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A surface pro 4 was handed to me to fix after the IT Dir had attempted a fresh Win 10 install and apparently repartitioned.
The downloaded recovery environment apparently cannot see the system disk. How do I restore this system?
SurfacePro4_BMR_15_6.6.0.zip unzipped to a 16gig FAT32 jump drive boots but fails when it can't find a system disk. Attempts to install drivers out of "System" from SurfacePro4_Win10_1701001_0.zip don't get me a system disk. I can't even tell which driver is the "storage" driver. I'm unable to install SurfacePro4_Win10_1701001_0.msi from the command line available on the recovery drive, so I'm just stuck without a working Surface pro 4.
How do I restore this system. We don't have another Surface Pro 4 available to work with to create an image or another recovery drive.
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Are you actually able to reimage from the recovery drive site or not? It does not sound like you tried booting from the downloadable recovery image.
If you continue to have a problem, try using the Microsoft Surface Data Eraser to wipe and rebuild the partitions first.
I threw together a quick guide on what you can possibly do but no guarantee that it will work.
https://onedrive.live.com/?id=6C5C247FA25B3B56%21117&cid=6C5C247FA25B3B56
I have a PDF file in the folder called "Disk Preparation" and it involves using Linux to wipe out the SSD card. You will need to keep the recovery USB pendrive you have already but will need another one of 8GB or higher to install Linux on it.
There is a utility in Linux that will display the SSD card and if it does display the SSD card, then the card is just plain dead! This can happen when people play around with the partitions on these and SSD cards are not robust built like hard disks and you can destroy them.
You will need a regular Windows computer prep the USB pendrive, so, no other Surface machine is needed but you do need another USB pendrive.
Fedora 25 could not see the Surface 4 Pro SSD with the "Disks" utility. Could it be that the storage controller/driver is that much different between a 3 and a 4 Pro?
Chances are, it will be the SSD itself. It is possible to be the controller but very rare for it to happen. SSD cards are unreliable and a lot of people have reported on "Drive C:" vanishing.
You are at the recovery point which was displaying the base drivers of Windows when you originally tried to perform the recovery and explains why no drive was available.
The SSD card needs to be replaced but not practical with these tablets. If the machine is still under warranty, contact Microsoft Customer Support to see if you can get the machine swapped out.
As for a difference in controller, not much. The two tablet models are built differently but the controllers are usually generic.
Yes. That is where the recovery image "SurfacePro4_BMR_15_6.6.0.zip" came from. It doesn't see the system disk/SSD. I saw the system working fine the day before another tech attempted a fresh install and deleted the partitions on the SSD. I wasn't present for that.