If you do reinstall the operating system then you will lose anything on the drive as laptop system disks invariably just install right over everything.
It is reasonably easy to pop the hard drive out and install it as a slave in a pc with a usb adaptor.
If the pc doesn't recognise the drive then it has probably got a hardware failure but can still be recovered.
If there is anything precious on the drive then try not to let 'my friend who knows all about computers'! get their grubby hands on it as I find that 100% of the time they know bugger all.
You could have a virus and the easiest way to check is to put the drive in another pc and scan it.
Best advice is don't do anything hasty and it could be worth a call to Sony but I've found them to be the most obstructive and unhelpful company on earth when it comes to their laptops, even when they're delivered dead out of the box.
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