Since September, I’ve been using the Developer Preview version of Windows 8 that came with the Samsung 700T tablets that we got at //BUILD/, but today Microsoft released the next update to Win8 – the Consumer Preview. Obviously, it came out today, so it’s time to update the device!
I couldn’t find any documentation showing how to upgrade / install the new OS, and heard that upgrades are not supported in these pre-release bits, so I was ready to wipe the device and install clean. Through trial and error, here’s how I installed the Consumer Preview version.
The plan was to boot from a USB thumb drive that has the contents of the installation media on it. You’ll see below that it wasn’t the normal “boot from ISO” experience that I’m used to on a desktop PC.
Create Bootable USB Thumb Drive
Most importantly, you can only use a thumb drive that is 4 GB in size. The hardware does not recognize larger drives than that.
Use the Windows 7 USB/DVD download tool to create a bootable USB drive from the .ISO file. I think this is similar to expanding the contents of the .ISO onto the USB drive, but then it also makes it bootable as well. As you’ll see below, I didn’t end up actually BOOTING from the USB drive, so making it bootable is probably an extraneous step.
Insert the USB thumb drive into the device.
Enter “BIOS” at Startup
This was new to me. When the device is powering up, hold down the START button until you see the “Preparing Options” message at the bottom. 
This brings you to what seems to be the equivalent of BIOS options, but with a Win8 layer on top of it running the show (touch works in this UI).
(Excuse the nasty camera pics here – couldn’t take actual screenshots when down in the low level BIOS options.)
Choose TROUBLESHOOT.
Choose ADVANCED OPTIONS.
Choose COMMAND PROMPT.
At this point you will be prompted for account credentials. This is another area new to me – requiring account credentials on the device at this “low level” before you can go hacking on the system.
Command Prompt – Run SETUP
Now you will be at a familiar command prompt, at the X drive (not sure what drive this is).
CD to the D drive, which on my device is the USB thumb drive. Notice the directory listing is the Win8 Consumer Preview installation software from the ISO.
Now from the root of the D drive, run SETUP. Up comes the first step of the installation…
From here, after a couple intro steps, I chose “Custom” installation since I want to wipe my device, not an upgrade, and had to choose a partition…
Crazy List of Partitions
It turns out there are 5 partitions on my device. The main one where Win8 Developer Preview is installed is Partition 5. 
I deleted that one (drive options, advanced) and installed to that partition.
Finally … we’re on to the “normal” installation of Windows 8…
Windows 8 Consumer Preview
Ahh, the start screen…
my samsung is throwing an error of 80070490 Unexpected Error occurred can you help me.
Thanks, this was helpful. Have you figured out how to get Silent Mode turned on so the fan noise will go away? Worked fine in Win 7.
After the install, are you still able to get into the pre-boot environment (which you refer to as the BIOS)?
I ran into the 80070490 error, too. I waited for a bit, and it eventually recovered. After a reboot, I tried it again, but it failed. This time I turned the 700T off before it restored. It would only boot to a black screen with a single prompt (underscore). I used a USB DVD drive and an install DVD to do a clean install. The system booted from the DVD drive directly, and the install proceeded without error.
I tried this and am getting a Secure Boot Violation now and I can’t get back into the BIOS. Have you seen this?
I got the same “Secure Boot Violation” and cant get into the bios either. Did you figure this out?
how did you manage to take screenshots on this tablet?
Those are just pictures taken from my phone camera, not screenshots. Can’t take screenshots before Windows is installed.