Samsung Recovery Problem on Windows 8.1

That was the first thing that I tried, but Win 8.1 has erased all automatically created restore points at installation. Which is pretty stupid and can be desastrous for many people if that is what the update to Win 8.1 is really supposed to do. Microsoft WTH?
Never created these on my own, though, as I have always trusted in SRS.

Second thing that I have tried but it leads to the same error as if I want to do the recovery from the regularly booted system. F4 booting does work without a problem. I can see and select all restore points but it never initiates the restore because of the problem with target partition size.

After some thinking I came up with the same idea. Setting it back to Win 8 factory state and restoring my latest Win 8.0 point should fix the partitions.
The bootable Factory Image will be created from the hidden recovery partition, right? This can be done anytime as long as this partition has always remained untouched?
As long as SRS does work on my system with F4 booting and is not somehow corrupted, I should always be able to set my laptop back into factory state with a bootable image like that, is that correct?
Then I will definitely create a bootable image, to be safe for the future. I think I have a factory image among the recovery images but of course it's not bootable... Need to by a 32 GB stick first, though.

You mean that I should copy the Samsung Restore folder with my images onto a second external HDD, not creating two bootable sticks, right? Not a problem, enough HDDs lying around.

Absolutely.
So is my problem more common then? I could not find anything after googling for my error message.
On the other hand I am still wondering if I really should go back to Win 8 as I only have problems with the outdated touchpad driver and no other issues so far. Additionally, I have experienced a siginificant speed increase at booting. On the long term I would also like to have up to date OS because of security reasons. If Elan would fix the touchpad asap everything would be fine. Cmon, its already 3 months since launch, what are these people doing? Can we expect a fix it at all?
Nevertheless I will definitely create a bootable factory image and try if it works (does properly boot), just to be safe for the future.

Lastly:
AFAIK sometimes changes have to be made in the BIOS when trying to boot from a different medium, e.g. if the PC boots too fast for hitting some key or something like that. Then I think that PCs with x64 OS have a BIOS successor called EFI/UEFI these days? Is my model affected by this? Am I required to change some settings there in order to sucessfully boot from a USB stick? The last time I changed something in a BIOS has been a few years in the past and never really had to boot from other media, so please enlighten me on that.

Thank you very much for the help, Dannemand!

 

Correct. As long as your Recovery partitions and F4 link are intact, you should be able to boot Recovery and restore Windows to factory state. You enable the Partition Settings option in Recovery to wipe and recreate the partitions (as opposed to just restoring data to the existing partitions).

The Bootable Factory Image backup on USB stick is a great fallback, because it works even if the disk (Recovery partitions and/or F4 link) become damaged. It re-images the entire drive to factory state, including rebuilding Recovery.

I actually meant your personal data, anything on the disk that's important to you: Definitely have a backup of that before messing with Windows updates, Recovery etc. But even more, if you know your disk will be wiped (such as when using Recovery to re-image the drive) you need a secondary backup on different media, since you know you're losing the primary.

That's true for Recovery backup as well when you're planning to re-image: create a regular (non-bootable) factory image on an external HDD as well as the bootable USB stick. And test the stick.

I have discussions like this almost every day here - even more now with 8.1 damaging Recovery. If you check other threads here in the Samsung forum, you'll see 2-3 other similar ongoing discussions right now (but different angles). I sometimes get them mixed up when I post answers, because I cannot remember one context from the other

You could create the bootable USB backup as fallback, then just continue using 8.1. I'd probably do that in your case.

You really need to understand UEFI and GPT to safely do installation and updates on any recent computer. I'll post some links for you when I get to my PC.

Edit: Check this post for more info on UEFI and GPT, including links to must-read articles from Microsoft. THis affects all computers delivered with Win8 (and 8.1). Not knowing about it has caused major headaches and even lost data for many members -- and kept us busy here since Win8 came out. Win 8.1 is just adding to that with the driver and Recovery issues.

No problem. Hope you get it working alright

 

hi,
I have an NP530U4C, I am trying to create a factory image using a 16GB USB, the space required is 14.1GB. I press F4 while the laptop is booting to enter the recovery.
when I choose to create the factor image, it starts working and create the bootable disk and proceed to export the image, if fails when it reaches 70%. tried several times but it does not work.. any idea ?
thanks

 

Hello asalousa, welcome to NBR.

