Guide: Samsung Recovery Solution 6 (SRS6) and Windows 10

Windows 10 comes in as an seamless upgrade to both Windows 7 and Windows 8/8.1.
This means, that you essentially have to do nothing and just wait for the upgrade to finish.
All your previous programs, applications and drivers are fully compatible and the roll out for most users has been smooth.

But should you ever want to revert to factory settings, you're back on Windows 8.

Samsung has kept up with the pace and I never came across any problems during and even after the upgrade.
So, my computer, an NP550P5C machine is fully compatible with Windows 10.
Not only that, it actually runs Windows 10 way better than it did Windows 8 and 8.1.

Now, my only problem was the factory settings. If I ever wanted to start with a clean image, I'd have to go back to Windows 8 and then go through the upgrade process again.
After the Windows 10 free upgrade period of a year lapses, there is no way without paying for it.
Windows 8.1 in my opinion was a disaster and Windows 10 is the OS to be on.

So, what if, like me, you would like to start with a completely clean installation of Windows 10?
There are plenty of tutorials on how to start with a clean installation of Windows 10, but only using the "Reset My PC" function.

I did not want to just reset my machine.
I wanted to reformat, repartition and then reinstall Windows, and have Samsung Recovery taking me back to a clean install of Windows 10 whenever I wanted to.
While most people might argue that the "Reset My PC" function does the same thing, I would still prefer to format my hard disk and start afresh.
Think of it as an alternative to the Windows Recovery Environment.

I know for a fact that when I last tried to "Reset My PC" on Windows 8.1, it asked me for installation media, which as you know, you don't get any more.
With a factory image however, you don't need to worry about whether windows reset will work or whether it'll ask you for a product key (which again we don't have - or at least not directly).

So, a fresh, clean installation which can be carried out at any time without worry or hassle, gives me a certain level of comfort in the least.

And here's where I give full credit to Samsung - the creation and installation process of a Windows 10 factory image was flawless and barring a few points to remember here, smooth.

I use a Samsung NP550P5C machine.

Please keep the following points in mind.

1. When you're performing a fresh installation of Windows 10, you get the option of deleting all the partitions.
Windows will then create it's own EFI and recovery partitions automatically.

2. If you already have the samsung recovery partitions and wish to reuse them, delete and format only the Windows partitions.

3. If like me, you want to start anew, we need to create two more partitions for Samsung Recovery.
This is where the USB Admin Tool has to be used first.

BEFORE wiping your hard drive, you will therefore only need the USBAdmin Tool -
The Admin Tool can be created by booting into the samsung recovery environment (using F4) and then pressing Ctrl+Alt+F10 to get into advanced options. The password to use is either "secos" or "secclx".
Click on the option to create a USB Admin Tool.

If it's too late, you can download an image of the admin tool from here.

I would still recommend creating an image of your hard drive before wiping it, just in case the process fails for you.
I used Windows to create a system image.

Once you're ready and you know that there's nothing else to lose.

1. Plug in the USBAdmin Tool and restart your computer.
2. Get into BIOS setup (using F2), disable fastboot in the advanced menu, save the changes, restart and get into BIOS setup again.

3. Now select the USBAdmin tool (UEFI 0.00) as the first boot option under Boot Device Priority in the Boot menu and restart again.

4. The Samsung Recovery environment will now start and you will get a whole list of options to create the recovery partitions. Go ahead and check the first four options. Leave the last three unchecked as
a. a new image will be created after windows 10 is installed,
b. installation of windows is done separately and
c. the init date can be fixed after we create the new image.


5. Remember that the samsung recovery partitions are to be located at the end of the drive and not the start of the drive.
6. Leave the partition size allocations as default. i.e. Recovery Boot Partition at 1 GB and Recovery Data Partition at 10GB.
7. Click "Run" to complete the installation.

We're now done with creating the recovery partitions.

The next step is to install Windows 10 - Insert the Windows DVD or USB drive and then select this drive to boot from.
Remember that when presented with the options, do not delete the newly created recovery partitions.
These partitions will be labelled Samsung_REC and Samsung_REC2 and will be placed at the end/bottom of the partition list.

Let the windows installation complete and set up your computer.
Windows installation would have completed once you have booted into windows desktop.

What I did at this point was to make sure that all the drivers were downloaded and installed before I created a factory image. I also wanted to have an antivirus installed, so I went ahead and installed avast.

For the drivers, use Samsung Update, this can be downloaded from here.

I selected and installed all the drivers, got avast up and running and then carried out the following steps to create the initial image.

Please note that to create the initial image, you will have to download and install the latest version of Samsung Recovery (v 6.1.0.1)using Samsung Update.
Failure to do so will give you weird errors at the time the initial image is being taken.

To create the initial image, plug in in the USBadmin tool once again, this time while Windows is running.

1. Navigate to the WinClon folder and doubleclick on AdminTool.exe
2. Here again, you will be presented with a list of options, which have to be performed stepwise.

3. Step 2 is to finalize and initiate the F4 link. Clicking on this button will present you with a set of instructions. A file named RecoverySettingsSV.exe will be placed on your desktop.
Run this file with administrator privileges (right click and "run as administrator").
A command prompt window will now open and execute a set of instructions. This should take about a minute or two.
If the command prompt just flashes briefly, it means that this program is not being run as administrator.
4. Step 4 is to delete the recovery area and we don't want that,do we?
5. Follow the instructions closely and when the time comes you should have no problems with getting the program with creating the initial image. This process is automated and the computer will reboot into recovery to take the initial image. Nothing to worry about at all!

You should be all set now. The only thing left to do is set the init date, which can now be done by again booting with the USBAdmin Tool and checking only the "Fix init date" option.
All the other options are to be left unchecked.

Test the F4 link by hitting F4 when the computer starts.
Run Samsung Recovery in Windows to check and verify if recovery runs correctly and you are able to see your factory image available (with the current date).

It is noteworthy that Samsung Recovery v 6.1.0.1, does not allow you to create an image of your current settings like it used to back in Windows 8/8.1.
I guess samsung is working on this, but in the mean time, you can download the previous version (6.0.12.18) of Samsung Recovery to have this option again.
I have uploaded the installer and you can download it from here.

Cheers and Good Luck.

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Guide: Samsung Recovery Solution 6 (SRS6) and Windows 10