Help me to upgrade to Windows 8.1 on NP530U4C-S01IN - Samsung Series 5 ULTRA

Hi all.,

my situation

I have NP530U4C-S01IN - Samsung Series 5 ULTRA came with Windows 7

I have a windows 8 upgrade key. I now decided to move to Windows 8.1

I was thinking of a clean install of Windows 8.1, formatting my PC

I then realized that If I format, the Samsung recovery will be gone too.

I also thought of the following:
- Do a Windows 7 factory restore (from Samsung recovery)
- Take a backup of Recovery (Optional)
- Upgrade to Windows 8 & then Windows 8.1

With this I will retain the recovery. Unfortunately there is a problem with this. i have a 1TB HDD and when I bought this it came with 1 TB in C:\ . I made a logical partition to C: & D:

Last time when I did a restore from recovery, I lost the D:\ meaning it wasn't showing up. After some days of struggle and running multiple software I got the D: back with all data in tact. Sadly I don't remember the software name.

What all options do I have to do a clean install of Windows 8.1 and

- Retain recovery
- retain D:\ with data

 

Hello Ripcord999, welcome to NBR.

First of all, the fact that your Series 5 came with Win7 is significant:

A) You do not have the risk associated with UEFI mode (on Win8 models) that many Series 5 and 7 owners have run into when they try to clean install. As long as you keep UEFI disabled in your BIOS, everything will be simpler.

B) You have the older Samsung Recovery Solution 5 which is difficult to backup. It does not have a built-in backup feature like the newer SRS6, and partition image backups using Acronis or similar common tools don't work (they destroy a necessary link in the partition table when you restore them). You can back it up manually using the steps in the post here. Just know that if you ever need to restore Recovery, it will wipe the entire disk in the process.

C) If you decide to clean install Windows, you don't have to delete the Recovery and Data partitions -- as many installation guides here suggest. In fact, I recommend you leave them alone and just format the Windows partition. Use the steps in this guide (post #40 in that thread). The drivers are a bit different for Win8.1, but SW Update should give you the correct ones. As stated in that guide, you need to install from a DVD drive or you will run into boot problems caused by Windows Setup being confused by the small ExpressCache SSD. If you MUST install from USB (and I really don't recommend it) you can to use the workarounds described here (posts #1 or #2 of that same thread).

When you clean install Win8.1 using a Win8 Product Key, you need yo use a generic Win8.1 key (such as XHQ8N-C3MCJ-RQXB6-WCHYG-C9WKB), but NOT Activate during Setup. After completed installation, you change the Product Key (using the System control panel) and Activate with your Win8 product key. Others (like this) suggest a registry hack to update the Product Key.

D) Going the update route instead will avoid some of the issues when clean installing on this model. However, there can be other issues when updating to Win8.1, as some members have found. Make sure to study our Win8.1 Update thread first. Read the opening post and scan the last 10 pages for relevant posts. It is important that you install all updates from SW Update AND Windows Update both before and after running the Windows 8.1 update.

I have not tried updating directly from Win7 to 8.1, but this Microsoft guide explains how. Presumably it will take your Win8 Product Key (since 8.1 is a free upgrade). If you have any activation problems, Microsoft support should be able to help you. You own that license.

E) Regardless of whether you clean install or update, you must update to the latest BIOS before you start. As described in our BIOS Update thread you want to run the BIOS Update utility outside SW Update, save the BIOS update file itself, and run it standalone. This minimizes risks of problems during the flash process.

F) I absolutely cannot recommend that you proceed with any of this without first making a backup of your data to an external drive (including that Data partition). Many things can go wrong -- and have, in the case of Win8.1. If (for some reason) you decide to clean all partitions you need dual backups so you never have a single point of failure.

I hope that covers it. Let us know about your progress.

 

wow! thank you @Dannemand for such detailed steps. I will follow them. I have lots of pages to cover before I even start the upgrade / fresh installation process

I purchased this model in Dec 2012 which came with 15$ windows 8 upgrade.

thanks again for detailed description

One question though. You have mentioned in point C, it is sufficient for me to format the Windows partition. Does that mean I don't have to bother about the other steps and Recovery will remain intact? If that is the case then I don't have to worry about backing up the recovery

I only want to do a fresh install of Win 8.1 and in case of downgrade use the recovery to go back to Win 7

 

Yes. If you format only the Windows partition and do not touch the others then the recovery system will still be intact.

John

 

This is exactly what I want, just to format C:\ and install windows 8.1
Worst case use Recovery to go back

I will try this then. Thanks a lot to you both

 

UEFI is disabled in Bios. But USB booting not happening. Any idea why?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Make sure that the Fast Boot / fast BIOS option is disabled (in (Easy) Settings or the BIOS).