First of all, I deleted your duplicate post in the Series 5 thread. Please avoid posting the same question in multiple threads or forums (so-called cross posting) as described in our forum rules. But don't feel too bad, many new members do it, that's why we point it out.

I think the reason you cannot complete the bootable Factory Image backup is either (1) you really do need a 32GB USB stick in order to contain both the Factory Image and the Recovery software (that's the bootable part) and (2) maybe your USB stick isn't compatible with Recovery.

Unfortunately Samsung Recovery Solution is very picky about which USB flash drives you can use for bootable backups. It MUST be one that acts as a removable drive, not as an HDD -- which many newer sticks do, particularly ones from SanDisk; and it MUST be a USB2 stick, not USB3.

If you follow the first two steps in this post, that will ensure you have a good backup.

Please keep us posted how it goes.

 

Actually there is no need of an USB flash.

I successfully managed to create and replace the Samsung factory image with the following procedure:
1. Clean your windows installation (Win 8 or 8.1)
2. Boot into recovery (F4)
3. Create a image (Backup). The files will called user?.*. Note: The files will have the read only flag set
4. In Samsung Recovery open the maintenance tool by pressing Ctrl-Alt-F10. Use SECCLX as password
5. Open a cmd window.
6. Remove the RO attribute with ATTR -R user?.*
7. Rename all user?.* files to init.* (REN user?.* init.*)
8. Remove the original init.* files (after to have made a backup of it somewhere). Note you will have to remove the RO flag first.
9. Import your custom image (created in step 3)
Done!

At the end of the restore process an error message will be displayed. Don't worry. Restart your computer in recovery mode again (F4). It will then ask you to fix the problems. Allow it to do so. Reboot. Done!

 

Thank for for sharing that. Yes, this can be used to replace the Factory Image with a custom image backup. Users who do not care to preserve their factory image (so they can factory restore) could even delete their entire Recovery Data partition (just leaving the recovery Boot partition) and backup/restore images directly to/from an external drive (as described here).

But this still requires your Recovery to be intact and bootable (F4) in order to be useful. Most users who end up wishing their Recovery back either lost both partitions (because they wiped their disk) or they lost the F4 link (after modifying or restoring Recovery partitions with 3rd party tools).

What makes the bootable Factory Image backup so useful is that it is a self-contained Recovery that can be booted, and used to re-image the entire drive (or a new drive) to factory state. But that kind of backup can only be made to a USB flash drive.

The "clean" alternative (for users who don't care about their factory image, but want to use a custom image) is to create an Admin Tool on a small USB flash drive (as described here). That, too, can be used to re-create Recovery and then restore an image. It's just a lot more work...

 

Hello Dannemand,
You are right. i got a 32GB USB2 Sony flash and managed to export the factory image successfully.
Thanks a lot for your help.

 

Excellent, good job. And thank you for confirming that it worked with the Sony stick.

 

Thank you 4n0nym0us and Dannemand. You saved me many many hours of frustration. In my case recovery worked beautifully in 8.0, it was 8.1 that screwed things up. Of course I didn't notice that until I really needed it to work... Anyways, because of your excellent work, I am now back on win 7, and thinking about staying there for a while.

I got a win 7 boot DVD, and deleted c and 100 MB partitions. As soon as win 7 was installed, f4 and recovery worked like a charm. I then reinstalled win 7 from recovery.

 

Hi Joe, welcome to NBR.

Thank you for the feedback. Good job getting your computer back on track.

Yes, there is no doubt now that Win8.1 can have this effect on the Recovery of Win7 models. Interestingly, some of Samsung's models from 2014 are now delivered with Win7 again, and on those models they use the original SRS5 (just like earlier Win7 models). But those same models are also officially supported for Win8.1, and delivered as such in other countries.

So will those new Win7 models suffer the same SRS problem if updated to Win8.1? Or do they have a patched version of SRS5 that is more resilient? We'll know when/if some of those owners try updating.

Thanks again for your report.

 

My problem was not solved as far as I read and followed the previous solutions. Either my situation is different or I didn't understand what to do exactly.

