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System recovery failure

post #1 of 12
3/11/08 at 1:26pm
Thread Starter 
Hi,
I just bought a used SZ430 and the previous user deleted everything from the C drive. I thought I would do a system recovery/full restore.

When I hit F10, the VAIO system comes up and allows me to move through the various options to restore the C drive. However, once through all that, the restore fails with the error message:

"could not obtain the target drive letter"

Any ideas what is going on. Looks like the recovery partition is ok, but there is something wrong with the setup it's looking for?

Thanks,
D
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post #2 of 12
3/12/08 at 4:19am
Try replacing the hard drive. It may be a hard drive failure.
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post #3 of 12
3/14/08 at 3:18pm
Sometimes faulty RAM will cause errors like that. Like steve said, try testing the hard drive. There are free diagnostic software out there.
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post #4 of 12
10/29/11 at 5:59pm

Quote:
"could not obtain the target drive letter"


I realize this is too late to help you, but perhaps it will help someone else.

 

The problem isn't due to a hard drive failure or faulty RAM (though testing the hard drive with Hitachi Drive Fitness Test and testing the RAM with Memtest86+ are good things to do).  

 

I finally figured out the cause & solution to the VAIO "Could not obtain the target drive letter" problem.
 
Background: my customer's VAIO laptop died with a bad hard disk drive.  I did linux-based data recovery (using GNU ddrescue) on the hard disk drive, and managed to recover the recovery partition (about the first 6.2 GB of the drive), but most of the C: partition was unrecoverable.  (Fortunately, the customer didn't need the data on it, she just needs the computer to work.)
 
So I imaged the recovered recovery partition and the first few hundred megabytes of the damaged C: partition onto the new hard disk drive.  I then tried to use the recovery partition to restore a working Windows Vista installation, and had a horrible time of it.  I kept running into the "Could not obtain the target drive letter" error message.
 
Sony's tech support was useless: the phone support person turned hostile and hung up on me when I asked whether I'd get my $40 back for the support incident if they were stumped.  Their online chat person was friendly but had no clue what to do, though he told me that I could call 239-768-7691 to buy a recovery disc.  But I finally figured it out.
 
Sony has a bug in their recovery code.  Some of their code assumes that the recovery partition is the 2nd partition, and some assumes it's the first partition.  It is really the 1st partition, so when you bang F10 (or maybe Alt-F10) and get to this screen...
 
     Edit Boot Options
 
  Edit Windows boot options for: VAIO Recovery Environment
 
  Path: \windows\system32\boot\winload.exe
 
  [ /DETECTHAL /MININT /REDIRECT RDIMAGEOFFSET=8192 RDIMAGELENGTH=3161088 RDPATH=multi(0)disk(0)partition(1)\sources\boot.wim  ]
 
...you need to edit the path to boot.wim, to reflect the fact that it's actually on the first partition.  Just left-arrow-back and change "partition(1)" to "partition(0)".
 
Then when you get to the System Recovery Options screen, choose "Command Prompt."
 
Then do "chkdsk c: /f" to fix the C: partition.
 
Then "dir c:" and if there's no C:\Windows\ folder, then do "mkdir c:\Windows" and "mkdir c:\windows\system32" to make one (this step might not be necessary).
 
Then choose "VAIO Recovery Center" and the complete OS restore should finally work.
 
Dave Burton
Geeks Alive! Computer Rescue
Cary, NC
10/29/2011
 
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post #5 of 12
11/1/11 at 12:26am

Hi Dave,

 

It didnt work for me. I changed "partition(1)" to "partition(0)", ran chkdsk and then tried to restore the OS. Same error - could not obtain the target drive letter.

 

I also ran a HDD test through Vaio Hardware Diagnostic. No error.

 

What do you think the problem could be?

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post #6 of 12
4/16/12 at 12:28pm

Thank you so much...it worked for me....before i found your post about this issue, i was considering throwing out the computer on the window :)

I wish you the best and thank you again...

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post #7 of 12
12/27/12 at 3:08pm

Worked like a charm, thanks.
 

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post #8 of 12
1/10/13 at 5:06pm

Thanks Dave! 

 

That trick worked perfect!

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post #9 of 12
1/20/13 at 7:01pm

I'm having the same issue, but the "Edit windows boot path" screen provides a path for the recovery DVD (multi(0)disk(0)cdrom(0).... I change it to what you suggest (partition(0)...), but that does not seem to do anything. When I get into the first recovery options screen, its asking me for drivers which I wouldn't know where to find. No C drive is listed so I am not able to install any operating system or access any hard drive in any way.

 

Any thoughts on this?

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post #10 of 12
1/20/13 at 10:26pm
Would you happen to have the exact error message (and code)?

cheers ...
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post #11 of 12
2/27/13 at 11:06am

i had the same problem on the edit boot options when i try to recover my system that edit option page comes up and then when i press enter it just goes to blank screen and after about 5 mins the mouse arrow shows up in the middle of the blank screen and then just stays like that so i did change the partition from 1 to 0 and it just does the excact same thing can you help me

 

thanks 

 

rob 

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post #12 of 12
2/27/13 at 5:34pm
Might need a complete (new) re-installation

cheers ...
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