Reset laptop without any login information

Question

I was given a Windows 10 Microsoft laptop but have none off the login information (or it has been shut down). No PIN, passwords, recovery key anything. I want to wipe everything anyway but for the life of me can't figure out how to do it. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

Answer 1

Hi duckboxxer,

Thank you for reaching Microsoft Community. I understand that you were given with a Surface Laptop but do not have any login information, and you want to wipe everything from the device.

For this case, I recommend doing a clean installation of Windows on the device through USB Recovery using the Surface Recovery Image. With this, you'll need the exact Surface model and serial number. See these articles below for reference on getting the said details:

Find out which Surface model you have - Microsoft Support

Find the serial number on your Microsoft or Surface device - Microsoft Support

If you are not able to get the exact model of the Surface, you may also enter the serial number here: Check Warranty Page - ROBO SelfServe Portal (surface.com)

Going back to the clean installation of Windows, this option will reimage the entire device and reload Windows including the drivers and firmware. It is the most complete form of Reset and it will wipe out everything on the device. You will need also a 16GB/32GB of flash drive that must be formatted into FAT32 prior to downloading the Recovery Image. See the steps below for guidance.

How to Download, Create and Use a USB recovery drive

To download the Recovery Image:

• You'll need another working device running on Windows.

1. Go to: Download the recovery image for your Surface
2. Sign in with your Microsoft Account
3. From the list of Surface devices available, select the device that you need a recovery image for
   Please note that while you will only be presented with devices that are currently registered on your account, you will also be presented with the option to get an image for a different type of device. If you try to use this option, you will be prompted to enter the serial number for that device
4. Download the recovery image using the button on the page
5. When the download bar pops up at the bottom of your screen, save the file in a location you will be able to find it.

 Format USB Drive:

• Note: Formatting a recovery drive will erase anything that is already stored on your USB drive. Make sure to transfer any important data from your USB drive to another storage device before using it to create a Surface USB recovery drive.

1. Insert your USB drive into the USB port of your PC.
2. From the desktop, open File Explorer
3. Tap and hold or right-click on the USB drive and choose Format
4. Select FAT32 as the file system and enter a Volume label to name the USB drive, such as RECOVERY, and then tap or click Start
5. Tap or click OK to erase the contents of the USB drive
6. Tap or click OK when the format is complete

Create a recovery drive:

1. On your Surface or PC, open recovery image that you downloaded by double-clicking it or right click then select Extract and then Extract all.
2. Select the USB drive you formatted earlier for the location and click Extract.

Use a USB recovery drive to reset your Surface:

1. Shutdown the Surface
2. Insert the USB recovery drive into the USB port
3. Press and hold the volume-down (-) key
4. Press and release the power button
5. When the Surface logo appears, release the volume-down (-) key
6. Surface will start the recovery software on the USB recovery drive
7. When prompted, choose your language options and keyboard layout
8. Select Troubleshoot
9. Select Recover from a Drive. Choose Remove Everything and Fully Clean the Drive. Recovering this PC.
10. If prompted, select Repartition the drives
11. If prompted for BitLocker Key, tap Skip this Drive

Hope this helps.

Kind regards,

Marrion

Answer 2

Thanks so much for all the detail. I haven't had an opportunity to complete this yet as I had to get a USB stick to use in the process. (Thanks black Friday sales lol)

Answer 3

Now that the holidays are over I have finally gotten a chance to work on this. I just wanted to share what all was necessary in case others might find it useful. Turns out bitlocker was an issue. I think there were some other security lockdowns as I couldn't use the keyboard or recognize the network adapter either. So first step was to deal with that. It took a few tries to recognize the mousepad as well. Microsoft has too many ways to put the OS back on your machine - reset, restore, format, recover....

This isn't a 100% step by step as it took a lot of tries, some 'maybe it will work this time' and a few beers. It was important that I had a USB-C to USB-A adapter as well. Maybe it was just this laptop, but otherwise I would not have been able to use an external mouse and the USB drive at the same time. But here is an overview of some of the steps.

I had to start with using a USB drive to create an installation media version of windows. From there I had to go in and change the BIOS/UEFI to boot from the USB drive. (I forget how at this moment in time Shift+Power button? Shift +Power seemed to work to get me into the BIOS menu vs other combinations I read online).

This is where it got weird. There seemed to be an issue with a hardware password, bitlocker, there wasn't a partition large enough and they weren't in the right order. I don't remember the order or what all I ended up doing. I deleted the partition. It was whole day of combination of reinstalls, etc. I do recall at one point I used recovery vs reinstall/ restore. Using restore for me didn't work as those had all been deleted at some point (probably not necessary, but I didn't want to put any of the old security stuff back on it in case there were issues.)

During all of this, my touchpad mouse wasn't working, but it was recognizing my USB-C mouse. Maybe just my machine, but that's what I had to do.

Not done yet. It eventually seemed to mostly install - however I didn't have access to the keyboard and had to use the accessibility (onscreen) keyboard to log into my account on the machine (and to add a pin). I went in and decrypted the hard drive and turned off bitlocker once I was able to login, as I still didn't have access to the keyboard and had to use the onscreen accessibility keyboard.

THEN I put the recovery image as mentioned above on a USB drive and reinstalled that. From there, things seem to be working as expected. I have access to keyboard, network, running updates, etc. I took off the decryption and bitlocker just to be sure.

Again, these aren't the exact details, but I had to use the create media installation version of windows and then install the recovery version of windows via USB. But it seems that it took a lot more to get bitlocker (and whatever other security) off - at least for me. HTH someone else!

Answer 4

Hi duckboxxer,

Thank you for the update and apologies for the long delay in getting back. Glad to hear that you were able to do the reinstall though you had to perform a bit more complicated steps by using the Windows ISO at first.

Regarding with the concern on the keyboard not detected during the installation, this usually occurs when using the Windows ISO file instead of the Surafce Recovery Image since the ISO file does not have the Surface specific drivers on it yet. On the other hand, glad to know that you were able to finish the installation using the on-screen keyboard and an external mouse.

Thank you also for spending time here with us in the Community.

Kind regards,
Marrion