Clean Install Advice (A05)

Hello everyone, I just got my lovely Samsung Series 9 (i7, 256Gb SSD, etc.) and I'm already getting that "new PC" itch to reinstall Now, when I first booted, it asked me to re-size the partitions, so I chose to go C: only and ignore their advice (I keep backups on a server anyways) - so bear this in mind.

I tried looking on Samsung's website, but it seems the A05 doesn't have a drivers/downloads page?? With some of the hardware in this thing, I would expect that there are some drivers there I can't get elsewhere (backlight controls, micro-ethernet adapter, USB3 driver, etc.). Normally I'd just use my retail Win7 Home Premium disk to do the install and use the OEM key on the bottom (and perhaps do a little registry modding if Windows activation gives me a hard time). Anyways, I'd like some thoughts on this before I go too crazy, since there's still a chance that this will need to be factory reset for return if it's still too slow for me after reinstall. I found one thread on the web that seemed to imply this is more difficult than one would hope, in particular if upgrading (which I will eventually do when I recover from the hole this laptop left in my bank account).

Also, it's not like I haven't done clean installs before - I do them all the time, but usually those machines have fairly standard hardware with actual OEM support

Thanks!

 

Samsung don't post separate drivers for different versions of its notebooks. All the standard series 9 drivers should be applicable except that you may have a choice of WiFi cards. Go into Device Manager and make a list of your specific hardware before reinstallation of Windows. The Samsung specific software is fairly generic. You will need Easy Display Manager to get the Fn keys working.

Smaung should also have provided a a default factory image in a hidden partition. Unless they chaged recently, pressing F4 at the BIOS screen should give you an option to reinstall the original image (check if that option is available), but be forewarned that installing it will wipe everything else on C:

Personally, I don't give priority to wiping the manufacturer's Windows installation but start by removing any bloatware.

John

 

So, the driver page for the A03 will work fine, just choose the Intel wifi instead of Broadcom and I'm good? I personally find that a little irritating since there's a lot of info on the support page for the A03 (especially Warranty) that is wrong for the A05.

I'll have to check to see if the reset partition is there, though I think their partition manager wiped it (there drive is basically all available).

I suppose everyone has different philosophies - I personally find that I never get it really clean just removing bloatware, and on this laptop there are so many UI tweaks that I don't care much for that removing them manually may be time consuming.

 

The representative seemed quite sure that there would *eventually* be a support page for the A05 model, and advised me against using any other drivers than those they would *eventually* post... (of course!). Also, it appears that thanks to their incorrect directions during the preinstall, I now no longer have the recovery partition and no longer have access to the installer that was on it (which basically offered a clean install option...). They claim the only way to get it back is to have them service it... ugh..

Note to others: for clean install, just use the F4 boot partition and select minimal ;-)

 

Scratch that... the rep was wrong! The recovery partition is still in-tact! his is very good news indeed

 

Whenever dealing with a new machine, I use Clonezilla to save an image of the HDD as it came from the factory, before I do anything else.

This arrangement has saved me a lot of work. As long as the machine's HDD doesn't physically break, I can restore it to the factory configuration at any time. Clonezilla is a much more robust solution than "recovery" partitions, or something like Samsung Recovery Solution 5.

You might consider doing the same. All you need is Clonezilla, a USB stick big enough to hold it (it's under 200 MB), and an external HDD.

There are commercial products which do the same thing, e.g. Acronis TrueImage, but Clonezilla has the remarkable advantage of being free.