Help with NP700Z7C-S01US BIOS stuck in UEFI Mode

Hi all. I've been reading through all the various threads about bricked or semi bricked Samsung laptops and have tried many solutions without any success. You seem like a very helpful community so I'm starting this thread to see if anyone could help with my issue specifically since it appears slightly different than most.

My Series 7 had a disk failure after upgrading to Windows 10 with a dual boot of Ubuntu. The HDD's disk crashed so there is no hope of recovering the correct system partitions off of the drive. I have bought a replacement SSD to put inside and have attempted to create a bootable UEFI partition with GRUB hoping allow booting from a DVD. I have also tried creating a MiniDOS USB, and also forcing a flash using various boot techniques (fn+b, win+b, ctrl+home, fn+esc, etc). I've also created a Windows UEFI boot USB, as well as trying to use an OEM Windows 8 disc, Windows 10 disc, and Ubuntu 15.04 disc.

As it stands the BIOS seemed to have corrupted (does not respond to F2, F4, or F10) boot does display the Boot Menu/App Menu screen. I can access the BIOS setup screen through this and Fast-Boot is disabled. I've tried toggling UEFI on and off as well, but not matter what I do, I can not see the ODD, or USB drives as bootable. I've read that disabling Secure Boot will fix this; however, Secure Boot is not an option in my BIOS (version P06AAE).

I've also tried the battery disconnect switch as well as removing power from the CMOS backup battery and the regular battery. These cleared the system clock, but as it remains there are only two UEFI booting options, being Windows Boot Manager, and ubuntu respectively.

I have tried removing both the ODD and SSD drives to see if this would force a comparability mode to boot into USB and this is bust as well. I don't have access to a Floppy, but could get one if there is any real hope in clearing the NVRAM in this manor. So far booting to MiniDOS has not worked at all though, and I'm not sure if I want to invest any more money into this.

The BIOS has a strange boot behavior now. It starts booting (shows Phoenix BIOS screen), then powers down. Then it starts up again and shows the boot menu after about 6 seconds. If UEFI is enabled, it will show the Windows Boot Manager and ubuntu options; otherwise its blank. I am curious if this information is stored in NVRAM for the BIOS or possibly on the Express Cache SSD. Also on boot it does scan ODD and USB, but does not allow booting from either even with UEFI Windows Setup.

I have also tried to locate the RTC Reset point on the board and there is none marked on the CPU side of the board. I have not yet looked on the reverse, but have been hoping I wouldn't have to remove the whole thing. Is there a way to clear the NVRAM on this board?

I've been working on computers for about 15 years now and have never dealt with a BIOS that I couldn't recover. I've read about 10 threads relating to this issue with similar laptops (albeit, some of them clearly had AMI boards not phoenix). Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you so much for your time to even read this and I hope someone has some insight in what I can do besides purchasing a replacement board. I also could not locate a copy of P06AAE but have found P05AAE, since I could not boot MiniDOS, this seems irrelevant though.

Here's a summary in case anyone jumps in:
Samsung Series 7 Chronos 17.3 US Edition
Part: NP-700Z7C-S01US
BIOS: P06AAE
No Secure Boot option
Fast Boot Disabled
CMOS Clock cleared, but NVRAM still corrupt
No response to BIOS setup/recovery keys
BIOS boots initially for 2 seconds then reboots and displayed Boot/App Menu
Setup is accessible
Could not locate RST jumpers

Tried:
Removing HDD/SDD and ODD to force compatibility mode: no luck
Unplugging battery and CMOS backup battery: only cleared system clock, settings remained.
Holding various key combinations with battery unplugged while attaching AC power (Fn+b, Fn+esc, Win+b, Fn+f): none made any indication of doing anything.
USB MiniDOS, Windows 8/10 Media, Ubuntu 15.04 disc, preloading SSD with EFI partition and grub

Thanks again for your time if any of you respond to this.

 

have you tried installing windows on the SSD with another system but not letting it fully boot (activate by the first system?), get the files over and MBR etc?

 

I have not tried that yet. I'll give that a try when I get the chance as more of a last resort. I had no luck copying an ubuntu GRUB bootloader into a fresh EFI partition. I'm not exaclty sure how the Samsung BIOS is searching for EFI files -- hopefully not on a particular GUID that I don't have access to. The other PC I'm using is also EFI, so I'm a bit nervous to somehow brick this one as well in the process. I'm hoping to ideally find a way to clear the NVRAM completely so that I can just boot off a disc or USB and go from there.

 

I understand that as well. Problem with Secure boot and Samsung is they are fantastic at keeping you out, too good in fact. Great for protecting the system but horrible when a drive dies.

 

Hello!

I just noticed this post, but I tried to give a work-around in another thread:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...-s01us-is-a-lemon.771836/page-7#post-10186978

Short Version: I used an external keyboard AND the laptop keyboard, (rapidly pressing the F10, F11 keys).

I have the same exact laptop, (NP700Z7C and Phoenix BIOS P06AAE).

When I switched to UEFI mode, I ran into the same exact problems.

 

Hi @oneflame,

Do you mean that you were able to get into BIOS using an external keyboard? If so great, thank you for sharing that.

Otherwise study the thread linked below. There is a summary in post #7, but you really need to study the entire thread for proper context.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/samsung-series-7-np700z5c-s03ca-my-last-hope.762595/