Checking Out a Retro Sony Multimedia All-In-One PC!
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 21 พ.ย. 2024
- Sometimes retro computers can be difficult to restore. But in the case of this Sony VAIO PCV-V300G all-in-one -- and many other VAIO models -- there's a very simple reason why it's more challenging to get working than it should be.
If you happen to have any Sony VAIO restore discs in your collection, please upload images of them to the Internet Archive to help out others.
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My Grandad owned one of these, we still have it at our house in Spain, was a nice machine, upgradable to an extent and good for TV usage, though he lost the keyboard in the move to Spain, the VAIO was a lot of fun, i recall sitting in his Study installing Vista Home Basic on him so he could experience Vista for the first time, yea he wasn't best pleased haha
vista+aero is the real experience ,home basic is just like xp but with less software support
@@namesurname4666 i used vista as a joke a few months ago on my pc, athlon 64 x2 3800+ and 2gb ram on a 14yo hdd, it ran smooth unlike win7
Sony are NOTORIOUS for not having their utilities available - even when they were operational, a lot of the stuff was nowhere to be found if you didn't have your DVD that came in the box.
I gave up on Sony long ago.
Well it's Japan. They are Japanese.
well they charged a lot to send you the recovery disks. It would be stupid to just let you download them :D
@@bobzeepl Using Sony is a privilege and should not be encouraged!
I backed up the drivers for my VAIO Flip locally. Can't risk losing the drivers because Sony won't be offering them for long.
Ah, man I know your struggle with factory images! There’s nothing better than finding images for a newly acquired retro PC on the Internet Archive or somewhere like that, and nothing worse than not finding any. 😫 Sometimes the manufacturer provided out-of-the-box experience is what makes a machine unique.
I agree, as I'm reminded of IBM ThinkPad factory images for Windows XP and earlier.
I really need to find the time to upload my ThinkPad R52 restore image once I can take a desktop screenshot for the IA listing, and also get the factory images for a MSI Wind U100 (assuming mine still has it, as mine has a dirty reinstall of a retail disc over the MSI factory install), as well as a French Dell Inspiron 1300 and French HP Mini 110-1xxx. I'll need to take screenshots of clean restores of those too.
As do I with my Digital Venturis FX2-5166. I could only guess that there's a seller on Ebay trying to sell a disc that *might* be the one for $25. I also recently picked up an IBM Thinkpad 560E that has no hard drive a or any drives for that matter. The CD-ROM and floppy drives were external only. That's going to be a challenge...
Heh. Yeah, especially with companies that shipped a lot of accessory utilities or provided their own wallpapers, etc. Oh and less common hardware like Sony MS (MemoryStick) readers...
Unless it's an HP...
@@MrTaxiRob or acer
I loved how Vaio's looked, they were so pretty. Always wanted a Vaio desktop back then. It really sucks that we still don't have a complete, or near complete, database anywhere of install software for most, if not all OEM computers.
Free Geek install Linux on many of the computers they sell, because they want to promote open source software and also of course because Windows isn't free.
My dream was owning the Sony Vaio P the equivalent these days is the GPD pockets.
never buy a sony because they remove their drivers and they're thus unreliable, no other manufacturer removes their drivers. Fujitsu, Toshiba, Acer, ASUS, Dell, HP, Lenovo, and all the other manufacturers keep their drivers archived.
Hi I own 2 of these PCs complete with all the accessories and discs.
however there are a few problems before I would be in a position to help anyone.
First I am practically 'illiterate' for computer stuff (my interest is 'everything Sony' so my technical knowledge is thinly spread), despite owning over 40 Vaio PCs, laptops and all in ones.
My MO is to buy anything which is being gotten rid of using a scatter gun approach !
Secondly, the first of my two examples suffered a power supply failure which has effectively killed it (until the time comes when I can have a go at repair) and the second one was not working when I got it.
Thirdly I also own a very similar Vaio which has a folding keyboard so the unit can be used as a cd player (don't know the model number) but the harddrive was wiped but helpfully contained a restore disc which turned out to be for the Netherlands market and would not work !
I managed to get a UK disk for an almost identical machine, but same story, so I believe that in order to do a proper reinstall you will need the disk for the market it was made for and quite possibly the very disk which came with it.
The bottom line is that they all would be in landfill if I hadn't bought them but I have quite a few other projects to complete before I will get around to even selling them on let alone restoration but hopefully their time will come. (Once I have made my way through the 1-200 hi-fis and stereos first)
There is actually a program to unpack the compressed restore disc files and bypass any type of system checks. I implore you to help the cause and preserve these hard to find discs.