I have created a backup image of my Windows 8.1 by using Samsung Recovery, then I took back my computer to the factory settings by using my recovery USB that I have created the first day when I bought the laptop. Now when I try to restore the backup I have taken previously I get the message of 'the target partition for the recovery is too small'

I just need my bookmarks from my image, the rest are not needed. I first wanted to extract the archive folders created by SRS ending as .w01 .w02 .w03 but non of the extractors could have opened them. Then I tried using recovery software like Recuva and I was successful getting out all the images, videos and documents from my image. I used the software just like when I used for recovering a deleted file but since my bookmarks were residing in ProgramFiles/Chrome folder, since these kinds of recovery software do not bring program folders back, I still couldn't get my bookmarks.bak or bookmarks.htm from the Chrome folder.

Is there any solution for this? I would like to either extract these Samsung archive folders and find my bookmarks file or recover this image back to life. I can also try this in a different computer if someone teaches me how to.

Since I have sent the computer back to the factory settings by using my recovery USB and then tried to recover my image, I don't think there was anything wrong with my partitions, they must be all okay. One of the question marks in my head now is that the SSD capacity of my computer which is only 128 GB. The image taken was 80 GB and even when I recover the computer to the first day, I don't have more than 70 GB of space.

What can you suggest me to do ?

Thanks.

 

Hello joew02, welcome to NBR.

Indeed, I would have expected that you should be able to restore the backup you created, even after re-imaging the disk with your USB factory image. Did you change the file or folder names of the backup image after you created it on the external HDD? If so, that is most likely why it will not detect it (see this Samsung Recovery guide).

Otherwise, I suppose it is it is possible that Recovery depends on information in its log about where it created the backup (which would be lost when you re-image) although that is not a very useful strategy for backup software.

I suggest you study the thread linked below, in particular member go45cvi's experience as described in there. There is also an extensive guide describing several different Recovery backup/restore techniques, some of which may be useful in your situation.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/samsung/758403-deleted-recovery-partition-but-have-hdd-backup.html

Since you made such good backups, it doesn't make sense that you cannot restore your data.

Unfortunately I am somewhat pressed for time these days, but I will try and watch this one if you report your progress applying what's in that thread.

 

AOA hello thanks in advance
i need help to creat a recovery partition on my samsung notebook 3rd series np350v5c
there was SRS5 WAS pre installed but my hard drive got damaged and now i tried again to creat recovery area using SRS6 for WIN8.1.
I obtained admin tool 6 from mediafire My Files
every thing goes perfect like disk partitioning using srs6 then recovery area installation,then MBR fix then windows installation and then after reboot SRS6 auto launch in audit mode but I did nothing except restart system. then i installed all drivers and softwares. Installed recovery software using admintool in winclone folder.then made initial system image succesfully then i perform a restore to check.
It restored upto 99% and said dont force to turn off the system after restart it will take some time to get your system ready then the system restarted and showed there in no boot device

pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeese heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeellllllllllllllllllllllllllllllpppppppppppppppppp

 

Hello naveed, welcome to NBR.

If I understand you correctly, you are trying to convert a model that originally came with SRS5 and Win7 into one with SRS6 and Win8.1. Is that correct?

I am not sure SRS6 is compatible with your BIOS, although I don't know that for sure. Samsung delivers all Win7 models with SRS5 running in legacy BIOS mode, and all Win8.x models with SRS6 in UEFI mode. Even the new Win7 models delivered by Samsung in 2014 come with SRS5.

If SRS6 is indeed compatible with your BIOS (maybe the limited UEFI implementation in your model will still work) you should be able to re-create Recovery using the guidance in this post (also check the links in it). It assumes that your BIOS has the full UEFI implementation of SRS6 models, which yours doesn't.

 

RESTORING SAMSUNG RECOVERY WITH F4 LINK AFTER HARD DRIVE SWAP – NP550P5C-S05in
(Windows 8 upgraded to Windows 8.1 via the Windows Store)

Let me begin by saying that I did try looking for options online and researching through the various forums available but none of them were either successful, many recommended going to a Samsung service centre, most gave up or entailed reformatting the entire hard disk and starting the set up from the beginning.

Well, fortunately for me I was successful and wanted to share my success with the others.
To go to procedure just scroll down and skip the jabberwocky.

