Samsung NP540U3C does not boot any drive

Hey guys,

My laptop had 500 GB hard drive that got broken. It was loading windows for a very long time and then stuck on boot loop. So I have bought a brand new SSD drive but unfortunately laptop does not see it in the Bootable devices (it is listen in Installed drives section though).

So I have created bootable pen drive as well, also no luck - no visible in Bootable devices.
I did already all the possible combinations, like Disabled/Enabled Secured Boot, Disabled/Enabled Fast bios etc.

Note that all bootable drives I did, works fine in other laptops.

Something got broken in Samsung and I can't get it work. Any ideas?

 

Hi undefinedman, welcome to NBR.

There are a few possible causes of the problem you are seeing. The most common is that the partition layout (GPT or MBR) of your new SSD and the USB stick you created doesn't match the UEFI setting in your BIOS.

First check this post and the links in it to read up on UEFI vs legacy BIOS mode (CSM mode). This is important.

Then follow the advice in this post. There are other potential causes, but let's hope this is all and you'll be able to boot the USB stick after changing either its partition layout or your UEFI settings.

Once you are able to boot the USB stick, there are other pitfalls to installing Windows on this model, caused by the small iSSD used for ExpressCache. That same thread contains most of what you need to know. Post #40 has a complete install guide ( here).

Good luck, and please keep us updated on your progress.