I don't have the laptop back until tomorrow evening, so I can't check right now, but from looking at the internet, Sony laptops don't include this. I'd like to avoid this option if I can anyway, I'd like to keep the Sony Recovery Partition just in case. Usually F10 starts the recovery partition but...

Assuming you've exhausted the partitioning options on the XP disk, does the BIOS contain a low-level format option? Needless to say you will lose all data ever but it might do the trick (if take a very long time). I don't have the laptop back until tomorrow evening, so I can't check right now, but ...

I was resizing the partition of a friend's laptop, and it ran out of battery mid-way. (I know, stupid me.) I've tried using an XP disc (with the SATA drivers) and it can't see the hard drive or any partitions. Ubuntu throws up a bunch of errors when using the Live CD and when trying to install, and ...