Windows cannot detect operating system on vista

Soon as you start restoring the system your data gets wiped, it should warn you about that when you start.

You can just try to run the restore again, if it fails again you may have a bad restore disk or a bad hard-drive. According to Sony, it's a hard-srive error. http://www.kb.sony.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?exter...

Get a new drive for the system and try again.

Thanks for replying. I used the restore from the operating system and not a disk. If I get a new hard drive I'll need to get a new operating system wont I? Will it also delte all the drivers etc from the computer? Many thanks.

The new drive won't have the restore partition, so you'd either have to order an actual disk from Sony, or buy an OEM disk for Vista and use that. The new drive will have nothing on it from the old one, so you'd have to install the OS, then download the drivers for your system off Sony's support site.