Solved Problems reinstalling Win 7 Starter on netbook

[pachmarhi]

I'm trying to reinstall Win 7 on my Samsung N250 Plus netbook, which came with Win 7 Starter. I deleted all the partitions except the "System" partition and the Samsung recovery partition. I used ei.cfg on the Win 7 Home x32 I downloaded (as suggested in other threads), and used the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool to create a bootable USB installer for Win 7. It all installs fine, but (and I have tried this twice), it doesn't give me an option to select Win 7 Starter. It just installs Home Premium. I have checked the boot order in BIOS, and it is booting from the USB.

Any suggestions what I should do?

For background:
Some time ago I decided to experiment with Ubuntu to see if my netbook would work better with that than the Win 7 Starter it came with. To do so, I created a partition on which to install Ubuntu. Didn't make much difference and the computer got slower and slower so decided to try to restore it to factory settings. Ran the Samsung Recovery Solutions programme and it did what i assumed was a full restore, but then just got a black screen with flashing cursor. I now understand that the Ubuntu install would have overwritten the original MBR. Hence the need to reinstall Windows from USB.

I do have a licensed copy of Win 7 Pro but that is for my desktop PC. I have the product key for the netbook's copy of Win 7 starter on a label on the back of the case.

 

[Vertex]

I don't think you can install Starter using Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool as Windows 7 Starter only comes packaged with netbooks and I suspect, it can't be a Windows 7 version that can be packed inside a bootable Windows 7 USB but I might be wrong. I'm also using Starter right now on my netbook.

If you are able to install the Windows 7 Home Premium why bother with Starter when Home Premium is better? Plus a clean install with Home Premium would not offer bloatware like OEM's have preinstalled on Starter netbooks.

There is a chance that the recovery partitions got corrupted so Starter can't be reverted into and now you only get a black screen when doing restore to factory settings. Look into this article though:

Booklet: clean install Windows 7 Starter on Kingst... - Nokia Support Discussions

 

[pachmarhi]

I only have a licence (and hence product key) for Starter. Sure Home Premium is nice but I don't have a licence for that.

There are several other threads on this forum indicating that Starter can be installed from USB by editing the ISO to remove restrictions. I've followed those instructions but they are not working for me.

 

[Vertex]

Have you peeked into this article yet?

Booklet: clean install Windows 7 Starter on Kingst... - Nokia Support Discussions

 

[pachmarhi]

I hadn't seen that particular article, but those are the same steps I followed. Still can't get it to give me option to select a Windows edition.

 

[Vertex]

As you said, you did use the ei.cfg. Do you still have a Windows 7 ISO?

I found this article that seems to provide a more in-depth way to remove ei.cfg file that would then reveal all editions of Windows 7 on the installation:

Where can I download the Windows 7 starter ISO? - Microsoft Community

You may have to scroll down lower on that page...

 

[theog]

   Information

We always assume you have made your Recovery Disks using the OEM manufacturer's Recovery Media Creator app the first day you had your new PC.
& made the Startup Repair CD.
startup repair disc-create
​

Did you make the OEM manufacturer's Recovery Disks?

How to use Samsung Recovery, make Recovery disks:
Samsung PC Software - Samsung Support Center - YouTube

NP-R519 - OVERVIEW | SUPPORT | SAMSUNG UK
http://www.samsungpc.com/top_faq/13_faqanswer_xphomerecovery.htm

How to Order Recovery disc.
Support - Laptops NP700Z7CH | Samsung PCs

 

[pachmarhi]

No I didn't make recovery disks and it is not possible to obtain them from Samsung, as far as I can see.

 

[pachmarhi]

Do you still have a Windows 7 ISO?

I found this article that seems to provide a more in-depth way to remove ei.cfg file that would then reveal all editions of Windows 7 on the installation:

Where can I download the Windows 7 starter ISO? - Microsoft Community

I do still have the ISO I downloaded from digitalriver. The link you have given suggests I should be using an ISO for Win 7 Ultimate. I was following the same routine suggested in your link, but with Home Premium, which according to other links should work, but doesn't. I'll give it a try with Ultimate, once it has finished downloading.

