VAIO Recovery Wizard broken with PCG-V505DC1P

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

I have a Sony VAIO PCG-V505DC1P laptop running XP Pro SP2 and Gentoo
Linux.

I want a clean install of Windows. I tried this with a friend's XP cd
(I have a license of my own, and the recovery cds I made don't work)
and through using the Vaio recovery wizard with no luck.

I've installed Gentoo on a seperate partition with Grub doing the
bootloading work. Grub has been installed in the MBR.

My parition table looks something like this:
* Sony Recovery Hidden Partition (primary)
* Windows C: (primary)
* Windows D: (primary)
* Logical Partition (primary)
-> In here are Linux partitions for Gentoo


Here's what I did:

I have SP2, so I installed Sony's update for the VAIO recovery wizard
off here:
http://esupport.sony.com/perl/swu- [...] CGV505DC1P

I opened the Vaio recovery wizard. It says "VAIO Recovery Wizard
cannot find the recovery partition. Restart your computer."

I restarted the computer, and had Grub boot from the recovery
partition. The Sony stuff loads up properly, but then blue screens
eventually and says "Session Manager Initialization system process
terminated" followed by more. The computer then halts.

At this point, I don't care about the recovery stuff. I just want a
fresh install. I use my friend's XP Pro cd and plan to use the key
that's on the back of this laptop. The computer boots, says "Hit a key
to boot the cd...", says to hit F6 for scsi drivers and such (I have
none), and then the screen goes blank, and nothing happens for a long
time.

I have no floppy drive capable of making a boot disk to run anything
like fixmbr.

Anyone have an idea why this is happening and how I can fix it (apart
from concussive love with something blunt and heavy)?

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

Ahh... the joy of spam.

Any real answers out there?