SCENARIO and SYMPTOMS:

I recently upgraded my stock hard drive to an SSHD.
I first used Samsung’s Recovery software to create a clone and then proceeded to swap the hard drives. This was extremely easy and required no operator intervention except for swapping out the hard drives.
Unfortunately for me, Windows 8.1 started crashing repeatedly and my laptop was rendered useless. Basically, I think, something went wrong with the copy process.
Fortunately, I had created a Windows System Image and a Windows Recovery Drive, therefore all I did was boot from the recovery drive, select the “Restore Windows System Image” option and I was good to go.
I also reformatted the new hard disk using the slow format process and disabled secure boot.
Although this brought back a stable windows, the Samsung Recovery Partitions didn’t restore correctly leading to loss of the Samsung Recovery program in entirety.
Thus began my quest to restore the Samsung recovery partitions and the F4 link.
Now most people would actually give up at this point on the point that it would not be worth it and I even know a friend who sacrificed his recovery options for a new SSD. Most of the forums even recommend this.
But, there is a benefit from this. You get a clean copy of windows with your laptop as it came from the factory. There is a quick and easy way to purge all your personal data when you are selling the computer and so on.

What follows next is the procedure to restore the Samsung Recovery Partitions and the F4 link.

PROCEDURE:
WHAT I HAD/REQUIREMENTS FOR THIS TO WORK:

1. A bootable Samsung Recovery USB drive.
I exported a copy of the factory image to an external drive and made it a bootable disk using Samsung Recovery. This was before I attempted the hard drive swap and I believe was the only saving grace. I intend to upload the contents of this drive as ISOs so that others can download and create the recovery drive.
2. A wonderful free (and a little buggy) program called EaseUS Partition Master without which I’d be stumped.
3. A USB key to create the Samsung AdminTool – this can be created using the bootable recovery drive.

WHAT EVERYONE NEEDS TO KNOW because the information available out there is really misleading.
Samsung Recovery requires two partitions – SAMSUNG_REC AND SAMSUNG_REC2
SAMSUNG_REC is the boot partition for Samsung Recovery to load. This partition is 1 GB in size.
SAMSUNG_REC2 contains the factory image and in my case was 19.68 GB.

WHAT I DID and WHAT HAPPENED
1. Boot from the Samsung recovery drive – I first disabled Fast Boot, then selected the external disk in the first boot option and restarted.
2. The Samsung recovery environment loaded and entered the Recovery Management Settings by pressing ctrl+alt+F10. The password I used was “secclx” (“secos” is another password if the former doesn’t work)
3. Imported the factory settings from the external drive in the “Image” option. This will overwrite the image on the disk (which in my case was corrupted, even though present).
4. Created the USB AdminTool. This option was previously not available as the factory settings were corrupt, like I mentioned before. After importing the factory settings, this option became available.
5. Restarted the computer and tried to load Samsung Recovery by pressing F4 – this did not work.
6. Booted into windows, ran Samsung Recovery from windows where I got the dreaded “Recovery partition does not exist” error.
7. Plugged in the USB AdminTool, navigated to \Winclon and ran Admintool.exe. This brought up a set of options and of key concern is the option to “Finalize Recovery Setting”. None of the other options worked and after execution, a prompt with a small procedure appeared along with file “RecoverySettingsSV.exe” that appeared on the desktop and a set of instructions.
8. I ran the “RecoverySettingsSV.exe” file using administrator privileges, from which a command prompt and a set of commands started to run.
9. I tried running the Samsung Recovery program again from within Windows and presto! Recovery loaded successfully.
10. However, when I restarted and tried to get into Samsung Recovery using the F4 – that didn’t work.
Normally I should have let it go at this point, but I was just not happy with it.

Here comes the complicated part.
11. I figured that the recovery partition itself was corrupted and decided to clone the boot partition from my external bootable drive and copy it onto the hard drive. I used EaseUS for this and although it wasn’t all smooth – firstly the partition size was too small which needed to be extended, then the GPT attributes and IDs went wrong because EaseUS just changed them at random. I had to set all of this right and try again. Still no luck.
12. Then I attempted to boot from the USB AdminTool and recreate the Boot Partition and Data partitions. This turned out to be a disaster because I lost windows all over again.
13. Started from scratch with my trusty windows recovery drive and then using the system image restore option.
Normally, I would have let it go at this point at least, right? HELL NO!
14. So I started all over, THIS TIME, when I booted from the USBAdmin Tool I didn’t create new partitions, I just checked the “Reinstall the recovery partition” which reinstalls recovery on the same partition and I got a surprising error – that the partition was too small, despite being 1GB in size.
15. Back to windows and using EaseUS, I shifted the partitions on the hard drive to create enough space to extend the SAMSUNG_REC partition to 1.1GB. Once again, all the IDs changed and I had to change back the GPT attributes to their original.
16. I tried again, using the USB AdminTool – reinstall recovery WITHOUT creating new partitions, Fix MBR and set init date.
17. This solved EVERYTHING!