This option, when enabled, skips checking for bootable USB devices in order to shorten the boot time.

John

 

I don't think this model will let you disable Fast BIOS in Easy Settings (Fast Boot in there is a different feature). Just disable it in BIOS settings, as John mentioned.

Again, installing from USB on your model is tricky business, as described above. I highly recommend you install from DVD.

 

yeah the USB install didn't go through as described above

Burned a DVD and installed Win 8.1 via DVD. All went well with DVD

installed drivers from samsung. As expected some didn't install.

I have to activate my windows as phone activation seem to be not working here in Germany. Do they have any fixed timings?

 

I now don't have "Fast boot" and many other settings in Samsung Easy settings. Wondering what's not there

 

Got Windows activated now

Thanks a lot for your expertise.

Have some trouble with Samsung drivers / utilities but I think I can live with it

Cheers to all

 

Note that there is a version 2 of Easy Settings included in installation package of Settings (as supplied for Windows 8).

However, the newest versions leave out some of the functions needed for the older (>= 2 years) notebooks. I forget when this change happens but a version of around 2.0.0.50 may be OK.

John

 

Yes there are 2 versions. Win 7 is around 135 MB and the Win 8 is around 56 MB

The Win 7 needed .NET 2.0

I think I try install the Win 7 one..

Thanks again. Found this forum much more helpful .Cheers :thumbsup:

 

Well the installation of Windows 7 version of Easy settings on Windows 8.1 didn't go through. Which means I don't have something. Windows says I have to download "Your hotkey utility is missing a driver." "About your hotkey" => "The model name of your hotkey utility is Radio HID Mini.
"

 

You should use Settings, not Easy Settings.

However, recent versions of Settings have lost some features needed for older notebooks.

John

 

my mistake. It is "Settings"
I checked the fn keys and they are working. No idea how what "Your hotkey utility is missing a driver." means

 

Is the control (in Settings and also Fn+F12) to turn the wireless devices on / off working OK?

John

 

Nope. Fn F12 isn;t working, nor Fn F1, F2, F3, F4, F5
only Fn F5,F6 F7 works (all volume related)

 

Then I would uninstall he Settings you have, reboot and reinstall another version such as 2.0.038 (which is what I'm using). The Settings installation process does various configuration takes including the loading of the Fn key driver. It's all explained in http://forum.notebookreview.com/samsung/729139-settings-easy-settings-what-you-need-know.html.

John

 

Thanks. This worked. Cheers

 

Thanks for the update.

That's good news.

John

 

Also can you help me with enabling "Fastboot" ?

I had this Windows 7.1 Easy settings, I was able to enable/disable "Fast Boot"

I had significant change in boot / wake time

How can I enable "Fastboot" ? "Settings" does not have this

 

Assuming you are referring to the feature Fast Boot Mode under Boot Optimization in Easy Settings (not to be confused with similarly named features) it never got carried over to Win8 for several good reasons:

1) Samsung Fast Boot Mode is a terrible software hack that caused lots of problems for many users (though of course not all). It works by snatching startup tasks that load during Windows 7 initialization, and essentially delays them until after the user has logged in. The result is that the computer APPEARS to boot faster, but just needs more time running these delayed tasks after user login. What's worse, many common software programs get messed up when their startup tasks are not loaded as expected: There is a reason why Windows specifically has different categories for loading tasks before and after user login, and Fast Boot Mode messes that up.

2) With its new Fast Startup feature (enabled by default) Windows 8.x has a much better way to do what Samsung Fast Boot Mode tried to do: On Shutdown, it simply logs out the user, then saves the machine state in its hibernation file. It's not very big, and doesn't take long to save. It essentially performs a micro-hibernation of just Windows itself and its various startup tasks, NOT including user tasks and programs. When powering back up, it quickly loads that machine state back into memory, and is ready to login very quickly. This ONLY applies to Shutdown, NOT to Restart (which will properly close down everything, restart, and re-initialize all drivers and tasks). Samsung Fast Boot Mode would actually slow things down (by forcing some tasks to run after user login, which would otherwise be loaded instantly when Windows resumes) and possibly cause even more havoc than it did in Win7.

Neither Samsung Fast Boot Mode nor Win8 Fast Startup affect sleep/wake time and full hibernation. They take the same amount of time regardless of whether Samsung Fast Boot Mode is enabled or disabled.

There is more description in this post as well as in the thread linked below:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/samsung/729139-settings-easy-settings-what-you-need-know.html

http://forum.notebookreview.com/samsung/688064-how-reduce-latencies-samsung-laptops.html