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keyboard not working in startup settings

Anonymous
2013-02-17T03:33:06+00:00

Hey everyone,

I just got my surface pro today, and the first thing i want to do is format and install win 8 enterprise.  Every time i go to the Advanced options and startup settings, i cant change any of the options. No keyboard that i plugin works. I have tried 3 different ones all with usb.  They work in windows fine, but not when pressing 1-8 to change the settings.

Do I need the surface keyboard from MS for this to work? Thanks for the help.

Surface | Surface Pro | USB-C

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  1. Anonymous
    2013-02-26T22:00:35+00:00
    1. Got recovery drive from BestBuy surface demo
    2. Insert usb drive and hold vol down + press power.
    3. Booted into the blue screen where it gives you the language options.
    4. On the "Choose an Option" screen, i chose troubleshoot
    5. Then under Troubleshoot... I selected the "Reset PC" options
    6. It re-partitioned the drives and installed windows back to default
    7. Once back in windows I went to windows system properties and shrank the paging file (got 3GB)
    8. Removed the hiberfil.sys (got 3GB)
    9. Then I removed the 7GB recovery partition using DISKPART
    10. Had a total of 118GB available on system after all the above and my surface is running good now.

    Note 1

    When I ran the "make a recovery drive" in windows, my option to copy the recovery partition was grayed out, and I could not ever select it.

    Note 2

    During the install of the recovery partition that I got from Best Buy. I noticed the tablet was unresponsive sometimes when pressing the power button. It is like that in windows also when I press it to power off the screen. It wont come out of a sleep and i have to power it down and restart.

    For the first day I tried to boot from the BestBuy recovery image and it never read the USB after trying 40 times. And finally the next day i plugged in the drive to try again, and it finally booted from the USB drive the first time. And i was able to recover.

    I use Patriot Supersonic Boost XT 32GB USB drives

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  2. Anonymous
    2013-02-19T18:45:35+00:00

    Is this the tool you are using to create your bootable USB drive?

    If that is the tool you are using, then it is not creating a UEFI bootable boot device. If you want to use a device formatted with Legacy NTFS bootcode, then you will have to disable UEFI and enable Legacy from the Firmware settings page. Hereare the instructions to do that. I would recommend instead using a UEFI bootable device instead to complete this procedure but you should be able to disable secure boot and boot with the USB drive.

    You should also be able to touch the screen at all of those areas of the Advanced Startup. This is the area with the blue background, correct? Not the firmware screen that has a black background with only five options?

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  3. Anonymous
    2013-02-18T22:13:52+00:00

    Cool. I'll be interested to see what happens. I tried 2 new Logitech keyboards (K810 & K120), mac keyboard, old dell usb keyboard, and luxeed.  All work in everything, but that screen.

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  4. Anonymous
    2013-02-18T22:57:44+00:00

    Are you using a UEFI based installation source or an NTFS bootable device with NTFS bootcode?

    You can try an in place upgrade but there have been problems. Search the forum for others who have posted about doing this. In addition, you will need to re-install some drivers. I have them hosted here.

    Regarding a keyboard, what do you need the keyboard for? Will it not accept touch input at those screens?

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  5. Anonymous
    2013-02-17T08:09:27+00:00

    My Pro is stuck in the Post Office until Tuesday, but I'll be using a USB keyboard with it, I'll try this and let you know my results...but hopefully someone else will report on this in the meanwhile.

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