Make copies of the discs and upload them to the internet archive.
@@saladfox I have a PCG-9S1M, and I managed to aquire the discs (think I burnt them ages ago somewhere). I think those are german only however. The machines also look the same to me!
Am I right in understanding that you are too 'illiterate' to upload the discs to the internet? Because I'm very much willing to help you step by step if that helps this channel, and other Vaio owners. It's honestly not that hard if you have a PC with a disc drive :)
@@saladfox Here you go! archive.org/details/pcg-k-315-z-de-recovery I am a collector myself and so I have quite some Recovery Sets myself, I know how hard those are to come by. Although I didn't even know I was allowed to share them. But a look at archive.org opened my eyes! You might want to check the APP-iso especially, if you know how to read/extract/open Sony .pac files (I don't!). Actually I am trying to sell this machine (I really prefer the smaller ones!), but so far nobody seems to want it :(
These types of all-in-one multimedia PCs seemed huge in Japan when I first went there ca 2008. Seemed like 90% of the desktops sold in stores were of that kind, and many of my friends had one. Guess it makes sense for tiny Tokyo apartments to combine computer and TV into one.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the fan noise might have been mitigated by some software or driver on the recovery disc.
Well, that is the case with my VAIO PCV-RX580 from late 2001. Its fan is controlled by Sony software in XP that runs in the background. Once it fully boots up, it slows down the fan to a quieter, more normal operating speed and sound.
Even when these were new and I worked at a VAIO repair facility, you'd have to call Sony to get a set of these restore discs printed and sent to your center.... it was a disaster..
Ah yes, Japanese burocracy
It's interesting to see how Sony was able to make an AIO of a decent size back several years ago
I literally just picked up the keyboard from this machine 3 days ago at a thrift store. Model. Number is VGP-WKB5US for those that are curious.
I was watching one of your older videos at free geek. You passed over the speaker for a G4 cube. Awesome content.
Man, do I remember this thing. My father had gotten one even before they were sold here in the Netherlands, for the cost of a dinner in his restaurant.
My mother was always searching for the key to power it on, even though it was a big illuminated block on the side hahaha. And of course both of them used the "hunting-hawk" technique for typing, so emails took them so extremely long to get out. great times hahaha
Is that what you call "hunt-and-peck" typing in Dutch? Always interesting to learn different idioms for things.
(My own typing style is partway in between hunt-and-peck and "proper" typing, but I still type more than 60 words/minute.)
@@AaronOfMpls hahaha yes, that is how I always call it :p
I personally can type without watching my fingers, but not very fast. Fortunately, that's not expected of a janitor
Love those all in one's. Back in the day when you would have a computer in the living room on the roll top desk. I had a Radeon All in Wonder that had TV tuner. Was pretty cool. The only issue is that you needed a proprietary dongle for composite and svideo
Computer Museum is such a difficult path....so deep with so many aspects involved!
I was very surprised to see that you didn't install XP Media Center Edition. I feel like that would be a perfect fit for this computer.
I had a serious case of VAIO envy back in the day! Always wanted one of those liquid-cooled P4 towers they had during the Prescott days. Though to this day, I still haven't bothered to find out whether Sony actually used a liquid cooling system (like the Power Mac G5s of the same era), or if they simply used a heat-pipe and called it "liquid cooling" like so many others did back then.
The "H" on the capture board made me think of Hauppauge, perhaps they have that software?
Working with the Hauppauge cards was always so flakey...
THERE IS NO WAY I MISSED THIS VIDEO 😭😭 I have the same system! It was one of the first old systems I ever fixed up.
like you said, it seems like the perfect PC/TV combo. I wonder if this aio concept was intended for their home market in Japan with cramped apartments at first and later also sold in the US.
This video is like a journey to the past. This research you made is so cool. The love you added to do all these videos with the original (or closer) gadgets and hardware , and the quality of the videos is impresionant. Thanks for give us this piece of history. The wallpaper screen of windows xp even is epic. God bless you Chanel, man.
Wow, my grandmother had one almost exactly like that! I remember using it to play a few Flash games when I was a kid...
sony vaio computers are really cool looking. i'd love to get my hands on a complete set of an aio model one day
The noise is likely because the thermal paste has hardened, meaning cooling performance is significantly reduced (and in turn, the machine will ramp up the fans).
