Samsung NP700Z5C-A01DX, stuck at boot menu after bios update.

I have been prepping a laptop for work after a wipe and have hit a problem after a bios update. Laptop is a Series 7 Cronos, model number NP700Z5C-A01DX.

The laptop had Window 7 running on it fine but I noticed there was some problems with the laptop functions. The FN buttons were not working, I had to physically turn off the laptop when I selected 'Restart' (it would sit with black screen and the power LED on after Windows had shut down) and I could not get in the BIOS due to the Function keys not responding (something that I believe is common after trawling these forums).

I grabbed Samsung's auto updater tool to see if there was anything I could grab, which there was a lot. I decided to update the BIOS first (from P03AAG to P05AAG) which appeared to go through fine. The laptop tried to restart and did the same thing indicated above, sitting with the power LED on after everything had powered down, I turned it off and back on.

Now the laptop goes to the Boot Menu and is stuck there, I can see that the machine has detected the HDD and the CD. Selecting the HDD causes the Boot Menu to disappear and then reappear a second or so later, with no attempt to boot Windows which was previously fine. I can get to the BIO, which shows that it has been upgraded to P05AAG and everything else appears fine.

I have read a lot up on the forums here and this is what I have tried;

1. Grabbed Hiren's boot disk and tried to boot from the HDD that way. Just sits there with blinking cursor.
2. I thought that the MBR might have been corrupted so I checked that with Hiren's Boot Disk (reported as OK), and also ran MbrFix in case . No joy there.
3. I thought that the BIOs upgrade might have gone wrong so I used the roll back thread on these forums to put P03AAG on it. This shows in my BIOS as P03AAG (MICOM is still P05AAG), yet this had no effect either.

I'm sort of at a loss now, and wondered if anyone had any ideas bar biting the bullet, telling work I've screwed the laptop and trying to reinstall Windows again? Though to be honest i'm not sure this would help. The main thing that confuses me is that it seems to detect the disk fine, I can see all the files in Mini XP from Hiren's, but it just won't boot anything.

I've tried to use all the info I could on the forums, hence why i'm asking, but it seems that other problems seem to a little different than mine. Any suggestions would be much appreciated!

 

Is there an option between UEFI and legacy in bios?

Edit; I do know some systems with W10 and bios update that are getting the bootrec corrupted, is it possible there was a Windows update that did this too you as well?

 

Have you also tried Bootrec (Microsoft's instructions here)? If so then it could be the CMOS or UEFI data are messed up (this wouldn't be the first time).

You can try resetting as explained in this thread.

John

 

Thinking about it, I think there was a Windows Update pending, though I didn't see any messages such as 'Do not turn off power...' when I was resetting after the BIOS flash. There is indeed an option in the BIOS called UEFI Boot Support. Currently Disabled; I must admit I'm unsure what this setting does, could you elaborate on it please?

I haven't on account of not having the Windows 7 disc with me that was used at work. I do have my own (Win7 Home) disc, do I need to use the same disc as was installed with? Is the SFlash64 fix safe enough to give it a shot without this?

Thanks for the replies, I noticed that Win10 mentioned but just to be clear i'm not really dabbling with that at all.

 

Success! Changing the UEFI Boot Support setting to Enabled has meant that I can boot again! The laptop suddenly light up (literally, I had no idea that was a backlit keyboard!) and i'm in. Thanks a bunch for pointing this out, i'd still be interested in understanding what this is and what turning it on has done.

 

NP, being legacy if the drive was formatted GPT under UEFI boot then it would not see it.