Samsung Series 5 Ultra not detecting USB flash drives after upgrading to Ubuntu 14.10

[vosbek]

Samsung Series 5 Ultra book Currently has ubuntu 14.10 installed Bios: Phoenix SecureCore Tiano version: P12ABH

I have disabled secure boot and fast boot. Changed to CSM/UEFI individually and the CSM and UEFI option. I have changed the boot sequence. Previously if I inserted a bootable USB stick it would show the qualifying name I gave it (ex. Sandisk 16g winx64 etc) now it only shows USB FDD: or USB CD:. However, when ubuntu boots completely, the usbs are fully accessible.

I have tried two separate usb sticks, that both worked on this machine before, and still work on other machines. I have tried both rufus and unetbootin, created on both mac and window installations. I have tried multiple variations of linux, as well as windows 7, 8, and windows 10. All have the same issue.

I'm at a complete loss. I've tried every possible setting. I have no problem deleting or reformatting or losing any information. I just want to be able to install a different OS. It currently boots into the grub 2 beta, and the only options are ubuntu, recovery or setup. All options in recovery does not change anything.

 

[legokill101]

have you tried reinstaling the drivers

 

[vosbek]

I have ubuntu 14.10 installed and all drivers are installed and up to date. If there is a way to reinstall them I would happily try that. I have reinstalled the bios previously and made sure it was updated to the most recent version.

 

[legokill101]

you should be able to instal the drivers from samsungs site

 

[vosbek]

Yes, it says that the bios is up to date.

 

[legokill101]

im not talking about the bios im talking about the drivers which are sofware that control thing like usb controlers, wirless cards ect, you should be able to find it on the samsung site

 

[vosbek]

np540u3c-a01ub is the model number. I have ubuntu installed. Samsung seemed to use SWupdate which isnt available on ubuntu. Every other driver pack samsung seems to offer is all exe which are unable to be run on ubuntu. How do I reinstall the drivers?

 

[legokill101]

well first it looks like its not compatibel with Linux so you might be out of luck but you can try a 3rd party hub for tracking down driver and see if any of themj are linux compatable

 

[vosbek]

I have tried all third party hubs previously and did not find any ubuntu specific drivers for this laptop. Everything comes through sw update which is obviously windows only. Or there are exe files that extra, and again those don't work. I am at a loss as to how to proceed.

 

[legokill101]

im sorry it looks like they dont support Ubuntu then so i cant really help you

 

[coldsud]

vosbek I recently ran into the same issue as you when trying to install Ubuntu 14.10 onto my samsung series 5 ultra. I was baffled as to why nothing was working and I noticed that after i hit run/install ubuntu it would just go to a loading screen and then eventually it would spit out a log of how ubuntu was having errors. I noticed as you did, the usb wasn't getting power after trying to execute instructions from the ubuntu selection screen. So, I had this ingenious(more stupid luck than anything) idea that after I hit run or install ubuntu, I would just wait for the usb to lose power, unplug it and plug it back in, Viola!! it actually worked the usb received power again and it loaded into temporary ubuntu OS or the install (which ever one you want to select). However, that is where my success stopped. Every time that I would try to install the Ubuntu I would get "errno 5" (input/output error). The installation would stop and that was it. I tried a few different usb's but still no luck with the installation.

TLDR; after hitting install/run ubuntu, unplug the usb and then plug it back in. Usb gains power again and you are loading up a fresh copy of ubuntu. Good luck!!