Samsung Recovery environment works through windows and through F4 flawlessly, like it used to.

 

Hi Gulfmaster, welcome to NBR.

Well done getting your Recovery going on the new SSD! And thanks a lot for sharing it here.

As many Samsung owners have discovered, Samsung Recovery Solution (SRS) is easily disturbed when you clone its partitions using anything other than its own built-in tools (specifically bootable factory image backups or Admin Tool).

The problem is not the Recovery partitions themselves: They are normal NTFS partitions and most 3rd party tools can clone them without problems (SRS6 also has a separate FAT32 Recovery Boot partition, as required by UEFI). Rather, the problem is that SRS relies on an F4 link stored in the partition table, and 3rd party tools do NOT know how to preserve this link.

EaseUS is notorious because it sometimes destroys the F4 link by rewriting the partition table, even when you're merely adjusting partitions on a disk. I generally recommend members stay away from EaseUS. But all 3rd party partition imaging tools (Acronis, Macrium, Paragon, EaseUS etc) lose Recovery when cloning partitions. Clonezilla has been known to work, but ONLY when cloning an entire disk (not individual partitions).

The post here sums up the four different ways of getting Windows and/or Recovery onto a new SSD.

The easiest way, which also preserves working Recovery, is using the Copy Disk feature in SRS. The other way is by using a bootable factory image backup, which has the added benefit of providing a self-contained "Recovery on a stick" that can be used later if the disk gets messed up. Unfortunately, Recovery is finicky about which types of flash drives it supports, and the wrong type can cause corruption -- which may be what you experienced in your first attempt. This post has guidance on that.

Once the F4 link is broken (and without a bootable factory image backup) Admin Tool is the only way to get Recovery working again (although there are tricks to boot Recovery even with a broken F4 link). And prior to SRS6, Admin Tool was the ONLY way, period. But Admin Tool must be created while Recovery is still working -- though member dosibox recently shared links to several different SRS Admin Tool ISOs in this post.

while Admin Tool can create a working Recovery, it doesn't provide a factory image (also called Initial Image) which is unique to each model. Factory images can be backed up either using the backup feature in SRS or by copying the File and Folder contents of the Recovery Data partition (this will also preserve all the drivers stored in the SystemSoftware folder).

I noticed your earlier posts where you requested members share their factory images. Since they contain copyrighted software (Microsoft, Samsung and some 3rd party utilities) we do not allow sharing factory images in the forum. So please do not post images of them, since we would have to delete them.

This subject has been discussed in hundreds of posts here in the Samsung forum, with numerous guides being posted over the last couple years. I recently decided to sum it up in the post linked below, which covers several SRS versions (SRS6 is quite different from SRS5 and SRS4 used on Win7 models) and covering both Admin Tool, factory image backup and manual approaches. We included a link to that summary in the Samsung Forum Sticky List and now use it as the primary reference for Recovery questions.

Backing up and re-creating Samsung Recovery Solution

Google often leads here when users look for Samsung Recovery Solution -- and unfortunately not always to that summary. We could definitely use more members here with hands-on experience in Recovery surgery, so I hope you will stick around to help them

 

Dear Dannemand,

Thank you for the elaborate explanantion, all the links you shared. This is now a bookmarked page on my computer.
Thanks also for your wishes. I'm glad my brains worked. ,
I did use a lot of your help, so the thanks ultimately goes to you for pushing me in the right direction.

I understand your concerns about sharing the images, and unfortunately then, when all that is required is a boot partition (we can create a factory image after that) many users will be at a loss what to do.

I'm sure that the boot partition image can be shared?

I'll keep checking in now and then and see if I can ever be of help.

Good day and good luck!
I applaud your knowledge and benevolence in helping others.

-Gaurav-

 

I would actually be less concerned about sharing an image of the Recovery Boot partition (the small FAT32 partition containing the actual SRS software). But restoring that partition on a disk will NOT in itself make SRS workable on it, since the F4 link still needs to be created (as you found).

Those Admin Tool images shared by member dosibox which I linked above, are a better solution (in my opinion): They contain all the necessary SRS software to create that Boot partition. Members can burn them to a USB flash drive (512MB for SRS4-5 and 1GB for SRS6) which can be booted to create a new, fully working Recovery on the disk (and to Fix MBR, Reset Init Date etc) then create an Initial Image from a Windows installation (either a new installation or a Windows partition restored with a well-behaved imaging tool).

