Samsung Recovery Solution 4

rmg1

Hi all

I've been asked to look at a friends laptop because it wouldn't boot. Basically it wouldn't see any OS.

I can get into the recovery centre (he's said to wipe it back to factory settings as everything is already backed up) and I've chosen Complete Restore.

In there, I only have one option which is Computer Initial Status and has the radio-button filled in.

When I click Next, I get an error which says:-
"Windows partition or drive not found.

Unsupported partition structure. Restore cancelled."

Anyone any ideas on how to get this working again?

davb

My guess would be that the recovery partition has either been deleted or renumbered (eg has someone been cleaning up or installed Linux etc) - presumably along with the OS partition, which you said is also missing.
I would take a look at the partition structure to see what's actually there, and also test the hard drive - it could be a failing drive that has caused the problem.
If there is nothing obvious, it could be down to a clean install from a recovery disk (if they created one) or from an OS disk.

rmg1

I checked for partitions using a rescue disc and found the following 2 partitions :-
Partition 0 (zero) Hidden - 31.19GB and it says the OS is BIOS
Partition 3 - 117.75GB and it says the OS is Windows Vista. This one is formatted as NTFS.

I presume I need to renumber partition 3 to 1 somehow?

rmg1

Anyone, please?

debitcardmayhem

rmg1 wrote: »

Anyone, please?

EasyBCD may help out assuming the partition is ok and it's just the MBR that is hosed... http://neosmart.net/wiki/display/EBCD/Creating+a+Bootable+USB+Drive

rmg1

From memory (and this was only last night) I added an MBR entry (both general and partition) onto the suspect partition.

However, I still get the error when I try to use the recovery routine.

Do I need to format the partition or is it just the partition number that's causing the problem?

Paul_T_3

Hi,
Found this download :-http://www.softpedia.com/progDownload/Samsung-Recovery-Solution-Download-186221.html

Appears to be free but it is a 100 Mb download.

It looks like what you are after. Its a Zip file so you will have to unzip and then (I assume) burn to a CD.

Good luck

Paul

rmg1

So, just for my own curiosity, what's the 31.19GB partition marked BIOS? Is that literally the BIOS data?
And, if that's the factory reset option, what's wrong with the other partition?

ChiefGrasscutter

As I recall from a Samsung netbook N140
Samsung install a special MBR which enable access to the recovery partition a startup.
Samsung did not supply any recovery disks with this model nor did they offer any.
(the lesson for this was to disk image the netbook as well)

So if you muck about with the MBR or install Linux etc which will install its own starup/MBR stuff then you will be uable to gain access to the recovery partition.
The Samsung MBR also transfers control to the program in the recovery partition that starts the factory restore/recovery process.

So as I see it either the MBR has been corrupted or the recovery partition has been likewise corrupted or erased....'fraid I can't offer any solution. The N140 forums were full of people who had mucked about with the recovery stuff, then made a mess of the netbook and then surprise were unable to restore it to the factory condition.

rmg1

It looks like the laptop is toast then.
Can I just re-install Vista from a new copy or even install Windows 7?