Samsung NP400B2B cannot boot from USB stick

I am at my wits end here. USB stick is not being recognised at boot-up even though it's plugged in at power-up. USB stick is fine once in the OS though. Have tried the stick in another laptop (running Vista) and am able to boot from it no problem.

Bought a SSD (for my Samsung) which I installed thinking I could install software from the USB as I had previously done in the past when I used HDs on this laptop. No go!! I then plugged in the old laptop HD which I had just updated with Win10, still no go?!
In the BIOS there is no Fast Boot option, or Secure boot. The Fast boot option is set by the samsung software I installed and made sure it was off. In the BIOS there is something called a boot override which has been set to the HD ...
PO: Samsung HM321HI

Can anyone suggest a solution before I go mad. Since this laptop has no DVD/CD drive I'm a bit stuck.

The only thing I can think of is to create a Win7 install stick and do a live install of Win7 over Win10 as the sammy software e.g. bios update doesn't seem to run on Win10 very well. At least from Win7 I know I won't have software conflicts with the original sammy software.


Samsung NP400B2B
BIOS Version 03PE (latest)
Aptio Setup Utility (AMI 2010)
Purchase date 2012

 

Some thoughts:

1. Does repeated tapping of any of F12,Esc, F1, F2 immediately after turning on the computer get you to a one time boot device list?
2. Do you have a different brand of flash drive you can try? I recall a problem where the Samsung BIOS didn't recognise one type of flash drive as a bootable device.
3. Buy an external optical drive. They aren't very expensive.

John

 

Yes have tried different bootable usb sticks which work on my other laptop.

ESC brings up a bootable menu containing only my HD with no option for USB.

This laptop worked fine before with bootable USB sticks.

 

Was the Samsung software the newer Settings or the old Easy Settings? The latter isn't compatible with Windows 10.

Is there an option in the BIOS to reset it to default values? It's worth trying as is clearing the CMOS (disconnect the PSU, remove the battery and hold down the power button for a minute).

John

 

I suspect the proprietary software for my laptop at this stage won't be compatible with Win10.

Have tried resetting the BIOS.

Bit worried about clearing the cmos....hours later....okay did the cmos reset and somehow it seems to have worked, amazing!

Many thanks

 

Thanks for the update reporting the successful outcome. The CMOS reset occasionally fixes problems that other methods can't.

John

 

Thanks again

On another note I've now decided to stick with Win7 instead of upgrading to Win10. My initial main reason for wanting to upgrade to 10 was for the sake of the SSD but I'm happy that Win7 knows how to handle SSDs properly.