Background, I am trying to run a Vaio Recovery DVD on a VGN-BX196SP but my BIOS has 'reserved' for Model Name entry and this causes recovery to fail. It looked as if the Winphlash DMI writing option might help.
Using Winphlash for Vaio (extracted from Vaio website download file PHBSYS-00965927-UN.exe) I can only write a BIOS file to the BIOS (they supply R0190X5.ROM).
Using a general Winphlash there are options to backup and write DMI information. However this does not like the the R0190X5.ROM file and will not proceeed further. If I backup by supplying another, irrelevant, .wph file the backup file is smaller than I would expect (512k whereas the R0190X5.ROM file is 1M). If I try renaming the BIOS.BAK file, as suggested in other threads, Winphlash also complains about that. I have also tried supplying a .ini file or command line options to the Vaio specific version but neither worked.
Any suggestions for either getting Winphlash to work or a different approach to my main goal of running Vaio recovery would be welcomed. Also if anyone with a Vaio could clarify the expected form of the entries for model name and serial number that would be useful.
The Vaio support website seems to recognise this problem but its idea of resolving it is suggesting that the BIOS be upgraded to prevent the Model Name being lost. This does not help if it has already been lost.
The Vaio recovery issue appears to be a common problem but no satisfactory fixes seem to have been posted.
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