Sony VAIO VGN-FZ11L; No DVD driver?

**Rick Sanchez** · 25th March 2013

Hi guys,

I'm having a spot of bother with my brothers laptop. I formatted it for him to install Win7 and when I load the disk it asks for the CD/DVD drivers which I downloaded off Sony's site but I cannot source the driver on the USB stick with all of the Vista drivers on.

Any ideas?

Thank you

**DJ OD** · 26th March 2013

Originally Posted by hilljd00

when I load the disk it asks for the CD/DVD drivers which I downloaded off Sony's site but I cannot source the driver on the USB stick with all of the Vista drivers on.

Any ideas?

Thank you

Sounds like something is fucked. Try installing Win7 from USB instead.

DJ OD

**plug1** · 26th March 2013

Yeh I would say the same , iv never had this problem , installing win 7 on a fz11

**Pegasus** · 26th March 2013

I think you mean it's asking for the S-ATA drivers for the hard disk controller, if it needed CD/DVD-ROM drivers then you wouldn't have made it as far as you did during the setup process. If you can't make the driver disk correctly, then you will need to drop the hard disk controller back to IDE Compatibility mode in the BIOS before installing Win 7.

**Rick Sanchez** · 26th March 2013

I'll try the USB idea

if not

hard disk controller back to IDE Compatibility mode in the BIOS before installing Win 7.

any ideas on how to do this? As I cannot see that option anywhere!

Thanks for your help guys

**Over Carl** · 26th March 2013

Is there an option in bios to change sata controller ahci to ata or raid?

Don't like to do this myself as the whole point in ahci is to speed up the drive (something like up to 7% in real world).

I'm also thinking same as pegasus - windows boots up in a limited mode to get it going, then when it tries to do stuff proper it realises it hasn't got a valid sata driver so then it can't see the dvd drive any more.

Go to manufacturer's website, download the sata driver, unzip and pop it on a usb stick and load this during the win7 install.

**Rick Sanchez** · 26th March 2013

I think I've worked it out, their is no 64bit drivers and I'm trying to install 64bit windows...

**plug1** · 27th March 2013

The optical drive , will not need a driver , it's the sata driver your missing for the hdd

**Rick Sanchez** · 27th July 2013

Still cannot find this driver! USB it is then

**DejaVu** · 27th July 2013

Wow! Would have thought 4 months on, you'd have had this sorted by now!

It will definately be the SATA drivers its asking for during the install on Windows 7. You should be able to get them from Sonys Support site.
Boot from CD and have SATA drivers on a USB Stick. When it asks for the driver, point Windows to the SATA drivers on the USB stick and everything will be hunky dorey.

Windows install is pretty good for driver support, but can't possibly support every single one from 1 CD.

It's a strange request for the driver, (CD/DVD Drive) but it DOES mean the SATA drive(r).

Have to do this everytime I install Windows to my SSD. The Windows install cannot see the SSD without the Driver installed.

--edit
BTW, installing from a USB will do the same thing!

--edit2
Attached is the driver you need.

The reason it's not working is because you are meant to use the Recovery to reinstall a laptop, which includes all the needed drivers. A fresh install of Windows most likely doesn't support that particular driver and asks for it during install.

Windows Setup also runs in 32Bit mode. This is all prior to the install so doesn't matter. Once the driver is loaded you can install 64bit Windows without a problem.

Once installed, you will also need to run windows update to get the other drivers or get them also from Sony's Site...
http://www.sony.co.uk/support/en/pro...-FZ11L/updates

Top Tip
I've known laptops to need all drivers (ethernet/wireless etc) meaning no immediate internet connection. Which is where my tethered Galaxy S3 comes in handy. Windows supports it out of the box and will happily use it's internet to hunt for a wireless or ethernet driver it needs to install.

**Over Carl** · 28th July 2013

Download the latest driver from Intel instead of Sony?

I've had luck downloading the latest intel drivers for any similar pc, then once they are installed, look in C:\Program Files (x86)\Intel\Intel Matrix Storage Manager\driver, copy this folder to a usb stick then select relevant options when installing.

Sorry it's not the most perfect guide but I've had a few, if you need any more help on this post back.