Mods, I'm not allowed to send messages yet. Can somebody summon wiretap to this thread?

I really don't know how to help with the issue. I don't have the original restore discs and haven't been able to source them. From what the original owner of my computer told me, these things are very hard to fully restore and update with the OEM discs. They are very picky with the order of the software installed, and driver versions.

wiretap wrote on 2020-01-29, 01:01:

I really don't know how to help with the issue. I don't have the original restore discs and haven't been able to source them. From what the original owner of my computer told me, these things are very hard to fully restore and update with the OEM discs. They are very picky with the order of the software installed, and driver versions.

After some trial and error experiments looks like I managed to localize the problem.
If I boot the computer WITHOUT anything plugged in to both USB ports, MX-LCD with control buttons works fine. If something is inserted to any of USB ports prior to boot, MX-LCD driver won't load.

I'm not an expert in windows OS. Is there some kind of USB devices priority in there? Like when you have multiple network adapters.

Good Day, I don't have many suggestions unless there is something within the BIOS that is trying to do something with the USB ports, but I don't know what what would be, I just got the same PC and will mess with it myself, but my main reason for resurrecting this old thread is to ask for the Keyboard, Mouse and Speaker model numbers as I can't find nor cross-reference the actual part numbers Sony has listed in the service manual, I want to get the correct equipment it should have come with. Also, your photo doesn't show it but did you get the remote with it and what model is it as well?

JuddSandage wrote on 2021-07-11, 09:31:

Good Day, I don't have many suggestions unless there is something within the BIOS that is trying to do something with the USB ports, but I don't know what what would be, I just got the same PC and will mess with it myself, but my main reason for resurrecting this old thread is to ask for the Keyboard, Mouse and Speaker model numbers as I can't find nor cross-reference the actual part numbers Sony has listed in the service manual, I want to get the correct equipment it should have come with. Also, your photo doesn't show it but did you get the remote with it and what model is it as well?

Hi. Sorry for the late reply. The photo I posted is not mine. I found it on the internet. I got my MXS10 without any accessories.
But since my first post here, a friend of mine managed to get PCV-MXS2 (japanese MXS20) complete in the box.
I made backups of it's recovery CDs. Soon I'm gonna upload image files somewhere.

Keyboard and mouse - PCVA-KB2P (set)
Speakers - PCVA-SS1
Remote - RM-MXG1

Hey everyone. I found this website looking for others that have this machine like myself. I have a PCV-MXS5R from Japan with restore windows disk and the restore software disks. I also have a few things to go over and would like to see if the american pcv-mxs20 USA software will run on this machine. I intentionally bought this for the Minidisc drive. It displays as installed. loads a minidisc. says loading. but nothing spins as i took everything out and studied the mechanism and watch it take the disk. say loading. nothing mechanical happens otherthan slot loading going down. after a few seconds maybe 30 it spits back out only to not be able to recieve anymore disks until reboot.

I took everything apart. (im well versed at diagnosing electronics to a degree...)

anyways it slot loads my disk and virtually does nothing. no motor or laser action whatsoever. Now I noticed at the top you fixed your net md drive? could you possible help a brother out on where to possibly get parts? or how your drive was malfunctioning and what you did to fix it? I can post pictures of my drive. also since its being detected. it should be functional...ie panel says loading etc. one oddity i found was a burn mark on top of the netmd drive that smells like something or a soldering iron was rested on there. its that electrical burn smell, but oily. I think someone may have tried to repair this before without any luck. I d just like to compare drives. etc to someone who has a working one so I can further troubleshoot my issue. if it loads the disc i just probably have a dead laser.

