UEFI BIOS problems

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sorcerer

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I've got a Samsung NP3530EC laptop in running Windows 8. I had to disable Secure Boot to run Parted Magic (so I could use GSmartControl) from a bootable CD to test the hard drive and also run Memtest 86+ on the RAM. The drive completed all tests without error, as did the RAM, so I went to go back into BIOS to enable Secure Boot again and I can't get back in.

Pushing the power button brings up the Samsung logo splash screen with two options at the bottom of the screen - [F2] for Setup [F4] for Recovery - but repeatedly hitting either key does nothing. A couple of seconds later the power light goes out, the screen goes off and the machine reboots to do the same thing all over again.

From pressing the button and the power light coming on, to the power light going off again is taking 7 seconds and no matter how much I hit (or don't hit and just leave alone) either F2 or F4 during that time, nothing else happens and the loop just keeps repeating. What the hell have I done?
 
Take the battery out also and unplug power so you know it's fully off then try to restart it and see if you can get back in.
 
Oh brother. And what did they actually accomplish with secure boot besides annoying end users? I mean I still get infected Windows 8 machines coming in. They've basically made our work harder in my opinion.
 
Ok, so I've now had time to read the Reg article that Julian linked to and I don't think that's the problem in this case. The article refers to computers being bricked, but I can boot into various things like Hiren's Boot CD and Linux Live CDs such as Linux Mint, so the machine definitely isn't bricked and appears to be working alright. However, it won't boot into Windows 8 (presumably because the BIOS is in legacy mode and not UEFI with Secure Boot), nor can I get into the BIOS to re-enable Secure Boot. You can see what's happening in the video below:


Any ideas folks?
 
My question will be dumb, but could it have changed the key you want to press, like maybe try pressing the delete key or something? I have not done this on a uefi system, but seems like on the ultimate boot cd for windows, would guess one of the other rescue disks would have it, there was a way to basically zap the bios. Like if you could boot the cd, it would basically blow the bios away like any bios passwords for example would get removed. I did this one time with an acer that had a bios password, but that was like a vista laptop, so I'm not sure how a uefi bios would react.


Here's a post from another forum that may help hopefully.

http://superuser.com/questions/6569...using-f2-key-on-samsung-laptop-model-np270e5v

Another thread where a user had trouble with a samsung.

https://slickdeals.net/f/5469370-laptop-won-t-boot-can-access-bios-nor-boot-options
 
Thanks Ohio, I'll have a look at those links as soon as I can. I'm in hospital tomorrow for a minor operation so it may be a day or two, but I'll report back when I can. In the meantime, if anyone else can offer any suggestions or ideas, then the more the merrier :)
 
We had a Samsung laptop with uefi do you that same thing a few days ago. We were able to recover by pulling the battery, holding the power button to fully drain it, plus let it sit for a bit.
 
Did it get upgraded to windows 8.1? Samsung had some issues with their laptop bios not playing nice with Windows 8.1. I had to throw in the stock drive to get it to boot, then update bios. After that win 8.1 fired right up like nothing was ever wrong.
 
I would try removing all attached devices - especially USB, then powering on - it doesn't seem that your keyboard is activating until an OS loads.
I had something like this a while back that was caused by the legacy USB settings. If that fails I would pull the power, battery, CMOS, RAM and let it sit at least 10 minutes before trying again.
 
bluecoast said:
Did it get upgraded to windows 8.1? Samsung had some issues with their laptop bios not playing nice with Windows 8.1. I had to throw in the stock drive to get it to boot, then update bios. After that win 8.1 fired right up like nothing was ever wrong.
Click to expand...

No it didn't, I was actually going to do the upgrade for her while I have the laptop. Thanks anyway
 
Domaro said:
I would try removing all attached devices - especially USB, then powering on - it doesn't seem that your keyboard is activating until an OS loads.
I had something like this a while back that was caused by the legacy USB settings. If that fails I would pull the power, battery, CMOS, RAM and let it sit at least 10 minutes before trying again.
Click to expand...

