yet another Samsung recovery problem.

Hello Everyone,

I've been tackling a problem for a while and this is my last resort before I give up.

I bought a refurbished NP700Z5c-S01UB on win 7 32 bit. Since this laptop has 8GB RAM I wanted to install 64 bit version to use its all capacity. Since I haven't played with computers for a while I thought I'd better take to one of the service places. They've installed 64bit version and it is using all 8GB of RAM but some new problems occurred:

1. laptop doesn't boot at the first time, I have to switch it off by holding the power button, sometimes even several times before it gets up. It seems like it takes a while longer when resetting too.

2. some Samsung features don't work and can't be installed like: easy settings ('FN'+'F1'), it doesn't seem like the ExpressCache is working either.

3. they deleted Samsung recover area when fiddling with partitions and I can't restore it.

I found an iso version of Samsung Recover Solution 5, but when I try to run any of it's options it says that there is no Samsung Recovery Area on my hard drive and that the setup will be cancelled. It doesn't boot neither from CD nor USB (I've tried different manufacturers).

Please advise if there's anything else I could do? I've tried to look for older versions of SRS but no luck. Or maybe the problem isn't there at all? Maybe it has something to do with it being refurbished? Laptop is still on a warranty for the next 30 days, but the warranty is only for hardware so I doubt they will look at it, besides I feel rather skeptic about sending it back.

Many thanks for you help

 

Hi vns983, welcome to NBR.

Sorry to hear about your problems. It sounds like that service place wasn't fully familiar with Samsung PCs and how they work.

Unfortunately there is nothing you can do yourself at this stage to get the Recovery back. Trust me, there really isn't. Samsung Service will re-image the drive for a fee -- which you could ask the service store to cover, if they are the ones who wiped it.

Otherwise I would recommend you simply install Windows 7 anew, since there is no telling what that service store did. You will find a fairly detailed guide in this post. Make note of the Windows Product Key which should be on a label on the bottom cover or on the power adapter.

Install using the DVD that came with your laptop. If no DVD was included, you can download a Win7 ISO from Digital River using the link below. It's completely legal and works the same as an official DVD -- just make sure you get the right version matching your Product Key (Home Premium or whatever).

Official Windows 7 SP1 ISO Image Downloads

For your model I recommend installing from DVD rather than USB, in order to prevent some boot issues (described earlier in the thread I linked). Since your disk was already wiped, I recommend you delete all partitions during Setup and create a new Windows partition of at least 60GB.

Let us know how it goes