Samsung Q320 Help with Clean Install

I just bought a samsung q320 and was wondering if anyone could help with the clean install.

Specs are C2d p8700 2.53ghz, 4GB Ram, G105 GPU, 500HD Window 7 Home 32bit. Thanks!

 

Which exact model do you have ?

 

And what help do you need? Do you have the Samsung Win 7 and driver discs? If so, first run the former and then run the latter, which probably includes the Samsung software.

John

 

I have the same Q320 as shivahn (except mine is 64bit Windows) and had to perform a clean install because the "easy upgrade" on the Samsung-provided Windows7 disc did not work. The clean install worked fine but:

- I have lost all Samsung-specific drivers and software (the disc provided by Samsung appears to be a generic Windows7 disc and does not contain nor reinstalls the Samsung stuff)

- The recovery partition stays on Vista and Windows7 cannot be recovered from that partition. I guess the recovery partition becomes pretty much useless.

- Everytime it boots, the Q320 now shows a screen to offer to boot in Vista or Windows7 (very annoying)

The help I need is as follows:

- how do I recover the Samsung driver/software? So far, I have gone to the Samsung web site and downloaded all the drivers/software there was available for the Q320 under Windows7. I guess that should work but it takes a while. Is there a better option?

- how can I put a copy of Windows7 on the recovery partition? I did a bit of digging and found a web page that suggests a way to get rid of Vista and copy Windows7 on the recovery partition but I would prefer having a few converging opinions on the matter.

- how do I get rid of the dual-boot message? I suppose that if I succeed with the previous point (install Windows7 on the recovery partition) the problem will go away. Right?

Any info/advice will be appreciated.

 

Hi Dsly, i've been looking around the net and i see you've posted in quite a few forums. I'm in the same boat you are. Exact same situation. I've been looking for the solution to those problems so i'll tell ou if anything comes up. As for the 05LH bios update, it gives me an error when I try to run it.

 

It won't take that long to install the software if you have got it downloaded. You may not want to install everything. I would start with the Easy Display Manager (which gets the Fn key shortcuts working) and the power-related software.

What options does the Samsung recovery solution software offer?

Go to the start menu and type "msconfig" into the search box. Then click on the Boot tab. Try deleting the entry relating to Vista or set the timeout at 0 after ensuring that Windows 7 is the default.

John

 

Thanks John, since asking the question, I have pretty much downloaded everything. Good tip for the Easy Display Manager though, I was worried when I saw that I had lost the Fn functions and I did not realize what Easy Display Manager did until installing it.

As far as Samsung recovery solution Software is concerned, that was not the point of my second question. I still have Vista on the recovery partition (from factory) and I would prefer having Windows7 there be able to restore Windows7 if ever needed (even if I'd be stuck re-loading the Samsung utilities). I don't care if it is a Samsung Recovery Solution managed partition or not, I just want to have Windows7 there...

There is a way to create a Windows7 recovery partition here:
http://en.kioskea.net/faq/4093-windows-7-create-a-recovery-partition
but I already have one that I cannot use because it is hidden. If I can find a way to un-hide it, I could follow the procedure found at that link and then hide it again.

And thanks for the last point about removing the timeout. That does the trick (until I find a way to install Windows7 on the recovery partition).

My charging USB port still does not work though. That's probably due to my laptop still being on 01LH BIOS. That's another question that you have seen already:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=457017

 

Since my last post, I got the following neat and free software:
http://partitionwizard.com/index.html
and was able to assign a drive letter to my old Vista recovery partition. I thought I'd be able to follow this process:
http://en.kioskea.net/faq/4093-windo...very-partition
But it did not work because the "bootsect" command gave me an "Could not map drive partitions to the associated volume device objects: access refused." Any idea on how I could get around that?

 

Haven't checked this out for while... The new BIOS is good, installed it a few weeks ago and its working A-okay (06LH i think it is?). Thank you to John Ratsey for the dual boot problem.

 

does it fix the problem with the charging USB tho? and the fan is no longer an issue?

 

same questions here + one more: did you install the new BIOS on a 32 or 64 bit Win7?