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Article ID : 00070113 / Last Modified : 07/12/2018Print

How to recover your VAIO with VAIO Recovery Center

    This article enables you to restore the system partition of a VAIO to factory state. It is applicable to VAIO computers preinstalled with Windows Vista, unless the recovery partition has been removed.

    Note: Additional information on the recovery system can be found in the Troubleshooting and Recovery Guide delivered with your VAIO computer. This guide is also available on this website for each model.

    Important Notice:
    • All data on the C: drive will be deleted in this process.  Please follow this solution only if your personal data is backed up or redundant.
    Proceed as follows to recover your VAIO computer to factory state:
    1. You can access VAIO Recovery Center in two ways:
      1. Within Windows:
        1. Close all open programs. 
        2. Click the Start button and then click All Programs. 
        3. In the All Programs menu, click VAIO Recovery Center.
      2. If Windows does not start:
        1. Start or Restart your VAIO.
        2. Press the F10 key several times while the VAIO logo is displayed (see figure 1).


          Figure 1 - VAIO logo displayed while booting

        3. Press the Enter key when the Edit Boot Options screen appears (see figure 2).

          Figure 2 - Edit Boot Options screen

    2. Wait until the VAIO Recovery Centre is loaded.
    3. Choose Restore C: Drive and click Start (see figure 3)


      Figure 3 - Restore C: Drive

    4. VAIO Recovery Center will offer options such as using VAIO Hardware Diagnostics for your consideration. If you want to proceed to the recovery process, please click Next.
    5. Tick the checkbox next to "I Understand". 
      Click Start and confirm with Yes when prompted (see figure 4).


      Figure 4 - Recovery start

    6. The recovery process will continue automatically up to the Welcome to Windows screen. Depending on the model, this process may take extended time to complete, but requires no user interaction until completion.