Samsung Series 5 Ultrabook 530U3B-A0 - Uanble to install Windows 7 - Express Cache?

Hello Samsung Forum,
since 1 week im proud user of a samsung ultrabook.

but i have a huge problem. i removed the hdd and insert an sdd. because of the performance.

i describe now what happens.

i boot from a windows 7 installation usb drive. and the installation starts. after a short time, it is finished and the ultrabook restarts. now i tries to boot but nothing happens.

i figured out following: whatever i do and try - the windows installation forces me to install the 100 mb windows 7 boot partionen on the 16 gb express cache. nothing helps - i created a whole partione - it writes the boot sector to it - i deleted all partitions on the express cache - it write boot sector to it.

to problem is, if the boot sector is written to the express cache. the fresh windows isn't booting after the finished installation.

i read somewhere, can'T find it anymore, that the problem might be the usb driver installation!

do think i should buy an external dvd drive to get that thing running?

please help thanks a lot. im not a complete jerk and installed many windows machines. but such a problem never appeared ;-(

greetings flode

 

hey Flode, I had the same problem, and I think it is the USB. I had to borrow an external DVD drive from work and install Windows that way

 

Did you try disabling the EC from BIOS and reinstalling Windows?

 

hi there, i solved this problem. Joeyl was absolutly right with his suggestion.
the problem was the usb drive windows installation.
It is not working on a Samsung Series 5 Ultrabook 530U3B-A0 device.

Today in town i bought an external dvd writer. Tada! Installation & Booting works fine.

So everybody with a Series 5 Ultrabook from Samsung do yourself a favor and don't try a windows installation from usb drive. i lost two evenings figuring out the problem.

@andersonjacob54: there is no option in the bios to disable the express cache. the solution was to format the expess cache as apple disk, so windows couldn't handle the partitons.

Greetings flode

 

Wait, so you're saying that to fix this problem, all you have to do is install from DVD instead of USB? I don't see how there's anything different between the two installation methods.

 

Exactly, its really weird but definitely worth a try. My guess is that windows probably loads the USB (hidden?) into the partition table causing the installation messing it up (because half of what Microsoft does doesn't make sense to me).

Also, if you format the EC as an apple disk and install Windows from USB, does everything work fine? And I assume, afterwards, you are able to restore the EC.

 

Well, at this point I'm not willing to kill my one and only notebook for the sake of testing this, but I wish I had another to attempt it on. By the way, for anyone wanting to format the SSD partition as HFS+, try this:

1. Boot to Windows setup disk
2. Press Shift + F10 to invoke command prompt
3. Run "diskpart"
4. "list disk" (disk 0 should be SSD)
5. "select disk 0" (this selects the SSD)
6. "clean"
7. "create partition primary id=af"
8. "exit"
9. "exit"

On another note, does anyone know how to validate from Windows that the SSD is actually being used? I've got all the software and drivers installed, but I would be curious to know if there's a way to actually see whether or not the SSD is being utilized. I don't know that the Windows 7 "Resource Monitor" will do much good, since the caching work is most likely being done inside of a kernel driver, and isn't see as typical Windows I/O.

 

I'll definitely give it a shot when my replacement comes in the next 1-1.5 weeks. As for utilization of the EC, I would hope that Samsung's Easy Settings would be able to tell you that. I don't know of any other programs or ways to determine it.

 

Sweet. Please do post back if it works. I would love to install my copy of Windows 7 Ultimate on this system. That's what I initially tried to do, and screwed everything up ... that's when I finally decided to simply use the included DVD media, which is Home Premium ... guess it works ok.

Just to clarify, which method are you going to try? Install from DVD, or install from USB Flash Drive (UFD), but using the directions I posted above?

I'm very skeptical that using a Windows 7 Ultimate DVD would be any different from building a UFD, but I'm also open to the idea of it working ... curious to know. Maybe if you have time, you could try both methods?

I really wish I had a spare unit to test all this on ....

 

i clerely do not recommend an installation via usb drive. i created the usb drive with windows 7 prof msdn aa original dvd and the microsoft tool dvd to usb.

this is a full working installation stick with any machine i used before.
but not with my samsung series 5 modell. i had big big trouble installating.

then i bought the dvd drive. used the same disc on dvd. and all problems were gone. at leat the installation ones.

i installed an uefi windows boot with gpt partition and had to figure out that samsung easy settings isn't working on a gpt partition.

so new windows again with bios option "uefi boot" disabled. and everythings works fine.

so i hope i could help some people with my explanations of the problems i had to handle with this machine.

greetings flode

 

the formation of the express cache is neccessary for only one thing. i don't want the boot sector of windows be written to the express chache. so i format it in the apple file system, this is a workround because windows cant recognise the express cache partitoned with this file system.

 

I'm going to try using a USB drive first using your method and any other methods I can think of. I do have an external DVD drive which I will use as a last resort. Luckily, since my laptop will take about a week to replace, I will have my old laptop with me allowing me plenty of time to experiment with the Samsung one.

 

FYI USB installation of W7 fails on a series 7, but everything runs smooth if you start with a DVD instead. Gotta love those Samsung engineers...