Until dosibox shared those Admin Tool images, the problem was that members usually only came here AFTER they had lost the ability to get into Recovery -- an so couldn't create Admin Tool themselves for their SRS version. But now we have the resources here to deal with most situations -- as long as users have the technical skills and patience to go through the process outlined in the summary guide.

It is sharing of the Recovery Data partition (or Initial Image) with copyrighted Windows, Samsung and 3rd party software which is a problem as far as our rules go.

 

First post to the forums here - but long time reader, after grabbing an NP940X3G Ativ 9 Plus (i7, 256GB, std Samsung model).

The problem in summary: When restoring the bootable factory backup made from standard samsung recovery (SRS6), the SAMSUNG_REC2 partition is NOT restored (contrary to all posts I have seen). Everything else is there, windows fully working in factory state and SAMSUNG_REC is at the end of the disk as intended. But SAMSUNG_REC2 is missing.
Details below.

I went through all the posts I could find about Samsung Recovery Solution in general and the Ativ 9 Plus in particular, including all those usually referenced when questions arise. So I knew what to do....at least I thought I did. Apparently I must have done something wrong at some point.

What i did initially:
- Made a bootable USB backup to a USB 2.0 external hard drive (and YES, it does boot and recovery runs through)
- Made a bootable USB backup to a USB 3.0 stick (works too)
- Made a non-bootable regular backup to external disk
- Created a USB Admin Tool
- Removed SAMSUNG_REC2 Partition
- Extended C: drive and then split to create another D: drive partition (explained below)

What I failed to do:
- Use the other options in Management Mode (i.e. recovery image backup, disk copy, etc...)
- Failed to note SAMSUNG_REC2 size
- Failed to copy contents of SAMSUNG_REC2

Now I want to restore the SSD to factory state (sending the device in for service)
What I tried:
- Boot from bootable recovery disk, selected disk partioning
- Recovery works, but SAMSUNG_REC2 is not restored (see beginning of this post)

I was expecting that, as when selecting disk partitioning in the recovery menu, the image of the disk layout did not reflect the ~14GB reduction SAMSUNG_REC2 would require.

So far, I have tried several things, including deleting partitions C: and D: before restore. At some point I think I might have actually had it - but I screwed it up (playing around) and have not been able to recover SAMSUNG_REC2 since.

My guess is, that myself partitioning the drive must somehow have messed up the partition table (maybe?), so that recovery does not create the missing partition. Next try would be to completely wipe the disk (DISKPART clean). Any reason not to give that a try?
Alternatively, I would try to create SAMSUNG_REC2 myself using admin tool as stated here, hoping that recovery will restore the contents: http://forum.notebookreview.com/samsung/758403-deleted-recovery-partition-but-have-hdd-backup.html
For this, would there be a way to recreate SAMSUNG_REC2 contents from the USB backup (note, that I do not have the init.w01-w03 files, the recoveries only contain a install.wim)?

I hope somebody is still following this thread... Please advise, if you have any idea what I could have done wrong - or even better, what I could try. Thanks!

 

OK,

I apologise for not having tried this before posting. For further reference, based on the experience I just made:

To be absolutely sure the bootable factory image is successfully restored with all original partitions, no partitions should be on the ssd. I did it using diskpart clean.

I don't know if it works if SAMSUNG_REC is not deleted, probably worth the try in case.
So note, that you will lose the recovery on the ssd following above listed procedure. (that's why you have the bootable backup - but it had better worked then)

 

Hi Aerobat, welcome to NBR.

I apologize for not responding to this earlier. I mostly get to the forum during weekends.

I was quite surprised to read that your Bootable Factory Image backup didn't re-create the full factory disk, including SAMSUNG_REC2 -- which contains the factory image. SRS does indeed work with just the single SAMSUNG_REC partition, but of course it can only restore images to which it has access.

Am I understanding correctly that on a later try, it actually DID re-create the full factory disk properly, including SAMSUNG_REC2, but only when you completely wiped the disk first?

If so, that is useful information. The discussion has come up before when members were booting their Bootable Factory Image backup, and it displayed Source: HDD, giving gave cause to wonder whether it was actually using the existing factory image on the disk (if not wiped) instead of the backup on the flash drive.