Great video! My uncle at one time had the exact PC minus the tuner. Sony’s poor support of this computer drove him back to Apple.
I had something like this a few years ago.. Upgraded to 1 gig of ram (2 +512) had the keyboard and mouse as well. I just checked my CD software disks with no avail. I'll keep checking to see if I might have original disks. It was a cool little bit of unique tech when i got my hands on one.
This was the family PC in my home. I liked how it had an LCD and Windows XP!
Thats so freaking cool! I have always been a sucker for Sony's design in their electronics
Glad to see Vaios getting some attention now. Still have 2 old laptops and miss not seeing new ones available.
I think when I got my first laptop in the late '90s and stuff I remember being captivated by the adverts for them because I was not used to seeing products finished in that lovely silver and blue that they offered. I very nearly ended up with one of the very small laptops they offered with the Transmeta CPU but wisely I went with the resurrection of the Toshiba Libretto
Honestly I’m about to start collecting vintage Vaio PCs, they were REALLY ahead of their time
I recently stopped at free geek twin cities after your mention! I donated some stuff and checked out what was in store. So many cool old macs, had never seen the iMac g4 in real life before.
You're not missing much. I have a G3 and G5 and they were really good machines back when they were new but you can't do much with either now days. Even the G5 is drastically outdated and you can't even use Pandora on it because the web browser can't handle a website that complicated and you can't upgrade the the OS like you can with a Windows machine. I basically use it a fancy MP3 player and light web browsing in my basement shop.
You just inspired me to upload the factory image of the Sony VGC-V517G that I had sooooo many years ago. Hoping it might help someone like you in the future!
I miss the Sony Vaio so much since it was split and Vaio became a Computer manufacturer as we seen it today.
Man. The rage I have for Sony Vaio machines. I have a wonderful Pentium 3 1ghz machine that I was able to score. When it shipped. It shipped with an LCD. The LCD is a proprietary screen with a REALLLLY proprietary plug. Power, video, and USB all on the plug. Finding that screen to complete the machine has been a quest for me for a few years.
During that era Sony's Vaio line had the best industrial design of all PCs. I had 2 laptops and both were the lightest notebooks. One was a single spindle machine which no one had done before it. Oh, and yes, Sony was pushing its memory stick, and firewire, and minidice also at the time. I checked out and admired many of these Vaio desktops but never bought one as they were quite loud, so so performance, no motherboard or CPU upgrade path due to unique form factor.
Today, I still have the Vaio one spindle notebook that is aluminum body long before Macbook, and its many external implements as I cannot bear to throw it away. It is wedge shape long before Apple's recent crops of MBA. Sadly in it's day mobile CPU are power hungry and requires heat pipe and loud cooling fan no matter who designed them.
I miss my old Vaio. Great video!!
I really loved the VAIO line of products. Cool seeing them again.
Many Sony Vaio’s in that era had composite video input/output on board even early 2000s laptops. As an 11 year old I thought that was so cool.
I love VAIO PCs , i still have my VGN-NW laptop and it’s recovery discs. Hopefully you found the ones for this one. Great video.
I've become so used to silent PCs, I'd really struggle to put up with the noise of old P4 systems.
My latest computer is inaudible. I would find it really hard to use something older without trying to install quiet fans.
@@ChrisKoehn eh, it's part of the charm of old computers. (Granted not talking windows XP old, mean older than that)
There's something nice about the hum those old PSU fans alongside an old HDD spinning and clicking away.
When my flatmate moved in here two years ago, the only PC he had was some Pentium 4 with Win7 installed to it.
Holy cow, was that thing annoying.
@@ChrisKoehn agreed my latest build only has corsair fans and is nearly silent ... if I wanted absolute i'de have gone with noctua 👍
OMG i remember this very well, I was so keen and interested in buying it, but it wasn't a bit cheap.
I wonder if installing Windows XP Media Center edition would allow you to use the TV tuner. Either that or VLC may be able to play video from the tuner and/or composite inputs. This is assuming you located a driver for the TV tuner but have no software.
This TV tuner is from ATI ATI RADEON OR ATI 8500 9000 9200 9500. They did made a ATI PCI ALL in Wonder.
During my time in the old PC day I used to geek out reading up on ATI video card.
From 1999 - 2004 I could read the back of the card built by ATI.without the front and tell you high model Radeon.
A Pentium 4 in that size machine is going to be a cooling challenge. They were known to get very hot.
Jesus, the fact this is considered "retro" just made me feel old af.
