Resolved Sony Vaio's factory recovery partition

Hi,

I just would like to know if on my Sony Vaio netbook I could safely delete the factory recovery partition with Windows 7 Starter? Having a copy of Windows 7 Professional I could install everything from scratch and without the software by Sony that is unnecessary in most cases.
My question is: Won't I run into any trouble when I let Windows 7 Professional partition the hard drive and delete all the partitions that were there since I purchased my Sony Vaio?

Thank you.

 

Yes, it should be possible to remove everything on the hard drive and then install Windows 7 Professional. Assuming by "netbook" you mean no CD/DVD drive, it will be a bit tougher to get the job done though.

1. You'll need to reset the BIOS to attempt to boot from a USB key before it tries to boot from the hard drive.
   
   
2. You'll need DBAN [Dariks Boot and Nuke] (or similar) on a bootable USB key so you can erase everything on the hard drive.
   
   
3. You'll need Windows 7 Professional on a bootable USB key so you can install Windows 7 Pro on the now empty hard drive.

Just to be on the safe side, you might also want to go ahead and download the NIC driver for it from Sony (if available) and put it on a USB key. Once the NIC is working you can get online and download any other needed drivers.

 

Thanks for your reply.

I've got an external DVD reader/writer so it shouldn't be a problem. Couldn't I just take advantage of the Windows 7 Professional installer to do the formatting/deleting job rather than use a third-party utility?

 

Correct. The recovery partition is usually hidden so that normal partitioning and formatting tools (such as those included in the Windows 7 installation routine) will leave it alone.