Just found this post, which has a similar story:
How to install Win98 SE on laptop with no CD or Floppy Drives?

I'm going to try and fix the floppy drive and use the DOS drivers to see if I can get anywhwere...

Would still be interested in those Sony CD's though!

Use the helpdrivers.com site to get everything. I can't see a search on there but you can use a search like this to find things: site:helpdrivers.com r600hmpd
https://www.helpdrivers.com/notebooks/Sony/PCG-R/

Since your floppy drive is broken, you could either fix that or boot from a Windows 98 CD to FDISK / Format the drive to be bootable into DOS, possibly. You could then take the drive out and put operating system files on it and run those from DOS. That's what I used to do with the laptops that don't have cd-rom / floppy to get Windows 2000 / XP on them.
To actually install from CD, you'd need a CD driver for the PCMCIA thing but that would also hinge on getting the floppy drive working, since PCMCIA CD-rom drivers can only be loaded from floppy from what I recall.

For generic OEM XP, you should set up on a working machine, then run sysprep.

Here is a pretty decent guide:
https://petenetlive.com/KB/Article/0000599

cyclone3d wrote on 2023-06-27, 13:44:

For generic OEM XP, you should set up on a working machine, then run sysprep.

Here is a pretty decent guide:
https://petenetlive.com/KB/Article/0000599

Thanks for that - looks like an interesting read...

nfraser01 wrote on 2023-06-27, 11:34:

Just found this post, which has a similar story: How to install Win98 SE on laptop with no CD or Floppy Drives? […]
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Just found this post, which has a similar story:
How to install Win98 SE on laptop with no CD or Floppy Drives?

I'm going to try and fix the floppy drive and use the DOS drivers to see if I can get anywhwere...

Would still be interested in those Sony CD's though!

UPDATE 1: The driver in that link does not work with the CD -ROM drive I have, even though it's the same model . Also note there is the possibility of a drive name mis-match as the template provided didn't use the same drive label as the Windows 98 floppy I already had.

See UPDATE 2 also.

nfraser01 wrote on 2023-06-27, 09:40:

I can't use an OEM or retail Windows XP install disc because the optical drive is an external PCMCIA driven one. Windows XP gets part way through the install and looses the drive as it's missing the correct driver (I presume)

UPDATE 2: I was curious why this was failing part-way through and decided to look into this deeper after I couldn't get the DOS driver to work. Even though it's PCMCIA, it shows as an ATA drive in the VAIO BIOS, which also gave me the clue that it should work. Turns out the machine had a faulty RAM module in, so once the installer had used up enough memeory to hit the memory area in the seocnd module, it crashed...

Removing the faulty memory module has allowed the Windows XP install to complete and I have a working machine (althougn not with all those lovely "tools" that Sony provides in their installs)

So mostly resolved.

Would still like those recovery CD's though if anyone has them...

Thanks

I looked but could not find anything exact for your model. update: still cannot find a restore disk that covers it

I don't think anyone's got a PCG-R600HMP restore disk to share. Sony were doing something weird with region specificness from what I recall, so the R600 is known as the R505 in other regions?
Personally I bought a specific computer (PCG-SR31K) just so I could use the restore disks on the internet archive 😀 and that's an XGA laptop so I'm happy to share desktop backgrounds and stuff from it. So far I've used the SR31K preinstall on my SR11K as well just cloning hard drives around, the Sony BIOS checks are strict enough that it wouldn't be able to install from the discs.
But that particular one with its S3 Savage graphics and Yamaha YMF744 audio really does best dual booting DOS and Windows 98. So now it's got the preinstall Windows 2000 as well as Wind0ws 98 that can boot into DOS

nfraser01: That's great you found what was causing most of the issues 😀 The driver/software situation for the R600HMPD isn't too bad if you've got a working windows and can get files onto it via USB / PCMCIA, the helpdrivers site I linked has the "R600_Drivers" and "R600_Utilities" for the R600HMPD which does appear to be complete with things like the hotkey and jogdial utility, which is kinda rare to see.
Just install all of the drivers pack, then install the utilities in this order:
1. SharedLibrary
2. DVShared
3. UILibrary
4. SonyUtils
5. SonyNotebookSetup
Then you can install all the rest of the stuff like the hotkey and jogdial software, so you can finally adjust audio volume and brightness

Horun: Sony were pretty forward thinking, my main issue with these Vaios is the lack of PS/2 mouse/keyboard and the lack of DOS support I'm finding for USB mouse/keyboard.
The CD-ROM is less of an issue than you'd think, the BIOS is some crazy sony specific machination that is able to see the PCGA-CD51 PCMCIA CD-ROM as a secondary IDE channel drive, which also works in DOS with some basic enabler drivers. The floppy I only use for initial setup / rescue bootup stuff, most files get transferred over USB or PCMCIA Compact Flash

I might have the R505 discs.

There is also the backup of the Sony Vaio ftp but the filenames are required for most things because they are just randomly named and not organized by model for the most part.

Thermalwrong wrote on 2023-06-28, 12:49:

nfraser01: That's great you found what was causing most of the issues :) The driver/software situation for the R600HMPD isn't to […]
Show full quote

nfraser01: That's great you found what was causing most of the issues 😀 The driver/software situation for the R600HMPD isn't too bad if you've got a working windows and can get files onto it via USB / PCMCIA, the helpdrivers site I linked has the "R600_Drivers" and "R600_Utilities" for the R600HMPD which does appear to be complete with things like the hotkey and jogdial utility, which is kinda rare to see.
Just install all of the drivers pack, then install the utilities in this order:
1. SharedLibrary
2. DVShared
3. UILibrary
4. SonyUtils
5. SonyNotebookSetup
Then you can install all the rest of the stuff like the hotkey and jogdial software, so you can finally adjust audio volume and brightness

Just doing that now - thanks for the driver link...really helpful.

Thermalwrong wrote on 2023-06-28, 12:49:

The CD-ROM is less of an issue than you'd think, the BIOS is some crazy sony specific machination that is able to see the PCGA-CD51 PCMCIA CD-ROM as a secondary IDE channel drive, which also works in DOS with some basic enabler drivers.

Agreed - I noticed the IDE seconday channel in the BIOS was showing the drive, hence why I went back to investigate.

I have a love/hate relationship with sony and their hardware 😀 They do great things like this (PCMCIA -> IDE) and then use obscure hardware (Modems etc) that are hard to find the drivers for. Or release drivers taht don;t work (for my partiocular CD51 at least). And don't mention the melting rubber feet 😀

nfraser01 wrote on 2023-06-28, 15:07:

... And don't mention the melting rubber feet 😀

I ordered a set of original rubber feet from Sony and they were melted in the plastic bag 😀
I never find good replacement for those.

sangokushi wrote on 2023-06-29, 06:23:

nfraser01 wrote on 2023-06-28, 15:07:

... And don't mention the melting rubber feet 😀

I ordered a set of original rubber feet from Sony and they were melted in the plastic bag 😀
I never find good replacement for those.

Dell black rubber feet can be trimmed to work. Won't be the same color but you won't have to worry about them melting.

The gray rubber buttons that were on some older Dell laptops to cover the screw holes on the display bezels have the problem of melting as well. They don't break down exactly the same way and don't cause the nasty super sticky goop like the Sony rubber does.