At least it's somewhat possible to put a period correct GPU in this thing, could be an interesting PC if that was done. Some Noctua fans will quiet it up too.
The Noctua fans are worth more than the PC!
@@fuelvolts I mean, there's plenty of cheap silent fans out there though. And sometimes it's not about the value but the usability. The PC I use to play early to late 90's games had a screamer of a fan on the CPU, you could argue it wasn't worth the $10 I spent on the replacement quiet fan, but I'd argue it was.
"I reached out to sellers but they either weren't willing to help or didn't respond"
wtf is wrong with people ? 😳
I can think of a few reasons why they wouldn't bother that doesn't make me wonder wtf is wrong with them. Would be nice for someone to make the effort to help, but I bet most of the people Colin contacted just didn't understand what he wanted. Thank goodness for people who post IMGs of this stuff. Now I want to look through my disc collection for anything useful to people out there.
My take: I don't have a CD reader and if i use the same PC to read and make a backup then I risk scratching the old disk, opening an already packaged PC and risking the quite old components to not break in my hands. As he said the capacitors tend to leak and other things
@@ChrisKoehn probably not, why don't just ask him what he wanted right away, he could've answered them with a mini tutorial, not a big deal really. I still like the guy above "What's wrong with them?!".
@@yet_another_communist That is not the path of least resistance for most people. Having to follow a mini-tutorial even if you wanted to help someone sounds like effort that many people just aren't willing to put in.
@@ChrisKoehn yes, that's exactly what I'm trying to say.
Love the way these things look so much like a PlayStation3 turned PC (maybe it was the other way round since this machine came out years before the PS3?)?) "ancient history" by now but I just found one of these at the thrift store, priced as a non-functional monitor. Turns out, all it took to get it running again was moving the 512 ram to the other slot and replacing the coin cell battery (did both at once, so no idea which caused the repeated long beep to stop, and the bootup process to start). First step will be clone imaging the harddrive for archival purposes, since it has all the software installed and working.
Its a neat machine! Also, the "hardware ID" method is still my main method of installing drivers until this day.
If you cant use that pci video capture card anyway, why not install a PCI GPU in it? Would love to see you doing some upgrades to it, just for the sake of it.
I remember that silicon integrated systems had a 3d screen saver of a roller coaster ride
i found one of these at goodwill, where in my area they never sell computers. its a VGC-VA10G, and for the love of god these things are hard to find software for.
Please, please, PLEASE, do a follow-up video, where you:
1. Replace those two fans with equivalents from NOCTUA, (as those are THE most silent computer fans on the market today and WILL fix the noise issue), upgrade the RAM to as high as it'll go and the HDD to an SSD.
2. Compare the newly upgraded system to its original configuration in both performance and noise.
snappy driver installer and driver pack solution should both work on xp
I had one of the last Vaio laptops made, a large laptop with a first gen i7 processor - it was amazing that it ran cool even under heavy load. Compared to the 1st gen MacBook Air I got that would overheat and throttle when playing TH-cam videos
Back then, Macbooks overheated constantly and their cooling solutions were absolute crap
I was a Field tech when Sony Vaio PCs/laptops came out and I HATED that they used aluminum screws so bad I bought a box of chrome plated screws to replace them
These Sony Viao systems are always super cool, but it’s always difficult to find old restore files.
Isnt that capture card ATI all in wonder? Thats what my vaio included.
I think the All in Wonder cards were combo video card and capture card right? Nvidia had something similar too back in the old days when they were called nVidia instead.
Given this one has only inputs on the PCI card (also a PCI video card in 2004 seems unlikely) I would say it's just input.
@@Kalvinjj Right. AIW is, like the name suggests, a video card and AV I/O in one. Plus, the card _probably_ identifies itself as a Sony card -- meaning its PCI ID isn't going to match a retail card, so retail drivers _probably_ wouldn't work anyway. It may be possible to get around that with some hacking. Moot point, though, since I also expect this is a bespoke vidcap card.
@@nickwallette6201 oh true there's also those juuuust slightly bespoke Sony stuff... Reminds me I had to reinstall Windows to a big 17" Vaio laptop, the thing was probably a top of the line monster back in it's day (BD drive even), the video card was an Nvidia 8400m GT, my own laptop had the GS underspecced version, just downloaded Nvidia drivers and done. But guess what, on the Sony one the drivers won't work without some slight .inf modifications to it, just cause Sony.