Any further light you can shed on this is much appreciated. Thank you for posting your experiences here.

 

That is exactly what happened. Once I completely wiped the disk using diskpart it successfully restored from the bootable factory image, including all partitions. I was suprised myself, that it would not work initially.

The good thing is, that it is a fairly simple solution. You just have to be absolutely sure that the backup is booting and working, or at least the usb admin tool is available to you, as after wiping the ssd of course no recovery will be left on the disk.

I assume, that my deleting SAMSUNG_REC2, changing the size of partition C and creating partition D must have somehow changed the partition table in a way, that the recovery was not able to recreate the layout.
Unfortunately I have no other details on that, but I'll continue playing around with it.

 

Thank you. I think it happened exactly as you describe, when you changed the partitions.

I have included your advice to wipe the disk prior to re-creating SRS with Admin Tool in our SRS backup/restore guide.

Thanks again!

 

Hi I have a customer with a Samsung np680 all I am getting Automatic Repair error comes up and reboots
anybody have any ideas. Customer has not created a recovery disk.
any help would be great

 

Hi Rich, welcome to NBR.

We need a little more info: Is the laptop running the factory installation (probably Win8 on this model, and updated to 8.1) or a new Windows installation? In either case, which version?

What did you try so far?

Are you able to get into Recovery by tapping F4 immediately after power on? If so, a factory restore might be worth trying -- if you haven't already.

Restoring default BIOS settings (F9 on the BIOS screen) has been known to solve issues, particularly after BIOS updates or if the user has been changing UEFI and/or AHCI settings.

OTOH, if Windows has already been trying to repair the installation with wrong BIOS settings in effect, the installation could be corrupted, in which case a factory restore or clean install is needed.

Check this recent post for general advice on those settings -- and that same thread for recent discussion of Windows installation in general. But be careful about using the tutorial in the OP.

And check this post for general advice about backing up and restoring the sensitive creature that is Samsung Recovery Solution.

 

Hi its my first time posting and I need help, yesterday I was busy with my samsung laptop and I was trying to recover stuff that was missing from my laptop, while recovering I noticed that data was going to be deleted and I wanted to cancel but there was no cancel option on the screen so I switched off the laptop hoping it will cancel and when I switched it on again it showed me a blue screen giving me two options either system shutdown or Restart system, when I press Shutdown it switches off then switches on again showing All boot are true. press f4 key to recover with factory image using Recovery or any other keys for next boot loop iteration. It goes back to Recovery and shows a blanvk blue screen

 

Hi @nhlanhla, welcome to NBR.

We need a little more information: Which laptop model do you have? Was it delivered with Win7 or Win8 originally? And were you in Recovery or in Windows when you powered it off?

Also, I notice you created a thread in our Alienware section ( here) requesting help for the same problem help. Why did you post it there if you have a Samsung laptop?

 

Its a Samsung NP300E5C I bought it in March 2013, yes it came with widows 8, it was busy with recovery process when I turned it off, I'm not sure about this Alienware section, I'm new member I haven't checked this is working, sorry for the inconvenience..I hope I have given enough information about the laptop

 

Thank you. I deleted that AW thread since you have a Samsung laptop.

The fact that your computer came with Win8 tells us that it has the newer Samsung Recovery Solution 6, and that it runs in UEFI mode (as opposed to the good old Legacy BIOS mode). See the post here for more info on what that means.

If you turned off while Recovery was restoring, then definitely there is corruption on (or complete loss of) one or several disk partitions. We can hope that the Recovery partitions are still intact, but getting Recovery to work is now the challenge.

1) The disk most likely needs to be wiped in order to get the computer working again -- at least its Windows and boot partitions. So your first priority should be to backup data on the disk by copying them to another disk or USB stick. I recommend using a Linux LiveCD/LiveUSB for this purpose, just make sure it is one that is compatible with Samsung laptops in UEFI mode. Alternatively, remove the disk from the laptop and plug it into another computer to backup your files.

If you don't know that all means (which is understandable) you need to consult with a geeky friend or a repair store.

