Sony Says Make Restore Discs Yourself

[lyyd]

Heh, Aintry, are you saying your PC's HDD failed the second you took it out of the box? My guess is that you ignored the prompts to make the disc(s) and then complained about not having them when your HDD did fail at a later date. The fault there is yours alone, so leave the attitude and name calling at home.

Also, perhaps instead of sending hate mail to the manufacturer, you'd not have a "useless" pc, and would instead have a fully functional machine.

While it may seem a cheap (read irritating) practice, when you take into account that most PC's make little to nothing in the way of margin, if not being sold at an out right loss, it doesn't seem so unreasonable to me.

P.S. sorry for the poor grammar. Not enough coffee yet >

 

[xophaser]

I got Lenovo thinkpad from their website. I reformatted my hard-drive and they sent me 3 different recovery disc/ driver. They sent me a new hard-drive too. They fixed my speakers. I said window Vista Professional 64, all well, I now got 3 different versions of Vista. I only buy online, since I like my laptop to have a good graphic card, and better chipset. People don't seem to understand how slow store models are. It freezes all the time and even have more adwares and cheap parts.

I like Thinkpad services. I don't know why the speakers went out, but they fixed it and gave me new disc. Well my Vaio was kind of slow, but small and I gave that to my sister, after I made a recovery disc for her.

If you got a clean copy of vista, use that then use the MS number at the bottom of the laptop to register on some models.

 

[xophaser]

Agree this is old news, and add HP, EMachine, etc to the list too. Also agree this easy to do, but most people will not do it right away. Once you add new software, then you got more to backup/recover.

 

[Chipi]

Stupid story, your friend should have asked for help from someone who actually has know-how about notebooks. Why only Sony? Do you have something personal with them? Why not all the other notebook makers? Someone should definitely sue you!

Next time stick with "Weekend comedy"...

 

[p05esto]

Wow, that's just cheap ass. Yes, they should include the discs - very convienient to have on hand.

 

[gomobo75]

DELL will send you the discs by FedEx, if the system us under warranty it will charge you only for shipping, otherwise I paid $45 the last time I ordered one. SONY and HP have their recovery discs available to order on their systems support pages. I ordered a set for a 5 year old laptop for only $11+shipping.

This is nothing new, it's been like this for at least 5 years or more.
Apparently the TUAN didn't know. It's the 2nd article by TUAN with innacurate information.

 

[gomobo75]

And we all know most PC's without recovery discs have a dedicated and hidden partition with the recovery installation that you can access on boot by pressing a pre-defined F-key, don

 

[gomobo75]

And we all know most PC's without recovery discs have a dedicated and hidden partition with the recovery installation that you can access on boot by pressing a pre-defined F-key, don't we?

 

[engrpiman]

What's the point of a restore disk? if you do use one all the crap gets reinstalled and you loose your data. A driver or windows disk would be nice though.

I have to admit that I am bias because I own XP, Vista .. and so I have my own disks.

 

[frozentundra123456]

This practice annoys me too. They should include an OS disk so that if only some of the programs become damaged,one might be able to restore the damaged program witout having to re-install the entire operating system.
I really hate the idea that a recovery sector is sufficient. Obviously if the hard disk fails, you will be unable to access the recovery sector.

 

[matt_b]

I have had two laptops in the past couple of years leave me SOL for the aggravating situation. Both time the recovery discs were created FIRST THING! Neither laptop recovered from the BSOD that brought them to their knees. Microsoft said it wasn't their problem and to just buy another installation from them. When I threatened to venture to another operating system (Which I do anyway as my primary choice), the person on the phone said exactly, "Pfft, Windows runs the world so good luck with that". Hp and Toshiba both blamed me for not creating a successful recovery disc from the start, even though both were said to be successful! They then told me to talk to Microsoft. I too am very frustrated over this asinine penny-pinching move by OEMs due to my experience!

 

[matt_b]

[citation][nom]gomobo75[/nom]And we all know most PC's without recovery discs have a dedicated and hidden partition with the recovery installation that you can access on boot by pressing a pre-defined F-key, don't we?[/citation]
Try that with a hard drive after it takes a dump on ya

 

[brando56894]

HP is doing something like this, they put the image on the HDD. I was highly surprised when I asked my dad where the restore disc for his new HP Pavillion was and he said "it didnt come with one" I noticed later that the image was on a separate partition on the HDD. I think this is a horrible idea considering that if the HDD fails youre screwed.

 

[Guest]

This isn't recent. My dad has a Vaio from 3 years ago that didn't come with recovery disks. Sony hasn't included recovery disks for some time now. Instead, you get a "Recovery Partition". You can apparently also order recovery disks from their site.

