I have a Samsung Series 5, NP550, that was making me very happy until about a week ago when I accepted the Windows 8.1 upgrade that was pushed to me from Microsoft. After installing that, I had some misbehavior of my ethernet card, so I installed Samsung's Software Update to get new drivers and so forth. One thing I accepted was a BIOS update. After installing all the stuff, the PC began to tell me that my boot sector was bad, about every other startup, so I did a system restore back to the point before I installed all the software updates. It did not fix the BIOS misbehavior. I made the mistake of doing what a Samsung tech support agent suggested on chat, which was to reset the BIOS to 'factory' settings - this wiped out the contents of my BOOT tab in the BIOS (P05something, which I guess is Phoenix... and UEFI). Up until then I could boot from a recovery USB, but now I cannot do that no matter what key I tap (F4, F8, F12...), I still get the same error: 0x000000f Your PC needs to be repaired - Tap F2 to enter UEFI settings.
If I cannot get past this with a bootable USB drive, how will having a recovery CDROM from Samsung (which is coming in the mail) help me?? Either the BIOS is corrupt, or I need to find the mysterious setting that is disabling the whole thing. I can easily remove and slave my C drive to recover any files that I hadn't backed up - my fear now is that I won't even be able to recover because I have hosed the BIOS.
Can anyone make any suggestions about how to cure my BIOS problem? The only thing I have NOT done is pulled the battery and drained the CMOS battery so the BIOS forgets itself. Should that help? Should I remove the hard drive and start the computer, so it forgets the hard drive, then put it back so that it treats the hard drive as a new system device? Should I throw the computer out the window? I have been struggling with this for four or five days and gotten nowhere. I would be very grateful for any sensible suggestions. I cannot post screen shots, obviously, but if would help I will take pictures of my BIOS screens with my phone so all settings can be seen. Thank you!
If I cannot get past this with a bootable USB drive, how will having a recovery CDROM from Samsung (which is coming in the mail) help me?? Either the BIOS is corrupt, or I need to find the mysterious setting that is disabling the whole thing. I can easily remove and slave my C drive to recover any files that I hadn't backed up - my fear now is that I won't even be able to recover because I have hosed the BIOS.
Can anyone make any suggestions about how to cure my BIOS problem? The only thing I have NOT done is pulled the battery and drained the CMOS battery so the BIOS forgets itself. Should that help? Should I remove the hard drive and start the computer, so it forgets the hard drive, then put it back so that it treats the hard drive as a new system device? Should I throw the computer out the window? I have been struggling with this for four or five days and gotten nowhere. I would be very grateful for any sensible suggestions. I cannot post screen shots, obviously, but if would help I will take pictures of my BIOS screens with my phone so all settings can be seen. Thank you!
My Computer
System One
-
- OS
- Windows 8 x64
- Computer type
- Laptop
- System Manufacturer/Model
- Samsung NP550P5C
- CPU
- 4ghz Intel
- Motherboard
- SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO., LTD. NP550P5C-A02UB
- Memory
- 4gb
- Graphics Card(s)
- Intel
- Sound Card
- "High definition audio device"
- Monitor(s) Displays
- Generic PnP Monitor (15.3"vis)
- Screen Resolution
- 1366x768
- Hard Drives
- Hitachi HTS547575A9E384 750gb SATA
- Keyboard
- "HID keyboard device"
- Mouse
- "HID compliant mouse" and Amazon wireless mouse
- Internet Speed
- it's Verizon DSL so 2.5mbps :-(
- Browser
- Firefox
- Antivirus
- Avast
- Other Info
- Online Armor
Emsisoft Antimalware
I have Belarc Advisor which can pull info better than the device manager if any is needed.