2) You can try performing a Repair from Win8 setup. If the Recovery process didn't get very far, it is possible that just restoring the boot partition will be enough to make Recovery working again (F4) so that you can perform the restore process anew, and let it complete this time. Of course if you are very lucky, maybe a successful Repair will even let you boot Windows again, so you can back up your data (if you haven't already)

If you have a Win8 disc, use that. Otherwise follow the steps in @Obyboby's guide here to create a Win8 USB stick. Make sure it is created as GPT/FAT32. In BIOS, disable Fast BIOS/Boot, and SecureBoot and select OS Mode Selection=UEFI OS. Then press F10 at power-on to select an external boot device.

Do NOT follow any advice that has you change your BIOS settings to CSM mode (disable UEFI), since this will cause Windows Setup to wipe the disk and convert it to MBR format. And do NOT use Microsoft's ISO/USB tool to create a USB stick, it is not UEFI compatible.

3) If Windows Setup cannot repair the installation, you need to re-install Windows. Again if you have a disc, use that, otherwise follow Obyboby's guide here. During that process, format the existing partitions EXCEPT the two Recovery partitions at the end of the drive. That way Windows Setup should re-create the boot environment and hopefully Recovery will still work. Your programs will have to be re-installed and the data you backed up copied back from the backup disk.

I apologize, but this entire process is quite technical -- because such is the nature of the problem. If you don't have experience installing Windows and understanding UEFI, then I highly recommend you consult with a geeky friend or repair store. Just make sure they know Samsung, who do things a little differently from other vendors. Refer them to these posts.

This is an example of one little decision which, unfortunately, has pretty big consequences. Don't be hard on yourself, though: I once made a similar mistake myself which cost me a lot. The lesson I learned was NOT to never make mistakes -- we all make them from time to time -- but simply the value of backups and data redundancy to help recover from mistakes.

 

Thank you very much for your help, my photos are my biggest worry but I will take it to the repair store as all this is foreign to me and hope for the best..

 

Understood. I think that is a good choice. Hopefully the recovery process didn't get too far, and they'll be able to salvage your photos and other data.

I recommend you still show them these posts. In particular should they be careful or they will lose the Samsung Recovery Solution when they re-install. Imaging the recovery partitions with 3rd party tools does NOT work. There are links in the Sticky list on top of the Samsung section that covers how to backup and re-create SRS.

 

Dannemand - I couldn't find a thread on installing Samsung Recovery for Windows 10, so I'll hijack this thread a little bit to let you know what I have been able (quite easily also) to do.
If required, would you please create a new thread for Windows 10 users.

I was able to get rid of windows 8.1 completely, format the hard drive, do a clean install of windows 10, then make an initial backup image with samsung recovery.
F4 link works and that's all I was concerned about, especially since Windows 10 is free now.
A disc image would work well for anyone IMO.

If this is of any help, please do let me know and I could come up with a tiny tutorial on how I got it working for me.

and please keep up the good work here!

 

Hi Gulfmaster, thank you for posting. I think it would be great if you can share a guide for how to do this. Essentially it would provide Samsung users with a Win10 compatible tool to image and backup their computer.

I suggest you simply create a new thread for it with a title such as "Guide: Samsung Recovery Solution (SRS) and Windows 10". You would be the thread starter, which is only appropriate

I have not had time to engage with Win10 yet myself. I am swamped with big projects at the moment and only just keeping up with reading Samsung posts.

 

Sir,
I have a samsung np-rv509a106IN. I had a recovery partition with srs5. but while formatting my laptop I deleted the recovery. while creating a recovery partition from scratch with admintool 5 after booting at the please wait screen it says Manager1.exe not found in x:/winclon/manager1.exe. I tried booting with admintool 6, but after coming to the please wait screen it restarts and goes to a boot loop i.e. again boots and comes to please wait screen and continues to do the same thing.

Please help..

 

A couple of thoughts:

1) Make sure you're using SRS5 with Win7 on an MBR disk with UEFI disabled. Use SRS6 with Win8.x on a GPT disk with UEFI enabled. Any other combination, and you may find SRS not working. Any certainly mixing the two won't work.

2) I assume you mean you're booting the Admin Tool USB to perform these operations. Running Admin Tool from inside Windows can only be used for backup up (imaging) not for creating recovery partition(s).

3) Make sure you initialize the disk in Admin Tool. As I recall (at least with SRS5) trying to add Recovery partitions to an existing disk layout doesn't work. You have to let it initialize the disk.

For a thorough and easy-to-follow guide on using SRS6 Admin Tool, check @Gulfmaster's thread linked below:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...covery-solution-6-srs6-and-windows-10.780805/

Edit: Oh, and welcome to NBR