after I had gone through the minidisc fiasco so bummed out my main function isnt working.. I took a regular netmd player and installed xp pro sp2 tried to pull all drivers with a great program I'll list. its called DD or DBB i think. it pulled the same drivers as the recovery disk has. one curious thing is i have an untouched recovery partition as well I do not know how to access. I never imaged the drive but when I recieved it they imaged the drive and installed the mx440 drivers for me and gigapocket was working. after a fresh install I get errors with tv tuner setup and cant even run gigapocket anymore. so a few missing things. I can navigate japanese xp no problem. my discs are immaculate. I have the remote and original dvd case for my discs. I will image and up them and maybe we can swap US for JP and see if it detects the motherboard correctly someway. I was planning on going to os dev or beta archive to see what the software installer is looking for since the japanese software disc wont autorun the unpackers they are all sony bin files with all the installers. I managed to get a few installers out but still my poor minidisc drive. sonic stage premium doesnt even recognize my portable nz 10 netmd the black popular one. so i tried sonic stage and that just corrupted sonic stage premium. vice versa. so another no go. then i decided to rip my md player apart and make my own slot loading bay drive out of a damn player. now im moving on to hi-md..might sell th off since my main use was to be minidisc. I paid a hefty price. seems as though these md drives die alot! any help on items or parts is appreciated and wil return my copies of software and os disks after I hear back from one of yous. I can extract the mx panel drivers and software. I believe it runs in english US version of windows and the remote works as well without sonic stage premium. it just doesnt know what apps to default to. only good for powering on and volume really until i manage another tuner card or get gigapocket working. im getting tuner error 6006 or something. i tried gigapocket usa version installer I found a zip for that I will include as much as possible! what sucks is if you install sonic stage 4.3 US i believe the one bundled for win10...it shows in device manager as "Sony NET MD' as apposed to the internal "NET MD DRIVE". any help is well apreciated. lets keep these things going and maybe we can start an IRC channel. I'll be in xbinx

happy thanksgiving!

EDIT: I dissembled the entire netmd drive today, fully this time to compare to the aliexpress parts. I tested all my motors with a AA battery from multiple traces so all motors are functional. I triple checked the lasers listed and found the correct one on that site and cross referenced mine. the only difference is the newer lense does not have the shaft screw piece. but has a shield near the laser which mine did not have. and considering mine was taped closed from the oem manufacturer its never been opened before. so they must have cut cost on the metal shield and went with tape around the open areas. so I will update in one month.

side edit note 2: my hdd contains 3 partitions. 1 is a 5gb recovery non recognizable by windows. under gparted xubuntu 14.04 shows as a ntfs diag partition. I changed the flag and booted directly to the recovery. the recovery is the same as the recovery disk I have to reinstall windows and looks the same. considering the size I'm wondering if my recovery dvd is dual layer or not or if the manufacture recovery on the hdd is any different. so now I DD'd the recovery partiton to a usb for safe keeping and will run the hdd recovery to see if there are any differences from the disk I have. I also have the disk for my model which installs all software. once installed if you run the autorun again it allows you to choose which software to install, but only after the disk installs them all initially which is odd. I wish that list could come up on a standard US machine but since you have to run the main installer first and it does its proprietary first install of all software it says in japanese or ????????????ok???????pcv????VAIO??? and nothing runs. I am going to ask on OSdev and also Beta Archive if there is way to bypass the check or figure what the installer looks for. considering its a proprietary sony xp installer I think there is some kind of OEM serial or key in registry. I also used DOUBLE DRIVER to backup all my drivers. even though a fresh install will contain a folder with all said drivers. I will soon be working on extracting all the packages and installers for a US conversion. I managed to change as much as possible to work in english and its helped in alot of areas actually. I know xp like the back of my hand so either way I'm comfortable and prefer the authenticity. though I want to see if any of this software can run on vista after I have a proper backup of my original hdd recovery and recovery disks are going to be backed up and shared. sorry for long edit. its been a long day and I keep coming back with updates. one month ill post my laser results and hope I can piece this back together. I plan on making a double edit with some photos and progress or maybe a wordpress blog to link to so im not spamming here. later.

Hello, can you please upload restore disks for mxs5r to archive org?
I have a mxs7r and also hdd image from the topic is mostly worked for me, but i still struggling to find magicgate drivers, they seem to be different from us release.

First time poster and glad to find this thread! I have started collecting a few of these old school Vaios. First one I picked up was the Japanese PCV-MX5GK - old school MD player desktop with Windows 2000 (prior generation to the MXS series). Love the old school design. Did not come with the restore disks but luckily the entire HDD and its partitions are intact with all original Sony software. It has been safely imaged. I recently picked up a PCV-MXS2 and am hopeful to get it up and running trying out the MXS20 image. Besides the slight clock speed difference, the rest of the hardware seems identical. Will post results!

