Hi extremely frustrated_002,
Thank you for reaching out Microsoft Community. We apologize for the inconvenience that this has caused you. On the other hand, we really appreciate your effort in trying to download the recovery image so you can reimage your Surface Go and make it operable again.
To get your device operable again, we would like you to re-try downloading the available recovery image and kindly delete those corrupted files or folders that you were trying to download earlier that didn't go through and kindly make sure to follow the instructions below.
Note: If your Surface Go runs with Windows 10 Home, kindly download the appropriate recovery image.
How to Download, Create and Use a USB recovery drive
To download the Recovery Image:
- You'll need a PC running Windows 7 or later or Surface Device.
- Visit the page to Download the recovery image for your Surface
- Sign in with your Microsoft Account
- 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.
- Insert your USB drive into the USB port of your PC.
- From the desktop, open File Explorer
- Tap and hold or right-click on the USB drive and choose Format
- 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
- Tap or click OK to erase the contents of the USB drive
- Tap or click OK when the format is complete
Create a recovery drive:
- 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.
- Select the USB drive you formatted earlier for the location and click Extract.
USB recovery drive, please follow the steps below:
- Make sure your Surface is turned off and plugged in, and then insert the USB recovery drive into the USB port.
- Press and hold the volume-down button while you press and release the power button.
- When the Microsoft or Surface logo appears, release the volume-down button.
- When prompted, select the language and keyboard layout you want.
- Select Troubleshoot , and then select Recover from a drive . If prompted for a recovery key, select Skip this drive at the bottom of the screen.
- Choose either Just remove my files or Fully clean the drive.
The option to clean the drive is more secure but takes much longer. For example, if you’re recycling your Surface, you should clean the drive. If you’re keeping your Surface, you just need to remove your files. 7. Select Recover.
Surface restarts and displays the Surface logo while the reset process continues. This can take several minutes.
Kind Regards,
Crest_Z