Samsung Ativ 9 lite not booting after crash. Sata 1 not installed shows in bios

Hi,
Model NP905S3G-K01UK
As per title, the laptop crashed and rebooted to "press f4 to recover screen". Pressing f4 just loops back to same screen. Tried resetting CMOS to no avail.

When entering bios with f2 sata 1 shows not installed. Tried hard drive in spare port of my hp envy and all data seems present which suggests to me that hard drive is okay.

Could this be a brick or is the motherboard faulty? Or is it something glaringly obvious that I've missed?

The laptop is only 15 months old and has only light use and has never been dropped. For this reason I am hoping it is not the motherboard cost wise!!!

Sorry for rambling on!
Hope somebody can help.

Cheers,
Ste

 

Did you try booting the computer without any SSD before putting it back in and trying again? If you can scrounge an mSATA SSD from somewhere you could put it in and see if the BIOS recognizes it.

It may be some BIOS settings are corrupted. Try the simple CMOS reset of disconnecting mains, removing / disconnecting battery and holding down the power button for a minute. If that doesn't help you may want to look at the unbricking thread which includes discussion about clearing the NVRAM / reflashing the BIOS in case it has got corrupted.

If that doesn't fix anything then the mainboard has to be under suspicion.

John

 

You can install the Samsung HDD in the main port in your HP envy. Power the laptop on and keep pressing F2 - it will allow to test the HDD. Run a quick test and if passes, run long test. HP HDD should be removed for this to work properly. Also you can just install HP HDD in your Samsung laptop and see in BIOS if the HDD is detected. If HP HDD is not detected in Samsung, but works fine in HP, I am afraid it would look like a mainboard fault (or the HDD to mb connector, which is highly unlikely).
I hope this helps somewhat.

 

Thanks for the prompt replies.

John, I have tried removing the ssd, booting and then reinstalling. No difference to the fault
I have tried the CMOS reset but whether I did it for long enough is the actual question, so I will try it again.
I have read through the bricking thread so I will have a go at that but I just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something that was right in front of my face.....

Crossing everything that isn't the main board. Do you think I would have a leg to stand consumer wise with arguing the case that it should last longer than 15 months before failing?

Mariussx, I shall try running the tests. The drive in my hp envy is not a ssd though and is not msata so I'm guessing I cant plug it into the Samsung?

Thanks again for the prompt replies

Ste

 

Any notebook should last a lot longer than 15 months unless subjected to a physically arduous existence and this particular model, which is electronically relatively basic, should last longer than most. A mainboard should survive very well unless subjected to excessive heat (which should not be a problem with this notebook with its low powered CPU), zapped by external electrical problems or suffers from fatigue failure due to excessive chassis flexing.

However, your success in getting the computer fixed for free outside of the warranty period will depend on consumer legislation, your persistence and whether the retailer and/or manufacturer likes to have satisfied customers.

John

 

In the bios switch AHCI mode from auto to manual or vice versa.
This at least helps on my Series 9 when the drive gets randomly missing.

 

One other thing that could cause this error, is if your UEFI settings were inadvertently changed. You could try restoring BIOS default settings (on most Samsung models F9 while on the BIOS screen).

Specifically, if your BIOS has a SecureBoot option on the Boot page, you want to make sure OS Mode Selection=UEFI OS. This is based on the assumption that your model came with Win8.x (which I am almost certain it did) and you did not re-install Windows in CSM/legacy BIOS mode.

 

Oled, thanks for that. I think I have tried it but then I may not have so I will double check for how long it takes.

Dannemand, I have definitely tried this one to no avail but thanks for the heads up.

I have downloaded an old bios (p00rbv) but don't know how to find the latest (p13rbv) as I am wanting to try the bios roll back if it isn't as easy as oled's fix. Any pointers in the right direction?

Thanks again everyone for the help

 

I've tracked down P11RBV which you can get by click on this link.

If you get that far then you can update to the latest BIOS by using Samsung's BIOS Update program (link in first post of this thread) or you can hunt down P13RBV using the BIOSfinder program here. It's a brute force iterative program that tries all the combinations. The sequence number will be higher than that for P11RBV and the date more recent.

John

 

Quick update.... Thought i'd cracked it when the HP was not recognising that the samsung's hard drive had an operating system so repaired it using bootrec and it booted on my HP....... Still not recognised by the Samsung.

Tried the Bios but when I run it and go to the samsung update folder there is only a DebugAppLog file?! Am i doing something wrong or do i need an earlier version of the BIOS?

On a separate note I rang the service providers for Samsung and they quoted £185 plus labour at £45 an hour.........That's more than half the price that i paid for the laptop so i don't think i'll be going down that route.

Thanks for all the help. I'm sure i can remember having P04RBV BIOS at some point so i'm gonna try and find it using the brute force app to find it. I may be some time.......

 

It is possible that the BIOS installer only extracts everything if it feels the need to do the update, which will only apply if you are trying to install a newer BIOS. Alternatively, you aren't looking in the update folder at the right moment.

As the other threads on similar problems have demonstrated, a lot of persistence may be required to find what works in a particular set of circumstances.

John