@@Kalvinjj Yeah, although it isn't always just Sony being ornery and trying to make life difficult. Just a simple thing, like using your own hardware manufacturer ID instead of the OEM (nVidia, or ATI, or whatever) means that the way Windows matches drivers to installed hardware, it won't recognize that the Sony part is just a rebranding of a common chipset. This is just how USB and PCI work.
Linux drivers tend to be more forgiving of rebranding because end-users are often the ones writing the drivers, and it's a pretty easy thing to just hack in the device ID string of a customized part and see if it works (and unless something was heavily modified, it often will!)
Sony had a knack for integrating things and making it feel like a solid, cohesive whole -- rather than just a ton of parts tossed into a blender. But that does have consequences that I don't believe were intentionally malevolent, as frustrating as it is now.
TV tuner is analog. It not going to work in todays system.
I have almost the same issues with a cousin of your I have PCV-w200m I managed to get all drivers working on XP I just missed the Sony apps, I get Sonic Stage an Picture Gear working. The missing part is some app that displays a clock and music on the screen when the keyboard is closed.
By the way thanks to This Does Not Compute for help me.
Chances are high, the capture card may work with other programs such as OBS studio or Windows Media Centre.
TV tuner and capture cards were quite common back then as it seems.
Windows Media Centre did detect the tv tuner but i wasn´t able to get a signal, probably because it was analog and we already had digital tv signals
Seeing this sent me back in 2004.
I've managed to mostly restore a Sony VAIO tower but it took a lot of hunting around for most of the drivers. I still don't think I have all the "correct" ones but it's working now. I definitely couldn't get all the software that it came with. I have two others that I'm looking to restore but they're older still so I'm sure I'll have just as much of a headache (if not more) looking for the drivers and software. Great video as always!
i still have this comp.
7:23 I can't believe you spent time doing that.
Ah yes the joy of locating drivers for old hardware. I wish people who are able to find drivers could put them in an archive for other enthusiasts.
I have seen other Sony PCs, in traditional desktop tower form factor, with a PCI card for video in and TV tuner. Likely the same part as in yours.
Perfect for a retrogame lakka like base system
I've been looking for machines like this for a while, they're super hard to find in the UK
I found one at goodwill for $12.99 usa
Sony VAIO ruled the 90’s.
Oh oh I've seen it in someone else Channel not too long ago it's such a cool product
Snappy driver installer may be able to help you get drivers
I own a much recent Sony VAIO but it's very easy to access and upgrade the bad it's that doesn't have any VGA out and only has two USB ports.
Happy Friday
Question: When are you gonna look into Vaio’s MX Series line?
I have one of these as well. I also have the original keyboard and mouse. And unfortunately, just like you, I also have no way of loading the factory image on it either. Now that a larger TH-cam channel has covered it, that highly increases the chances of people knowing about this machine, which also increases the chance of someone hopefully uploading the disk image to the Internet Archive.
Uploaded my burned recovery discs here, let me know if they work for you: archive.org/details/pcv-v300g
@@mariol90 You are my fucking hero man. Worked perfectly. You gotta try to post this in the general comment section. Hopefully it will get more attention.
@@1980sGamer Glad to hear it worked! I'll try posting it again. Posted yesterday and edited my comment after I uploaded it but YT immediately removed it. Posted again without any links and YT took that down too, Colin said he'll see if he can find it and un-flag it.
@@mariol90 Ahh. Excellent. I saw he hearted it as well.
I have the mouse, remote and upgraded speakers lurking somewhere.... they were used on a few multimedia sonys. When you folded the keyboard shut you could have the trackpad and buttons exposed for easy media control
The mouse is next to my main PC right now, the scroll wheel has the most solid click you've ever heard/used, if anything it's more of a clunk! It's my CS:GO competitive match mouse, you know exactly what weapon/grenade you are selecting every time without checking. I'd buy another if they made more! :)
PS: I picked up copies of drivers and the original software through some shady Russian site specialising in sony/vaio stuff. I still have 2 or 3 of those files, I'll see if I can dig them out, and try find anywhere hosting them
Have a look at the vaio towers of the time, I've a P4 3.6GHz one with TV capture etc etc and I swear the thing is damm near silent! 👀 the tower is split into 2, and the whole top half is one massive heatsink and a large fan turning at about 10rpm, I can actually hear the hard drive seeking rather than the usual screaming coolers that came with any P4
I wish I could mind the model number, but the split tower design is a massive giveaway. I still have that case stashed away in case I ever find a modern mobo that would line up to that epic cooler 👀😎
Nice! I was wondering whether you would cover that VAIO from your FreeGeek video
Windows 7 would run fine on this computer. I have just restored a Sony Vaio UX UMPC which had XP and runs Windows 7 nice with an SSD upgrade :)
I love the way sony styled their computer systems back then, sad they killed their Viao line, always wanted a viao desktop and still trying to recreate the black box aesthetic to this day.