Fortesquedaniel wrote on 2021-09-06, 12:43:

Hi. Sorry for the late reply. The photo I posted is not mine. I found it on the internet. I got my MXS10 without any accessories […]
Show full quote

Hi. Sorry for the late reply. The photo I posted is not mine. I found it on the internet. I got my MXS10 without any accessories.
But since my first post here, a friend of mine managed to get PCV-MXS2 (japanese MXS20) complete in the box.
I made backups of it's recovery CDs. Soon I'm gonna upload image files somewhere.

Keyboard and mouse - PCVA-KB2P (set)
Speakers - PCVA-SS1
Remote - RM-MXG1

If possible I would greatly appreciate a way to get those recovery CD images for the MXS2!

Mods - I know this thread is somewhat dated but I am unable to message Fortesquedaniel due to Newbie status. Any help in getting him to see my request for MXS2 recovery discs is appareciated!

So, not to preform a necro on this thread, but trying to find out if Fortesquedaniel was able to rip the recovery discs, as well as snag up the part numbers for the keyboard and mouse?

And I just realized he did post the part numbers, ok nvm, still want to know about the recovery discs.

Hi guys. Sorry, it's been a while... better late than never.
I'm trying to upload disc images to Archive_org but they keep marking it as a spam. e-mail support is silent.
So here's temporary link on my google drive https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1kV4lb … uNW?usp=sharing

https://archive.org/details/pcv-mxs2r-recovery/

3 CDs - system recovery Windows XP (Japanese)
2 CDs - bloatware and drivers

Fortesquedaniel wrote on 2023-08-28, 09:08:

Hi guys. Sorry, it's been a while... better late than never. I'm trying to upload disc images to Archive_org but they keep marki […]
Show full quote

Hi guys. Sorry, it's been a while... better late than never.
I'm trying to upload disc images to Archive_org but they keep marking it as a spam. e-mail support is silent.
So here's temporary link on my google drive https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1kV4lb … uNW?usp=sharing

https://archive.org/details/pcv-mxs2r-recovery/

3 CDs - system recovery Windows XP (Japanese)
2 CDs - bloatware and drivers

Included software:

DV gate Ver. 2.5
MovieShaker Ver.3.3
DVDit! For Vaio
DigiOnSoundLight
RecordNow DX
PictureGear Ver.5.1
PictureToy Ver.1.1
DigitalPrint Ver.1.1

SonicStage Premium Ver.1.1 for MX
MediaBer DVD
GigaPocket Ver.4.5
PicoPlayer Ver.5.0
iRCommander
Simple DVD Maker Ver.1.1
Beatnik Player Ver.2.0

Gen-On music visualizer
MusicShaker Ver.1.4

Q-ze Talk Ver.1.1
Smart Capture Ver.4.2
URecSight Ver.2.1

Navin’ You Ver.5.5
MapCutter Ver.2.0

VAIO Action Setup Ver.1.4
VisualFlow Ver.2.1
CyberSupport Ver3.1 for VAIO

p.s. Since then, I've also managed to get this beauty

Hey all sorry it’s been a while. I am looking to sell my mxs5r. Also I will try to upload the discs to try and help with the magic gate issue mentioned above. I was hoping to try the mx20 image on my Japanese machine but I think the tuner card is ntcs-j and not compatible, drivers are very iffy for sonic stage depending on order of install it will corrupt trying other versions. The install is weird sometimes it works with one disk other times asks for both? Drivers installed thru the installer install more drivers I noticed than you can manually for the mx screen specifically, after the first install if you insert the disc the driver menu installer looks different than the first time options. Anyways… mines the Japanese mxs5r

i can get MX5GK driver. data from niizan japan user.

https://archive.org/details/SONYVAIOMX5GK_RECOVERY

need then user this. tested already.

wiretap wrote on 2018-06-18, 03:37:

In the meanwhile, I snapped an Acronis image of the system in its OEM state. https://archive.org/details/PCVMXS20DiskImage.7z

This is to thank for this upload. It just helped to restore another mxs-20. Only have issues with MemoryStick adapter. A have a few cards which are workings fine on another card reader, but the MemoryGate won't read them. Anyways, thanks a lot!

Cheers!