 

seems I have the same problem....

maybe you can find more info here

time to try with external dvd player ... but looks really weird this problem about booting from usb key

 

Hi everybody,

I found a way. this note book -I also have- two hdd. So, there is no problem with one hdd if you use microsoft's windows7 to usb installation tool. the problem with 2 hdd is that I guess boot order conflict. I consume a lot of time. As a result the solution is as follows:

1. normally install win7 or win8 whatever it is,
2. after the restart to continue the installation from hdd you will get an error of boot\bcd.
3. at this point boot again from usb
4. go to repair and select cmd (command) option
5. type "c:\md boot" create a directory called boot in root of c:\ driver
6. type "c:\boot\md en-us" create a directory called en-us in c:\boot\
7. go to d:\ driver-cache installation- (there are a missing (uncopied) files in c
8. type "dir", you shall not see anything because files are hidden dont worry
9. type "d:\cd boot"
10. type "d:\copy *.* c:\boot\" (two files will be copied)bcd and memtest
11. type "c:\boot\cd en-us" (your installation language)
12. type "c:\boot\en-us\copy *.* c:\boot\en-us\" 2 files will be copied (bootmgr and memtest mui's)
13. restart computer
14. computer must continue to normal installation from hdd

I hope it will help you, it worked for me

 

I want to format my notebook as follows:

SSD (16GB) - Ubuntu
HDD (100GB) - Windows
HDD (400Gb) - My Files

First I needed to install Windows. I created a USB stick with Windows 7 and I configured the BIOS to boot the USB stick. In screen to choose the partition, I select the 500GB HD and create two partitions, one 100GB (Windows) and a 400Gb (My files).

But then the installer returns this error:
"Setup was unable to create a new system partition or locate an existing system partition"

Anyone knows whats going on?

I haven't tried to recreate the stick.

I cannot even start the installation ... With an external DVD I can install on a partition of 100Gb HDD without problem?

I successfully installed Ubuntu on the SSD (16GB) and use all the HDD 500GB for my files. But I could not install Windows from USB stick ... For now I'm just with Ubuntu ...

Can anyone help me?

 

Hi
I tryed to install windows 7 ult using usb, but i can't with message "missing operation system". Then i wrote dvd and solved this problem. Thx alot!

 

i got the same problem, i cant install windows 8 using usb hdd on samsung series 5 13.3". i tried many times but still unsuccessful. At first, the windows intallation started then up until when it restarts to finish the installation it cycles back to first step of windows installation. then when i try to enter bios setup to make HDD as first boot prioroty then i restarted it, then an error shows. i dont have an external dvd drive so i cannot try installing windows using it. Hope somebody could help us solve this problem so that we can enjoy windows 8.

 

Had the same problem with w7, couldn't install system from usb drive (with other machines no problem). The only way was to connect an external dvd and traditional method. Try it

 

Guys, you don't need an external drive to install Windows 7! After the day of struggling I finally found the way to install it from hard disk. In fact it's true that installer hangs only when run from usb stick. So I created additional 5gb ntfs partition on hdd drive, copied there files from installer iso and made the partition bootable (you can do this by running the installer from pendrive, pressing shift + f10 to open the command line and typing bootsect /nt60 x:, where x represents your partition).

Now the only problem is to boot the partition. I did this from grub using this configuration (didn't work without device mapping):
rootnoverify (hd0,5)
map (hd0,0) (hd0,5)
map (hd0,5) (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1

I think it's possible to boot the partition from windows bootloader, which can be saved to mbr using bootsect with /mbr parameter but I'm not sure - I didn't try it.

When the installation completed I got fully running Windows on hdd starting automatically from hdd's mbr. The ssd drive was left untouched (I have a linux root partition on it).

Good luck!

 

I'm glad I found this thread and won't have to waste too much time on it. Just spent the last 2 hours of my life puzzling why re-installing Win7 from an USB stick wouldn't work on my newly purchased Series 5 laptop while it worked on every other machined I tried. Seems like a design issue, and I wouldn't have expected this from Samsung, so disappointed.

 

Most of the information in this thread is badly outdated. It is absolutely possible to install Win7 from USB on a Series 5, despite that pesky issue of Windows Setup getting confused by the ExpressCache.

But I do understand your frustration: When I first tested a Series 5 this summer, I was cursing Samsung - just like you. I found threads like this and others that all claimed empirically that it was impossible to install from USB on Series 5. I got stubborn though, and so did others, each coming up with various workarounds.

As posted in your other recent thread (about F4 not working) several solutions can be found in hanime's thread on USB installation (that was a link). It's not that difficult, and only adds a few minutes extra to the installation process.

Let us know how it goes. Lots of people here who are willing to help.

 

Hello Guys,
I have an issue with my ultrabook NP530U.
With Diskpart, I can see a disk0 (iSSD) but this one seems to be empty or with only 16KB instead of 20GB.
In Windows Disk Manager, I can find the iSSD (sandisk milpitas ssd), but I can't create a partition on it.
Do you know how can I restore or reset the iSSD size ?

Thanks in advance for your help,
Best Regards,
Djayjay35