Nothing attached and already pulled battery, COS, RAM etc., but thanks anyway
 
i had similar problem with a samsung e270 with a Hitachi hdd with the AF symbol (im assuming thats the drive you also have) , the answer for me was to pull the battery and hdd, turn on the machine and you'll get a message along the top about no-boot device, press f4 for recovery, here you have choices, the first being press f4 then as soon as the screen goes blank, pull the power cord out and re-attach the hdd, my machine booted straight to the samsung recovery, its a pretty poor recovery area to, nuke'n'pave and.... well thats it!
the 2nd option is to go into the BIOS (F2 should work now the the hdd is unplugged) you should now be able to turn on the secure boot and possibly change the ACPI type back to auto if you changed that. i'd highly recommend using the "load BIOS defaults" for this and not to manually set these options if your hdd is in fact a hitachi, more so if a ZKxxxx model.
save changes and power off the laptop on the "press f4 for recovery" (not pull cable), re-attach hdd and see if that works, if it doesn't, remove hdd, go back into BIOS and swap the boot order to dvd (re-attaching the hdd will force the hdd to be 1st boot as secure boot was enabled on it) save and leave the bios with a win8 or 8.1 in it, attach the hdd by usb caddy and boot to the dvd, use advanced options and complete a chkdsk, when thats finished go back in the menu's so you can turn off the machine correctly, you dont want to force the power off. re-attach the hdd and try again. if it still fails, remove hdd, attach by usb again and boot to dvd, now select the option to check for start up errors, as soon as the screen goes blank, pull the power cable out, move hdd from usb to machine and let boot, it may reboot a couple of times but should hopefully (cross those fingers, rabbit's foot in pocket, etc) ask if you want to try system restore, if it does, do it, it will probably fail, thats fine because the next screen with that failure should be the advanced menu, where you can select boot options (like f8 safe mode thing), boot to safe mode and log in, to be safe, uninstall the Intel software and reboot..

**TaDa**

My post is the majority of the work report for the machine i was working on so some may not apply to you, but you know, in for a penny, in for a pound and all that.

Let us know if any good.

Lee
 
Well, thanks for such a lengthy reply Lee - but I haven't got the laptop here anymore so I can't tell you if it would have worked or not :oops:

Great that you posted it though, may well help someone else in the future, so cheers for that mate :)
 
Laplandz said:
i had similar problem with a samsung e270 with a Hitachi hdd with the AF symbol (im assuming thats the drive you also have) , the answer for me was to pull the battery and hdd, turn on the machine and you'll get a message along the top about no-boot device, press f4 for recovery, here you have choices, the first being press f4 then as soon as the screen goes blank, pull the power cord out and re-attach the hdd, my machine booted straight to the samsung recovery, its a pretty poor recovery area to, nuke'n'pave and.... well thats it!
the 2nd option is to go into the BIOS (F2 should work now the the hdd is unplugged) you should now be able to turn on the secure boot and possibly change the ACPI type back to auto if you changed that. i'd highly recommend using the "load BIOS defaults" for this and not to manually set these options if your hdd is in fact a hitachi, more so if a ZKxxxx model.
save changes and power off the laptop on the "press f4 for recovery" (not pull cable), re-attach hdd and see if that works, if it doesn't, remove hdd, go back into BIOS and swap the boot order to dvd (re-attaching the hdd will force the hdd to be 1st boot as secure boot was enabled on it) save and leave the bios with a win8 or 8.1 in it, attach the hdd by usb caddy and boot to the dvd, use advanced options and complete a chkdsk, when thats finished go back in the menu's so you can turn off the machine correctly, you dont want to force the power off. re-attach the hdd and try again. if it still fails, remove hdd, attach by usb again and boot to dvd, now select the option to check for start up errors, as soon as the screen goes blank, pull the power cable out, move hdd from usb to machine and let boot, it may reboot a couple of times but should hopefully (cross those fingers, rabbit's foot in pocket, etc) ask if you want to try system restore, if it does, do it, it will probably fail, thats fine because the next screen with that failure should be the advanced menu, where you can select boot options (like f8 safe mode thing), boot to safe mode and log in, to be safe, uninstall the Intel software and reboot..

**TaDa**

My post is the majority of the work report for the machine i was working on so some may not apply to you, but you know, in for a penny, in for a pound and all that.

Let us know if any good.

Lee
Click to expand...

Nice one. What was the Intel software and why did you uninstall it?
 
JustInspired said:
Nice one. What was the Intel software and why did you uninstall it?
Click to expand...

being 100% honest, i don't know why i remove it, it's undoubtedly a chemical imbalance up in the noggin, very possibly originating from the consumption of various dark-room plants in the teenage years, what i consider as... the fun years (i think). I'm either mildly O.C.D. or what i suspect, is a person-of-routine. It's rather odd to explain, i have a terrible "recallable" memory, as in, i don't know now why i know it is, but i'm 98% sure i knew i did at some point. A very funky and weird sense of deja-vu shall we say. With that half-assed explanation and going back to your post, i've very probably had issues with intel chipset software and most-likely with cloned drives, as that is resonating a feeling of frustration.
what i do know is, i have got myself into the practice of removing/reinstalling the intel rapidstorage, management console, etc just to be safe when the hdd has had some major work done, this could have been a clone or an-ages-ago-system restore, etc.

I have re-read the work brief and my work report for the job i pulled that info from, and to be fair the OP and me had a slightly different problem, mine being a corrupted update to win8.1 which is a known 'fault' with Samsung's. I felt my resolution had enough in common in the POST-stage to benefit the group :)
 
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