Hi All,
I have a Sony Vaio PCG FX 101 with BIOS Phoenix 4.0 release 6.0 running a Fujitsu 10 GB HDD, 64 MB RAM, Celeron 600. The Hard Disk sometimes gets recognised in BIOS and DOS Prompt and sometimes it doesnt. And when it gets recognised it works for not more than a couple of minutes.
Bravely I opened up my laptop as I could not find any help Sony Vaio Online and to call then would cost me 12 GBP.
I have tried reseating the HDD but no help. When it was recognised, I ran the debug and fdisk command, but could not format as it would throw up errors (not getting recognised)
I tried the HDD on a different system via an external casing and worked fine. Then when I connected it back to my Sony laptop, I could format it after debug and fdisk. Then I tried running the restore disk, and it would run only between 5% to 30%.
People tell me that it could be a BIOS problem and suggest that I flash it again. Can somebody help me with a compatible BIOS flash and would it help?
Hard drive intermittent recognition.
A heat related problem maybe? Have a look at the SMART values of the drive (e.g. with smartctl - an internal 2.5"-> 3.5" adapter would be handy here, since you won't be able to access an external drive on such a low level). If it isn't temperature related (indicating dying HD electronics), it could still be a ribbon cable problem or dodgy notebook mainboard (IDE controller or related component, or unstable +5V supply). Only one thing it IMHO is very probably not: A BIOS issue.