 

[pachmarhi]

Sometimes that eicfg tool doesn't work, you can unpack the ISO with 7-zip or WinRAR and delete

The ei.cfg from the sources folder, then recreate the ISO with Imgburn,

Following these guidelines for a perfect reinstall will help.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/219487-clean-reinstall-factory-oem-windows-7-a.html

Again this seems to be same the same thing. i.e. this is what I did with the following exceptions:
I used 7-zip to open the ISO through Win Explorer. Then I checked that ei.cfg had been deleted. There was no sign of it in the Sources folder. So I didn't need to unpack and recreate the ISO. The link to the tutorial is to my knowledge more or less what I did, the only difference being that I didn't have any data or software installations to save so I simply wiped the drive on the netbook and reformatted it after deleting most of the partitions.

What I didn't delete was the Samsung recovery partition. Should I delete that? It doesn't work in terms of restoring Windows, but I didn'tknow if it served any purpose for obtaining drivers etc.

 

[gregrocker]

Since you're using flash stick installer just delete ei.cfg from the Sources folder.

Now you should have a menu at boot to choose your licensed version.

Follow the steps in Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7 to get and keep a perfect install.

 

[pachmarhi]

OK. For some reason it would not work with the Win 7 Home Premium ISO, but did work with the Win 7 Ultimate ISO. But then I did three other things differently too:
1. unpacked the ISO with 7Zip, deleted ei.cfg and repacked with ImgBurn (even though there was no sign of ei.cfg on the USB stick after using the eicfg tool.
2. removed the Samsung partition on the laptop and reformatted the system partition
3. removed the U3 launcher software from the Sandisk Cruzer USB key I was using.

So not sure what made the difference (no doubt someone here will!), but I got Win 7 Starter installed, finally. I have also installed all the device drivers and some of the Samsung software that seemed useful.

So thanks to everyone who has chipped in to help me solve this. This is a great forum!

 

[derekimo]

Thanks for posting back, glad you got it working.

 

[gregrocker]

Which Samsung software do you find useful?

Most all factory crapware has a better version built into Win7 and conflicts and causes problems. Would you keep us posted on how it works and any advantages/disadvantages of the Samsung utilities so I can add it to the tutorial?

We've had mixed results with Samsung, including the only disastrous failure out of tens of thousands of Clean Reinstalls. So all intelligence we get on it will help many others.

 

[pachmarhi]

OK. I installed:
Battery Life Extender: I understand this simply prevents battery from charging to 100%, thus helping to extend battery life.

Easy Display Manager: I seemed to need this to get the proper screenresolution

Samsung Fast Start: I like being able to shut the lid and have the netbook automatically sleep.

The rest were just drivers. Do you see an issue with any of these?

Seems to be working fine now. The other thing I noted was when installing Puran defragger (as suggested in the tutorial) it tried to install some malware (detected on install by Eset A/V). So I cleaned the infection and did not install Puran.

 

[gregrocker]

As long as you followed the steps given clearly in tutorial to get all drivers first by running all rounds of Important and Optional Windows Updates, after enabling Automatically deliver drivers via Windows Update (Step 3), then only supplied drivers missing in Device Manager after all rounds of Updates were completed.

The Win7 Power Options work perfectly fine to set PC to sleep when you close the Lid, time out perfectly to Sleep and Hibernate when you set them. Power management crapware from OEM's interferes and doesn't add any value that I've ever seen.

The battery tender may be the only one of value. Others partly defeat the purpose of a Clean Reinstall, but i am a purist who insists on no interference whatsoever with Win7's native performance which is perfect in almost every way - Samsung and other OEM's, not so much.

 

[pachmarhi]

OK. I'll try removing Faststart and Display Manager and see what happens. I can always reinstall if there is an issue. Yes, I have Windows set up automatically update.

 

[pachmarhi]

Didn't need Fast Start; the Windows Power Management options will do what it did. Did need Easy Display Manager; uninstalling it disables the extra features on the function keys etc (adjust brightness/volume, wifi & bluetooth on/off, num lock, Home, End, etc). So I have reinstalled that.

 

[gregrocker]

That jogged my memory that there is in Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7 a

Special Note for Samsung Owners:
Software which enables Fkey functions and illumination may be labeled Easy Display Manager and may require special handling as per Dinesh:

The Easy Settings software didn't work directly. Once downloaded the software (zip) from here, I had to extract all files and rename setup.exe to setup2.exe. Only then it allowed me to install the software on Win8.

Is this anything like what you experienced?

 

[pachmarhi]

No. Installed it without a problem.