I have the Vaio disks, but fir Windows ME and some drivers loaded for software patches.
I have one and it still works,
I found a sony Vaio tower pc thrown out model pcv-rs710gx I was able to do a factory restore on it and brought it back to life. Thank God it had a recovery partition on it because all the drivers and and software were present on it I plan on using this to do some analog video capture it also still can burn DVDs and has the software as well the reason I think this thing was thrown out is it was riddled with viruses but a factory solve that
❤️❤️ love from India
Looks like a wonderful PC. What a shame about the recovery CDs. That is always an issue
Those ebay sellers who didn't help out are total a**holes.
Hello Collin, I have an old Sony Vaio PCV-F31M. Buy about five years ago. Never came with the recover disks. Do found software on there to make recover disks, the disk image is Xp. Would you be interested in a copy of the disks. As I have video capture and TV tuner installed. Best I can do. Thanks.
Does DScaler work with that capture card? That's what I was using when I read living in cramped quarters and couldn't spare the space for a tv :)
Awesome
I experienced similar crap with Sony mylo device. I ordered it from Japan, but nowhere I was able to find a firmware update file for it. And Sony response was useless. With pain I found a US mylo firmware update file but Sony in all their wisdom locked the device from accepting firmware updates from other regions.
I remember those! I had one briefly toward the end of the product's life, found in an e-waste bin. So cool, and very quickly, so useless. Thanks, Sony!
My Sony Vaio E Series can play HD pretty well!
Did you check if they completely formatted the hdd? Some vaios have the recovery files in hidden partitions
I'm wondering if you'd have better luck with the video capture stuff if you installed the Media Center edition of XP.
Did you try using the game console inputs to play something? I'm wondering if it was a direct input, or if there was lag that made it not worth it.
I know Tech Tangents got a similar VAIO PC but I'm not sure if it's the same. It might be worth trying to contact them for drivers and software though.
The VAIO they featured in a video was running Windows 98 IIRC and was much different hardware wise.
What is the mirror link of vaio's ftp?
@ 2:46..... Looks like the free geek people went to town on the screw's.. or you had to do 8/9 takes .. but I'd hate the be the next person to pay for this "vintage" computer...lol
I have one of these lol. It still works but it is just sitting in a corner. I believe I can copy all of the drivers from the original disk as it is still functioning and intact.
I bet you this PC would work perfectly out of the box with a Linux distro with a recent kernel.
Cool video.
Ah when even all in ones werent glued together
This is why I’m against messing with used computer hdd. Should have left ic alone. So the original stuff would still be there.
They kinda have to, to ensure data privacy. I bought an IBM ThinkPad G40 from ebay a while ago, and while I was glad the drive wasn't wiped because I was able to get the original IBM factory installer for Windows XP off of its recovery partition, the original owner also left all of their important (and some confidential!) documents on it. Free Geek could probably get in trouble if they sold computers with data still on them.
Even if the hard drive was intact, who knows if it still had the original software, and many computers from this era did not have the recovery images on the disk anyways so it would've been useless.
@@babyboomertwerkteam5662 They could just wipe everything except the drivers but that's time consuming which means they most likely just pop in a disc that wipes everything so the drive is wiped in a matter of just a few minutes.
This is the reason piraci is good, you can get software for old computers
Sony used to build decent PC hardware but their software support has always been poor at best. I think their website purge was fairly recent but even back when it was present, it wasn't great: you could order a restore disc and download a handful of drivers but a good number of devices did not have separate drivers available; the only way to get specific bits of hardware to work on some machines (display control, hot keys, video inputs, jog dial, etc) is to use the original Sony image disc. I think Sony's devs put a base Windows install on a test machine, hacked all of their hardware support software directly into it (along with all of their pointless bloatware), and then took an image of the resulting configuration to send to production for retail distribution. It's the only explanation for why their stuff worked with a restore disc but had no separate installers available.
That being said, some Linux distros would occasionally run VAIOs and their weird hardware fresh out of the box where a retail XP or Win 7 install would never have driver support. It's kind of funny. Still no proper Linux support for NetMD though, sadly.