Reset to Factory Settings Help!

Hey so thanks to some very helpful soul on this forums I was introduced to an ubu live CD, which helped me so much in recovering files on my hard drive when my laptop would not boot up. Now I just have one more question, I have been googling around for an hour and can't seem to figure out how to reset my laptop to its origional factory settings without actualy logging in and running the program.

I thought maybe I could try running it on ubu, but I am afraid as I have no idea how the windows program would handle the ubu operating system running as its trying to do its work. Pluss I dont know how I would find it among my computers files..

Btw, background knowlage, I have a sony vaio vgn-fw14od, if that is important at all. Does anyone know of any way I can reset my computer to its factory settings without having to boot up? I cant get into safe mode either btw. =/

and some questions about resteting my computer:
1. will it then ask me to re install windows? or will I have to buy a windows CD. (my laptop did not come with any CD's what so ever.)
Edit: will my laptop be reverted to as how it was when I bought it, or how it was when the factory made it, without any sort of software or operating systems available within the computer?
2. if the computer will alow me to reinstall windows without the need for any CD, will my origional windows CD key work? (it is a sticker onthe bottom of my laptop)

Thanks
 
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There used to be a freely accessible website explaining the correct hot-key and procedure to enter the Vaio recovery facility at boot.
http://support.vaio.sony.co.uk/tutorials/recovery/recovery.asp?site=voe_en_GB_cons
Unfortunately Sony have seen fit to redirect this to a private owners-only site, where you'll need to register all your details to get the information you need.
The hidden recovery environment (provided it isn't broken too) should give you the option to reinstall Windows or factory-reset the entire PC complete with all the Sony bloat-ware.
Now you've rescued your user data, and if you have friend with a Vista DVD (any flavour - they're all on there) you could choose to format the HDD and reinstall vanilla Vista without all the Sony extras.
Just use the key from your PC, not the one on the DVD.
If you want all the Sony stuff and your recovery partition is toast, you'll need to buy a set of recovery media from Sony if you didn't choose to create your own from the partition when you set the PC up.
 
Thanks for the quick reply, the link you gave me takes me to a europian website, I live in canada and it said my model was not europian so it couldnt offer any support. It didnt redirect to any north american site, and I cant find anything like this for north america.
 
Try sony.com
I'd try it from here but it just says "you're not from the US" and redirects me to the Euro site.
 
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