Werkema.com: The Sony PCG-U101

Booting Disks

People have noted that I've suggested installing Windows yourself, and have had several questions about just exactly how to do that. For the most part, installing Windows these days is a pretty easy task: you stick in the CD and away you go (it's a far cry from the old days of tweaking config files on every new installation of Windows 3.1!). The same is true for most of the Linux distributions, for folks that are interested in doing that.

But there is the incessant problem of booting: most OS install disks need to boot before Windows does. The Recovery CDs that come with the U101 need to boot before Windows does too. So this page exists to provide information about how to boot the U101 to either install or repair your operating system.

Step 1. Buy the right equipment.

You'll need the equipment listed under one of the four bullet points below. It's your choice which method you go with.

Booting CDs via i.Link (IEEE 1394, a.k.a., FireWire)

To boot a CD via the i.Link plug (on the left side of the laptop, under the little plastic cover), you will need to have a Sony brand i.Link CD-ROM drive. It won't boot with any other brand --- I tried several. You can use other brands for reading and writing CDs and DVDs, but not for booting. Sony sells four drives that will work: the PCGA-CRWD2 (which I use), the PCGA-DVRW1, the PCVA-DRW3, and the PCGA-DVD1/A.

(Note that the Sony DRX-510UL drive is compatible with the U101, as indicated on Sony's compatibility page, which means it can be used to read/write discs once Windows has booted, but the red text halfway down the page says specifically, "The DRX-510UL cannot handle [i.e., be used for] system recovery (the reinstallation of the OS).")

(Note from a reader: The Mitsumi D353FUE USB floppy drive and Sony AP20U DVD/CDRW drive cannot be used for booting either.)

Make no mistake about it: Sony's drives are expensive. Expect to pay $400 for the PCGA-CRWD2, which is the least expensive of the four. But their drives are small and light, and can run off of the laptop's own power (which most other CD-ROM drives --- including USB and other FireWire drives --- can't).

If you own one of these drives, they're really easy to use: plug one end of the cable into the drive and the other into the laptop. Then follow the instructions below for Booting CDs.
Booting CDs via PCMCIA (PC Card or CardBus)

I haven't done this myself, but I know of many people who have done it successfully, and the Sony U101 manual does say (in Japanese) that PCMCIA drives can be used for booting. There are many, many brands of PCMCIA drives out there, but with the increased popularity of USB drives, they are getting harder to find. Still, you should be able to get one fairly cheaply and easily if you want one.

The prices, I've been told, are around $200 for a PCMCIA drive. Your mileage may vary.

Installation of these drives is going to vary by manufacturer. Usually, you'll just plug in the drive's PCMCIA card into the U101's single PCMCIA slot (on the left side), and plug the drive into a wall socket (for power, of course). Then you can follow the instructions below for Booting CDs. Of course, this may be a little different for your drive, but it shouldn't be very different: you don't need to install drivers to boot, for example.
Booting floppy disks via USB

Sony sells two portable USB floppy drives for the old 1.44" floppy disks. I have not done it myself, but I have received a pretty solid report that you can boot a floppy disk from one of these. Assuming that's true, you could use a combination of several steps to install an OS:
1. Attach any kind of CD-ROM drive to the U101. Put the install CD in the CD-ROM drive.
2. Boot from the special boot floppy that is included with your OS's install CD(s).
3. The floppy will then load in suitable drivers for booting your CD in the CD-ROM drive, and use those drivers to boot the CD.
That solution is a little more complex than booting from a Sony i.Link CD-ROM drive or a PCMCIA CD-ROM drive, but potentially cheaper.

I don't know if non-Sony brand USB floppy drives are suitable for booting. My local CompUSA sells a few different brands, but I don't feel like shelling out $50 to test it (who really needs floppies these days, anyway?). I haven't checked Sony's prices on their own drives, but it's reasonable to assume they're double the going rate: $100.

The two Sony drives that should work are the PCGA-UFD5 and the PCVA-UFD2. I'm not sure what --- if any --- difference there is between these two other than a slight difference in physical size (footprint), since the descriptions for them are otherwise identical.
Booting via a network

The U101 has a Phoenix BIOS in it that supports network booting. It has Intel's boot software, and if you enable it in the BIOS, it will say this on startup:

Initializing Intel(R) Boot Agent Version 4.1.08 PXE 2.1 Build 083 (WfM 2.0)

Supposedly, Linux has a PXE server, but I never successfully got it working, even though I spent the better part of four hours trying. On the other hand, this was my first experience with PXE: if you know how to use it, perhaps this is useful to you.

If you're dead-set on using network booting, you may have better luck with Microsoft's Remote Administration Server, which apparently was what PXE was designed for (or maybe vice versa: I don't know exactly which of Microsoft or Intel sponsored network booting first, but I know they collaborated on it). Remote Administration Server will cost you Big Buck$ (if you have to ask about the price, you can't afford it), but if you're at a large company with a large Microsoft license, you may already have a copy of it somewhere.

However, a good summary is that network booting should be reserved for experts only: if you're a novice, don't even bother trying.

Step 2. Set up the BIOS correctly.

Make sure you set up the BIOS correctly first. The BIOS, by default, sets itself to booting optical drives first (CD-ROMs), floppy drives second, and the hard disk third (with the network being a distant fourth, and disabled for booting by default). These defaults are usually correct, but if they aren't, you should go into the BIOS and set them correctly. In fact, the Sony U101 manual actually says that when using the Recovery CDs, you should reset the BIOS first to its defaults. However, if the BIOS is already set to its defaults, you can skip that step.

To get to the BIOS, you simply press <F2> when the machine is first starting up: when you see the Sony logo, or better yet, when the screen is still blank but the power is on, just start hammering <F2> until you see the blue-and-white BIOS screen; if Windows starts booting, hold down the power switch until the machine turns off, and then turn it back on and try again.

The BIOS screens look like these: (Click an image for a larger view)

The simplest thing to do is to hit <F9> to reset all of the settings to default, and then <F10> to save and exit. This will ensure that the BIOS is set to boot in the order shown in the photo: Optical (CD), then Floppy, then Hard Disk, then Network.

Step 3. Boot the disk.

If the BIOS is set correctly, and you have a drive that works, booting is easy. Make sure your CD-ROM or floppy is in the drive, that the drive's power is turned on (if it uses external power), and then turn on the computer. Your CD or floppy should begin booting almost immediately. From here on out, it's more-or-less smooth sailing.

Troubleshooting

If you see Windows starting up, it didn't boot, which means that one of the following is true:

The CD or floppy disk is damaged or bad.
The drive it's in is broken.
The BIOS is set wrong.
The drive it's in is incompatible with the U101 for booting.

You can test which one of these is true pretty easily. Here's how you test each one of those above:

If the CD or floppy is good for booting, it can boot another computer, right? So stick it in another computer (preferably not a laptop) and reboot the computer. If the CD or floppy doesn't boot, that suggests it's a bad disk. (Just be sure to quickly hit the computer's reset switch after the disk starts booting --- you don't want to reinstall the OS on that machine, after all!)
If the drive is broken, then it won't work if you attach it to another computer. Just attach it to another computer (again, preferably not a laptop), and see if you can read disks with it. If you can, then it works fine.
If the BIOS is set wrong, then go back up to step 2 and make sure that the BIOS is set right. Set it to defaults (F9) if you have to.
This one is hard to test directly. So if your equipment passes the other three tests, then by process of elimination, you must have an incompatibility. Return the drive and get a different one.