 

[Caffeinecarl]

I think that the whole computer industry would be a heck of a lot better if they followed Alienware's Respawn solution that came with my Area-51 back in 2006. My computer came with not just a Windows XP start-from-scratch OEM copy and a driver disk, it also came with the Respawn suite which includes a Boot CD to bring you into Symantec Ghost. From there you can use the included image DVD to restore your system to perfect factory condition, OR you can even use Ghost to make a customized image of your hard drive after you've made all your software installations, so you have not only the factory's starting point, you also have your own perfect restore disk so that you don't have to reinstall tons of crap!

I wondered what kind of things non-premium brands were missing from their out of box software suites. Now I know, and I'm glad I chose a good brand back then. There was a time when all computers came with a restore disk. Alas, not anymore!

 

[vivekkurup]

I bought a Dell Inspiron last year, and I got Vista restore discs with it. However the Sony Vaio I bought for my friend had none with it and I was disappointed.

 

[rockerrb]

I bought a very cheap laptop for my wife awhile back and it did come with a recovery disk, but no OS disk. We called compaq and complained about it heavily and they sent us one.

 

[corporal_linko]

I just purchased an Asus Laptop from Bestbuy and IT DID INCLUDE the restore disc. I had to use them on the first day so I am sure that they are there and work.

 

[Guest]

"Apparently, this is one of the new ways that Sony is trying to improve its bottom line and save on costs"

Huh, that is NOT TRUE. After working retail for many years I can tell you first hand that most PC manufacturers stopped including restore discs 4-6 years ago. I have a 4 year old Sony laptop which came with a recovery partition and no restore discs. Even back in those days S, TT, VGN, series laptops never came with restore discs. There are only a few brands that still do. Dell computers come with a recovery partition & restore discs, the only brand to currently do this. Gateways use to come with the OS discs and made you burn drivers/applications disc. Toshiba use to include restore discs but that recently changed & they now come with a recovery partition. You should do a bit more research before ranting .

 

[ossie]

Tough luck... Thanks to m$, all the - oh so wonderful - windblow$ PCs don't come with install disks. But, not even crappy restore disks? All stupid macs come with install disks... but windblow$ is the greate$t! (especially in lousy ads and for idiot fankiddies)

 

[leo2kp]

I too have recently helped a friend pick out a laptop, and two manufacturers we were looking at did not come with restore disks. After we picked out a Toshiba, I had to create the disks myself and include them in the package when I delivered the laptop. I still made $100, so whatever.

 

[drunknmunkys]

I have noticed a lack of good content in some of the articles on Tom's that I expected to be there. Most PCs don't come with recovery CDs anymore. And you go from that to Sony sneaking around and using lower quality parts?

Bravo, quality reporting.

 

[hardwarekid9756]

lol, i worked for best buy for 2 years in the Geek squad.

2 computer manufacturers provide their recovery disks:
Toshiba and Dell.

That's it. Every other major manufacturer uses recovery partitions now. It's cheaper, saves disc waste, and is faster.

But if your hard drive takes a dump, you're screwed and it generates money for sony because they can charge you for the discs. It's underhanded and skeevy, and a standard set by HP, but it happens. Yeah, i hate it just as much as the next folk, but 'dems da brakes. It's actually been like that for the last 5 years according to my old boss. It's not new, but it still sucks.

 

[exar333]

[citation][nom]Aintry[/nom]That's really intelligent analysis, exar333. Sounds like you have a bright future with the Geek Squad.When I bought my PC four years ago, it didn't come with recovery disks. To make matters worse, the hard drive on my computer failed before I had a chance to make any. Ooops.After sending the computer company a number of angry e-mails, they replaced the hard drive (with no software installed) *and* sent me some factory-made recovery disks. So, yeah, relying on the customer to make his own recovery disks is a pretty stupid idea in my opinion. In my case, I was left with a brand new, but completely useless, computer because I no longer had access to the OS. With recovery disks, I would at least have had the option of buying another hard drive while I waited for the computer company to act.[/citation]

If your HDD failed before making a restore disk, then (1) it failed right away and who cares? Get a replacement computer. (2) You waited too long and couldn't return it, then you can only blame yourself for failing to make a disc promptly. Either way, epic fail on your part. Sorry.

 

[jacobdrj]

The last time I saw a recovery disk bundled with a laptop was with my EVEREX SA2053T. It didn't come with much bloatware. I still bought a cheap copy of Vista Home Basic and installed Home Premeum from scratch.
It wasn't necessary. However, on my tablet (TX2500Z CTO) it most certainly was!

I burned my own recovery CDs, just in case, saved the driver folder, and did a ABR on my license. I keep the ABR on my flash drive now, just in cae.