sony vaio VGN A497XP not starting up after format

[moragbeedie]

After 5 years of the sony vaio working great - things started to go wrong with it, and i decided that it was time to format the hard drive by using the system recovery disks that i created when i initially got the computer.

So after formatting the drive, and and using the second disk, application recovery, i was faced with the next message...

"Reboot and select propert boot device or insert boot media in selected boot device and press a key"

when i pressed a key the message reappeared, so i took out the disk and pressed the key - and the message reappeared, so inserted the system recovery disk again - and it came up with the system recovery utility again...
and came up with a pop up box saying

" the revocery partition is active
Eject the disk and click [cancel]
your computer is restarted from the recovery partition in the hard drive. If you want to use the disc, click ok"

then the whole thing begins again

I seem to be going round in circles.

how do i get back to using my dear old computer i love so much?
Any ideas people?? Please help me!

[Blencogo]

Try removing all the discs and reboot.

During reboot - when you see the first Vaio splashscreen - repeatedly tap F10

This should start the recovery utility from the hard drive recovery.

Select to Recover Drive C:

Follow this guide from Step 2.

http://genesis.sony-europe.com/instranet/ccil_sony/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=35564&l=en_GB&m=VGN-...