same issue...Disk read error, and sometimes a black Starting windows w/out the 4 magic balls. So now I'm thinking, it MUST be the SSD.
So I took the SSD out, and installed it on my 2010 Toshiba Netbook that I rarely use (didn't have an HDD) and it boots up perfectly...The copy of W7 works perfectly on just about any computer in my house BUT that Sony laptop. What the heck? At this point, I am completely stumped, as to why my mom's 2009 Sony VAIO refuses to boot off an SSD. My old 2005 Desktop can boot off of it, why not that laptop?
Here's a few more interesting things I noticed:
1. The SSD is good, it's healthy w/ no problems, will boot in any other computer with no issues. I ruled out bad SSD, bad copy of DVD, etc.
2. The Sony laptop boots perfectly with a normal HDD, just not that SSD
3. There's no AHCI or IDE option in the laptop's BIOS
4. The drive shows up as "64 GB" on the main BIOS page, nothing more. It recognizes it but what can I make of that?
5. The latest BIOS update for that laptop (from 2009) apparently says it adds "Hardware virtualization" not SSD support. Should I still update the BIOS anyways?
TL; DR
Cannot get Windows 7 to boot off SSD installed on mom's 2009 Sony VAIO laptop, getting Disk read errors and Blank Starting windows screens that restart themselves without the 4 colored balls, even though the SSD is good and other computers can boot off of it.
I've been having many issues trying to upgrade my mom's Sony VAIO VGN NS240E Laptop to a 64 GB King spec SATA III SSD
First off, when I tried to load the Windows 7 DVD to do a fresh install, it gave me an error saying "windows 7 cannot be installed to this disk. this computer's hardware may not support booting"
So I took it out, hooked it to my gaming desktop (I have a SATA to USB Adapter) and formatted it, as well as tested it. It's perfectly healthy. I loaded the setup back up and I was able to proceed.
It got through the first part of the install w/ no problems (Expanding files, etc.) but when it restarted, I received a "Disk Read Error, press CTRL ALT DEL To restart" Message. I did that a couple of times, and then it got past and started booting. Or so I thought.
Instead, all I got was "Starting Windows" without the four little colored balls animating. It just said "Starting Windows." It stayed that way for about a minute, then a blank screen. After that, it rebooted and BOOM! Disk read Error. One time, it actually DID get to the "Completing installation" phase, and the screen resolution changed and everything, until I was met with a "windows could not configure one or more components..."
As a last resort, I took a known working 250 GB HDD, put it in the laptop, installed W7 with the DVD, and everything went smooth as butter, w/ no problems at all! It booted up perfectly. I took the 250 GB Drive with the fresh copy of W/7 installed, and hooked it to my gaming pc, with the SSD on the external adapter, wiped the SSD, then cloned the fresh copy of Windows 7 from the HDD to the SSD. I tried booting it up on the laptop.
You'd think that work right? NOPE. Same issue...Disk read error, and sometimes a black Starting windows w/out the 4 magic balls. So now I'm thinking, it MUST be the SSD.
So I took the SSD out, and installed it on my 2010 Toshiba Netbook that I rarely use (didn't have an HDD) and it boots up perfectly...The copy of W7 works perfectly on just about any computer in my house BUT that Sony laptop. What the heck? At this point, I am completely stumped, as to why my mom's 2009 Sony VAIO refuses to boot off an SSD. My old 2005 Desktop can boot off of it, why not that laptop?
Here's a few more interesting things I noticed:
1. The SSD is good, it's healthy w/ no problems, will boot in any other computer with no issues. I ruled out bad SSD, bad copy of DVD, etc.
2. The Sony laptop boots perfectly with a normal HDD, just not that SSD
3. There's no AHCI or IDE option in the laptop's BIOS
4. The drive shows up as "64 GB" on the main BIOS page, nothing more. It recognizes it but what can I make of that?
5. The latest BIOS update for that laptop (from 2009) apparently says it adds "Hardware virtualization" not SSD support. Should I still update the BIOS anyways?
TL; DR
Cannot get Windows 7 to boot off SSD installed on mom's 2009 Sony VAIO laptop, getting Disk read errors and Blank Starting windows screens that restart themselves without the 4 colored balls, even though the SSD is good and other computers can boot off of it.
Thank you so much!!
