Surface RT 32GB (32 Bit) can't start

Hi James,

Many thanks for all of your advice, except to retire the Surface. Pleased to report that it has recovered operability, has updated completely and is working fine.

Although I have been retired for 22 years, retirement didn’t mean that I became a paperweight (burden) and I was determined to resuscitate the Surface.

Appears that all the problems related to the wrong instructions on the video on this Microsoft web page: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4023512/surface-creating-and-using-a-usb-recovery-drive#Download . I had tried recreating the Recovery Drive exactly as per their instructions (3 times in all) and none of them worked.

After your last message, I eliminated the step “create a recovery drive” (as at 55 seconds of the video) and just quick formatted the USB Flash Drive and extracted all the files directly to it as you advised.

It didn’t work at first but on the 4^th^ attempt it did and took about an hour to reset.

Initially it also allowed updating but after 2 very large update cycles it stopped yet again. The 3^rd^ time, I left it trying to update for over 24 hours. Eventually after even more extensive browsing found several articles about requiring KB3173424 and KB3172614. Downloaded and installed them and they broke the “no update” spell. After several further very large updates, it now appears that the Surface is completely up to date . . . more importantly I have the Start Menu back.  

Many thanks again.

Thanks Domcarter for your prompt reply. 

I am afraid that I understood nothing after the 3rd paragraph and the mention of Tegra 3. What is the connection with a Surface RT? Am totally confused.

However the Surface model is 1516 and the serial number is 014106231752, if that helps.

BTW: I wasn't having "issues". Other than it had just stopped updating it was working absolutely perfectly. The problem was that I believed the Microsoft Support page advice.  

BTW: this is a photograph of the error message:

and this is the link that took me to the wrong version of the recovery image:

It doesn't matter if the computer you use is 32-bit or 64-bit for getting the recovery drive zip file.  All you do is download the file, unzip it to the USB pen drive and you just created the recovery drive.

If the recovery is not working after creating it, your RT is toast and is already giving up.  Get the data off of it (onto a USB pen drive or micro-SD card) and get a different machine.

There is a machine that is low budget that I recommend to anybody and that is the Asus T103.  You can find those on Amazon.  I had one of these before and it is a Windows 10 machine complete with a keyboard cover and even includes a pen.

The Surface RT and Surface 2 machines are dead!  All they are good for are paperweights.  Asus is not the only maker of budget machines but whatever you get, make sure it has 64GB of storage or higher or it will never upgrade.

Thanks James,

Am reluctant to retire it, as it was perfect for my use, which is very light including simple browsing, e-mail and reading & watching foreign news in bed. Cell phone is too small and my 17" laptop is too big and too heavy. Don't game and don't use any demanding apps. 

If, as you say, the 64 bit ARM processors are new, surely the recovery image for the Surface RT must be available somewhere.

Even if I wanted to remove all my data I can't. It won't start after trying the recovery image that MS recommended (as per my previous post).

Therefore, if I may, back to my original question: I would be most grateful to know from where I can obtain/download the correct 32 bit recovery image.

Thanks chaps

I am pretty sure (99%) that all surface products are 64 bit, 32 bit CPU's went the way of the dinosaurs 10 of 15 years ago (if not more).

edit.

I just looked into the Tegra 3, it's much older than I thought (2008) and may well be 32 bit. Technical specs from the wiki below.

I think the product is so old that Microsoft may not be supporting updates any more. Which is why you are having issues. Without the model number of your device I am unable to look much harder into the support Microsoft gives to your device.

The Tegra 3 (codenamed "Kal-El")^[28]^ is functionally a SoC with a quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore CPU, but includes a fifth "companion" core in what Nvidia refers to as a "variable SMP architecture".^[29]^ While all cores are Cortex-A9s, the companion core is manufactured with a low-power silicon process. This core operates transparently to applications and is used to reduce power consumption when processing load is minimal. The main quad-core portion of the CPU powers off in these situations.

Tegra 3 is the first Tegra release to support ARM's SIMD extension, NEON.

The GPU in Tegra 3 is an evolution of the Tegra 2 GPU, with 4 additional pixel shader units and higher clock frequency. It can also output video up to 2560×1600 resolution and supports 1080p MPEG-4 AVC/h.264 40 Mbit/s High-Profile, VC1-AP, and simpler forms of MPEG-4 such as DivX and Xvid.^[30]^

The Tegra 3 was released on November 9, 2011.^[31]^

Common features:

• CPU cache: L1: 32 KB instruction + 32 KB data, L2: 1 MB
• 40 nm LPG semiconductor technology by TSMC

Devices