Computers & Tablets

[MC72]

Hi all! I have a mint condition NS-P11W7100-C which was gifted to me by a friend, and he can't remember his Windows password so I'm stuck on the password prompt screen. I know that if I could get it into recovery I could reset data and take it back to factory default settings, however something is preventing me from entering recovery mode. I'm following the instructions in the manual, namely pressing power and vol- simultaneously. letting go of power when "Insignia" appears leaving vol- pressed until the screen turns black then letting go of vol-, but having no luck at all. I have tried many, many different variations and only once did I see the next blue screen previous to recovery that says something likee "Please stand by ..." but it then returned to booting Windows normally.

I am plugged into power as instructed. Does anyone have any other ideas? I'm a power user with Android devices and I know there are USB dongles you can get for certain devices that put them into recovery, has anyone heard about any such ideas as this, or have any ohter ideas as to how to reset it? It's in awesome shape and I'd hate to see it become a sweet looking paperweight!

Thanks in advance!!

[John-BBY Social Media Specialist]

Welcome to our community, MC72.

What a terrific gift to receive!

It sounds like you've been pretty thorough in your attempts to troubleshoot the start up process. So, for this query, I recommend contacting Insignia Support at (877) 467-4289 for further assistance with your tablet.

I hope this helps. Thank you for writing to us.

[MC72]

I tried that a while ago, well they were very friendly they didn't have the answers I needed. I was hoping someone on here was familiar with the EFI shell option, and that perhaps one of the shell commands could either do the reset, or set up the background environment so that it would go into recovery like it should be doing.
Id really appreciate direct help here - "call insignia" isn't really helpful, unfortunately. I'm well beyond that by now and am exploring routes such as efi shell commands or hidden menus etc.
Thanks in advance for any help anyone here can suggest!

[John-BBY Social Media Specialist]

MC72,

Thank you for messages; I was able to review your private message as well.

With apologies, I do not have sufficient materials to research the questions you're asking which is why I referred you to get in touch Insignia Support. The specifications for the tablet can be found in the User Guide. I do not have any information beyond this.

Other community members may be able to offer thoughts on how you might proceed, but we would not be able to officially validate their effectiveness.

I regret that you may find this response sub par, but your best resource for information on the tablet would be through Insignia Support.

[Confucius]

If you're still stuck, when you press the power and vol- it first appears the INSIGNIA logo, but you have to wait until "Please wait..." appears below to release the buttons. That takes you to the recovery options blue screen.
The other option is to access the BIOS menu pressing the Esc key repeatedly right after powering up.

[MC72]

No worries,, thanks anyway
I'll try Insignia again in the hopes that a real guru answers the call, maybe that's the problem/. I already know that the issue here is that it's either a problem with a setting inn BIOS or otherwise that's preventing it from entering recovery, or the instructions are incorrect for this tablet, IE this could be a later edition of the chipset that enters recovery differently than previous editions. I've seen that before many times with MTK chipsets as this one is. They don't support their products very well sometimes, unfortunately ... if you read the manual you'll end up stymied in other words. But who knows, because it needs to be plugged into power to enter recovery for some reason, for all I know there's an issue with the power adapter ... ?

[MC72]

Yes I actually am still stuck. Thanks for the reply though, it's much appreciated!
When I follow the process I don't see "Please wait..." although by now I must have tried a hundred slightly different variations on button combinations and I actually HAVE seen please wait a few times. As I recall I had to let go of the Vol- and push Vol+ or something so because I'd already let go of a button I figured I'd interrupted the procedure, but I'll try i again now that I know "Please wait..." is where to let go of all buttons. Thanks for the tip, I'll post the results
Man I sure have discovered EVERY other option possible in trying different combinations, safe mode, EFI mode, etc etc just not the one I need! LOL

[Confucius]

Just BEWARE if you have to reinstall the OS!!!!

I'm having the issue with Windows 10 (disaster) after an update was installed it rendered the tablet unbootable. I tried everything, so got to the point of reinstalling Windows 10 anew, thinking everything would be fine, despite losing some apps and files. After the install now I'm missing ALL the drivers, and maybe some system software as well: no controllers, no audio, no touch screen, no cameras, no bluetooth, etc etc etc... and for some reason Windows 10 does not allow to search for drivers on the Inernet, ONLY in Windows Update and the tablet itself. Useless! I don't even know all what I'm missing. Insignia 'support' only has the Wi-Fi driver, whcih was already working, so I contacted them asking for everything else, adn they erplied very apologetically saying that the model is discontinued and they don't have anything, in fact that they never did, because they "only fabricate the physical part of it" and have no clue about the software making it work, not even who to ask or where to look. It would've been good to know INSIGNIA products are not just cheap, but DISPOSABLE as well when I bought it.

[MC72]

Yeah all devices with an MTK logic board are trash tbh. This one's no different. And for the record, there's no support at all for Windows 10 so you'll have to downgrade back to Windows 7 or whatever came installed on it originally. I see as always, there's a group of obsessed nerds trying desperately to make these things work with Win 10 and some claim to have most of the drivers working, but why would you bother wasting months trying to get one of these things going like that? They've got roughly the processing power of an old iPad. They're handy, but besides the fancy keyboard with big battery pack, they're simply a $40 chinese tablet.

That being said, the one I'm stuck on just needs to be reset and at least I'd be able to use it, if anyone else has further ideas as to how I can get it into recovery mode I'd appreciate it! Following the instructions leads to a repeated failure.

[Confucius]

Hi, so it didn't work, right? Sorry... Let me ask about that MTK logic board. I don't know about it, and you're right about what this tablet really is, however I believed that I could get the software/drivers from a working unit to install in mine, do you know if that's possible? This came originally with Win 10 and an original update ruined it, do you mean this block from getting drivers/software is a Win 10 limitation I won't get with Win 7? I actually keep a desktop with Win 7 in it. Don't trust the 'captivity' nature of Win 10 and all the new cloud-based programs, namely how Apple manipulated the speed/batt life of older iPhones to push people to buy the new ones. I'm convinced that's what happened to my last Win XP PC, and it may happen any time now to Win 7.