Major display issue

[elTroppo]

Hi all.

I have a major issue I can't seem to solve without having to reformat my Vaio VGN-FJ3S/W and was wondering if anyone else has had the same issue and if so how they fixed it...

Basically, from the begining of starting it up (Vaio logo etc) the screen is black for about 2 inches on the right hand side and when I log in the tool bar on the bottom of the screen has a weird blue line mirroring it underneath as well as the black 2 inch bar on the right. The mouse goes all fuzzy when hovering over it as well (symptoms similar to when the RAM is overloaded - but the RAM can't be overloaded from the very begining of start up can it? and even if it could I don't think it's a RAM issue). The screen has everything in it, it's just that it is reduced to 3 1/4 of it's original size with a 2 inch black border on the right. I have tried EVERYTHING (antivirus scan, adaware scan, defrag, scandisk on reboot etc) and the C drive has 25% free space. It started about 4 months ago when it did it once but was ok after a reboot. It came back randomly a couple of other times but the other day it has come back with a vengeance (9 out of 10 times of rebooting). What happened the other day when it came back was that I kept getting a white screen of death (outlook and some websites I was browsing freezing up and only a white screen showing)and decided to reboot. When I rebooted, the screen was like I described above but seeming to never want to go back to normal no matter what I did.

Sorry, I know that my description above could be confusing and if anyone would like clarification please let me know. (oops, maybe I should have done a screen shot last time it happened)

I am now resorting to reformatting, had been thinking baout doing it to service the laptop anyway. I am just really flummoxed as to what the hell has happened and would appreciate any input that you guys could give me. I have read elsewhere on the forum that Tune-Up software can help resolve things so I'm going to give that a try out of curiosity before I go for the reformat.

Thanks in advance for any advice/feedback,

Tom


PS
When I did the Vaio Diagnostics tests yeaterday the result for the surface scan was thus:

Linear Seek Test OK
Random Seek Test OK
Funnel Seek Test OK
Surface Scan Test Failed

= Surface Scan test did not pass --- (E-HDD-004) =

Does anyone know what this means and, if so, what I can do about it?

[elTroppo]

Is this an unsolvable mystery?

[Blencogo]

You may have bad sectors on your hard drive which can result in all sorts of problems.

From the Command Prompt (Start -> Run and type in CMD and Enter) run

CHKDSK /v

to run a quick scan and see if any errors are detected.

If there are errors run

CHKDSK /R

to repair the disc and to recover data. The chances are that you will have to reboot as CHKDSK /R will need full access to the drive and will need to run on boot.

[elTroppo]

Hi Blencogo and thanks for the suggestion.

I did a full error check and repair using the tools in the C disks properties but it still happened.

I have basically tried everything, including spending the whole weekend backing up my data onto dvds prior to a complete reformat, and it's still happening.

I am now reporting it to Vaio's e-Support team to see if they can figure it out.

Thanks again for replying,

Tom