Samsung Series3 Win7- stuck in resume from hibernation loop, cannot access BIOS

I own a NP305V5A laptop (white case) Windows7, AMD CPU/GPU, 6GB, 750 HDD

The HDD is partitioned between Win7 and Linux Mint Mate for the past year or so.

I have the laptop setup to go into hibernation mode when the power button is pressed

Now, the laptop is stuck in a loop resuming from hibernation.
It starts, i get a flickering cmd line cursor for a second, and then the LCD powers off, and it repeats.
I do NOT get the BIOS screen nor the usual "Press F2/F4" screen that normally appears when powered on.

I suspect my MBR is at fault, but i can not boot off a MS Win7 recovery DVD, nor a WinPE CD nor a Linux Boot CD to fix the MBR! I can't access the BIOS screen with any combo of Function keys (F1,F2,F4,F10,F12 etc.) either.

I also tried removing the battery and holding the power button for 20 seconds- a trick that's worked with other laptops before..

A bit of searching here suggests that this may be a BIOS flaw with Samsung devices when resuming from Hibernation - there's no method of accessing the BIOS or booting from another media - it goes straight to the resume, no matter if the hibernation is borked.(bad idea that!)

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sam...ble-enter-bios-when-resuming-hibernation.html

So - my question is: - is there any undocumented method of getting into the BIOS whilst resuming from hibernation so i can choose the boot source (CD) and fix my problem?

The aforementioned thread suggested removing the HDD, connecting to another device and deleting the hiberfil.sys file. Don't want to do that just yet

So - to recap
I can't enter BIOS with any combo of buttons,
I tried removing the battery and resetting it.
I can't boot off any LiveCD or recovery CD
The ****** ******** laptop design doesn't allow any other option when resuming from Hibernation.

 

Fixed it!

Just in case anyone else has the same problem, here's the steps i took.



* unscrewed the cover and removed the HDD. (trickly- lots of plastic catches - push the bottom cover downwards to slide off.
* Rebooted off a LiveCD a few times to trick the BIOS into thinking the last state was no longer hibernation.
* Reconnected HDD and restarted - this time, got the BIOS screen so i could choose the boot device.
* Chose DVD as boot device, booted off CD, loaded PLOP Boot Manager off CD and booted from 1st partition
* Booted into Windows okay - so knew windows wasn't screwed.
* Rebooted again via DVD, PLOP boot manager, hit F8 rapidly, got typical Windows repair menu.
* Cooted into Recovery console, chose bootrec /fixmbr

Voila! Problem fixed

I shouldn't really have to remove the HDD to get a BIOS screen or Windows recovery console - but at least it's solved!

 

just Fyi - the LiveCD i used was Hirens bootCD (HBCD), proteus build 15.2

This is a quasilegal liveCD as it contains live instances of XP and Win7 so i'm not linking it.
Technically speaking, MS would rather you built Live CDs using their tools from your own windows installs, but hirens is so handy as it contains so many great freeware tools in one place.