NP530U3C boot loop after shutdown

Hey all, I'm new to the forums but this seemed like the place with problems most similar to mine so I thought I'd ask in case.

I purchased a factory second Samsung NP530U3C (The 2012 model with Windows 7 installed by default) a while back and thought I'd try out a few Linux distros. It all ran fine then, but recently I tried the Windows Technical Preview. During the installation I did completely wipe the hard drive including a mysterious 350MB partition that I assume was important, didn't think until after it was done since Linux didn't pick it up anywhere. It was fine for a bit until one day when trying to update it started to reboot every time after the POST screen. I tried to do some Windows repair stuff on it but it went through the whole "Can't find Windows installation" and "There was an error" thing, some nice vague error messages. I just tried reinstalling Ubuntu and a few other distros onto the main hard drive (Not the 24GB iSSD), and I found out that every time I shut down and power up again it'll continue in a boot loop. I can still restart and hibernate/suspend just fine though.

I'm guessing it's something to do with the iSSD thing being selected as the boot drive, since after removing the normal hard drive from my laptop I can be certain that the files are all still intact. However I'm not sure how to go about fixing the problem. If it helps, on the BIOS screen which I can get to fine, it says "SATA Port 1 Not Installed" and "SATA Port 2 Not Installed" as if the hard drives aren't recognised. Switching out the hard drive for another one didn't seem to help either.

Believe it or not I am a programmer but when it comes to these problems I have no idea. Also sorry if this has been answered before, it seems like the iSSD causes more problems than it solves :/

 

Check if this thread has the answer to your problems.

If not, you may have to wait for Dannemand to give you some advice. He understands these problems much better than I do.

John

 

Thanks for your reply.

Unfortunately that guide doesn't seem to have helped me. It still seems the BIOS is showing "Not installed" for the drives in the SATA Ports after I ran the "sflash64 /cvar /patch". I'm not sure whether it's safe to properly flash the BIOS so I won't try that unless there's nothing else.

 

I can't see how reflashing the BIOS for your notebook can make things worse but you might want to look through this thread which specifically relates to the iSSD.

John

 

I'm still not really sure what the problem is... I flashed and updated the BIOS perfectly fine. The Windows 7 installation can identify the iSSD as a 22.4GB drive, but says the other drive is 0.0MB. The BIOS still doesn't say the name of the drive, and yet the elementary OS install (And other Linux distros) labels it perfectly fine as a "500.1 GB ATA Hitachi HTS54505". Is there any way to clear the CMOS? I can see the battery when I open the back but it doesn't look removable. Not sure if that'd help either

 

The first way to try to clear the CMOS is to disconnect the mains power, remove the main battery and then hold down the power button for a minute. A more extreme attempt is to include waiting for a day or two. Disconnecting / removing the CMOS battery should help but I'm sure that people have done the basic reset without doing it.

Are you trying to install Windows from a flash drive? It seems to be necessary to install Windows from an optical drive to avoid it being confused by the iSSD as described here.

John

 

The first way to try to clear the CMOS is to disconnect the mains power, remove the main battery and then hold down the power button for a minute. A more extreme attempt is to include waiting for a day or two. Disconnecting / removing the CMOS battery should help but I'm sure that people have done the basic reset without doing it.

Are you trying to install Windows from a flash drive? It seems to be necessary to install Windows from an optical drive to avoid it being confused by the iSSD as described here.

John

 

@Knightwatch: I can see this issue happen if there is a mismatch between the UEFI setting in your BIOS and how the HDD is partitioned. Specifically, if you enabled UEFI, it will insist on looking for a GPT partitioned HDD with a FAT32 boot partition (and your installation source must be formatted the same way). If the HDD is MBR, it may not show up in Windows Setup.

Conversely, if UEFI is disabled in BIOS, your HDD must be MBR in order for Windows Setup to show it. If you previously had enabled UEFI for the Ubuntu installation and your HDD was converted to GPT, but are now back to UEFI=disabled, that would cause the same problem.

If you successfully performed the NVRAM reset (using the sflash64 /cvar /patch command) your BIOS should not be the problem, and UEFI should now be disabled (as we recommend on Win7 models like yours). Try and use the install guide in this post, starting with the GPT-to-MBR conversion steps at the end, and see if that solves it.

And don't worry, even the most experienced techies have fallen through the trapdoors of UEFI installation issues. You're not alone (if that turns out to be the issue).

 

Clearing the CMOS didn't seem to help either, and I have an external DVD drive now but originally I installed via USB. I think I'd prefer Linux on it in the end if I could, I just find it much easier to use on a laptop.

Following the guide I got to the "CONVERT MBR" stage after which I got "DiskPart has encountered an error: The request could not be performed because of an I/O device error. See the System Event Log for more information." Both setuperr.log files I can find are empty. That sounds a bit like this is just purely a hardware issue since it's a factory second, it might not have survived as long as I'd hoped

 

You're right, this could well be an actual disk defect. It sounds like DISKPART was able to see and select the disk (meaning it is not entirely dead) but it failed once you tried to write on it.

Try with a Linux LiveCD/LiveUSB. If you can low-level format the disk from there, it should be alright. You can also convert it to MBR with GParted.

Did you check whether UEFI is enabled or disabled? Again, you want to keep it disabled on these older models.

And if/when you decide to install Windows (assuming you get a working disk) make sure you install from DVD, not from USB. It'll save you much hassle caused by Windows Setup being confused by the small ExpressCache iSSD.

 

Sorry it's taken me so long to try this, but I thought I'd give it another go. UEFI Boot Support in BIOS defaults to disabled and I've left it at that. I used GParted to delete and format the disk and recreated the partition table in "msdos" mode which from what I gathered is the same as MBR (It was already in this after a Linux install). None of the steps seemed to make any difference, it still doesn't manage to boot after a shutdown. The strange thing is that Linux can install perfectly fine onto the disk, and I'm doing that every time after deleting the disk. If there's something else to do with GParted I wasn't sure, I couldn't find much else in the GUI at least

 

Thank you for the update. Yes, on your model definitely keep UEFI disabled for best compatibility, and keep the disk partitioned as MBR.

Next, the symptom you describe matches exactly what would happen if you install Windows from a USB stick on a model with ExpressCache (like yours): Windows Setup thinks the small iSSD is the boot device and places its boot partition there. It's the most classic gotcha with these laptops.

The solution (if indeed that is the issue) is to install Windows again from DVD, OR follow the workarounds in posts #1 or #2 of the install guide I linked previously.

Edit: It's posts #1 or #2 of this thread.

 

Sorry again for the long halt. I managed to get hold of an SSD and installed via external DVD onto it and it's still not booting after a shutdown. I also tried with an old 3.5" hard drive with Windows XP and the hard drive sounds like it starts spinning but then stops after and reboots. Seems like I've hit a hardware issue and I don't think I have warranty on it anymore. Thanks anyway guys, not such a big deal - just have to make sure to sleep instead

 

Thanks for the update. I'm sorry to hear that you have been unable to resolve the problem.

A switch in the BIOS to disable the iSSD would be useful for the troubleshooting, but Samsung like to keep their BIOS options to the minimum.

John