Trying to create recovery USB without the Surface working

Question

I have read everything I can find regarding this and I still don't know why it's not plainly written: how do I create a USB recovery drive without the use of the Surface RT?

I have downloaded the image from MS (SurfaceRT_BMR_10.8.17.0.zip) and have a properly formatted USB drive (FAT32). I cannot follow the directions given to me by the download page (create the media within Windows RT) because I don't have a working Windows RT tablet.

Can I create a recovery drive from Windows 10? I have tried following the directions from my windows 10 PC (search for recovery, create a recovery USB drive and copy the files in the zip over to the drive) but it didn't work.

When I try to reset the Surface it tells me the media is not valid. When I boot off the USB directly it tells me "There was a problem resetting the PC".

Answer 1

Take a look here, my second topic.

Restore/refresh Surface with Windows RT with the recovery image

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/forum/surfwinrt-surfupdate/install-rt-updates-and-prevent-the-black-screen/914b69f2-54ec-4d7c-be38-5c5c3f1923f0

Answer 2

I tried using another USB stick but the tablet wouldn't even read it (64GB forced into fat32). I used diskpart to clean my USB drive (16 GB) and clean/partitioned/formatted using the command line.

The issue is just that it won't continue after selecting the reset option. It asks me to inset the media recovery files and when I put in the USB drive it reads it and tells me it's the wrong files.

When I boot off the USB directly I get a slightly different screen when I select reset. It asks me what OS to install (Windows RT is the only option) so it seems to me that the USB drive is being read and working.

OK, while I was typing this out I was rebooting off the USB drive and learned that I have command line access this way (if I booted with the shirt - restart option I couldn't get into the command line).

So I checked diskpart and I have access to the partition. I have read a prior post about removing the partitions only to brick the tablet. Can I disable secure boot and try formatting and booting off the USB?

Answer 3

A Windows PC does a perfectly fine job of formatting a USB drive using a right click in file explorer.

Use the 16GB drive, freshly formatted to fat32. Copy/paste the contents of the SurfaceRT_BMR_10.8.17.0 folder to the USB drive.

Follow the instructions in the referenced

'Restore/refresh Surface with Windows RT with the recovery image' to boot from the USB drive.