Windows update killed my Surface Pro-help!

Question

I have never had a problem with my device until an update tried to install a few weeks ago. Now it won’t even power on.

Initially it was stuck on the update page for hours. I eventually got it working agaian and a short while later it powered down (fully charged). 

Followed all of the guidence to fix with no joy, the furthest I could get to was the Surface logo. 

Contacted support online who told me to try the recovery image on a flash drive which I duly did. Low and behold it worked. I carried out a reset to try and get rid of the problem and it worked fine. 

a few days later, nothing, no Surface logo I cant get anything out of it. Microsoft want to charge me £568 for a replacement as it’s out of warranty. It was their update that killed it! Needless to say I can’t get through to a human to discuss. 

For such an expensive piece of kit (for me anyway) I can’t believe this is the service I get. Can anyone help? I can’t afford to spend that on a piece of kit I now don’t trust! :(

Answer 1

Hi MelAllan,

Thanks for reaching out to Microsoft Community and posting your inquiry. We're sorry to hear that the device isn't booting up. 

We suggest the steps below to troubleshoot:

• Press the Windows logo key + Ctrl + Shift + B. This restarts the graphics display driver. If the device was stuck on a black screen, this may resolve the issue.

• Force the device to restart. Press and hold the power button for 20 seconds. or try to press and hold the volume-up button and the power button at the same time for at least 15 seconds and then release both. The Surface may boot to UEFI.

Hope this helps.

Kind regards,

John Neil_J

Answer 2

Hi

Thanks for the reply. I've tried all of this and many other things, had various telephone conversations with tech support now. The device sometimes boots up and works perfectly (sometimes boots of its own accord), sometimes stays on the surface logo screen and sometimes does absolutely nothing. Now it occasionally says battery not detected. We've tried reinstalling via a flash drive recovery image and still it hasn't been resolved. 

I'm told it's a combination of problems, maybe hardware, maybe not detecting the battery, maybe software. But nothing definitive. I maintain this happened after a windows update but the agents refused to accept that might be why. Still my only option with Microsoft appears to be paying nearly £600 for a replacement. Which I'm obviously not going to do. 

I even offered to accept a refurbed lesser model, I just want something that I can video call my family on but I'm getting nothing forthcoming from Microsoft. 

I accept when a product has run its lifespan, I'm not so keen when it's supposedly top of the range and doesn't last 4 years.

Answer 3

I had the same thing happen. I was using the surface pro and it was plugged in and fully charged. it suddenly turned off, when I went to turn it on it said it was updating and it hasn't turned on since -if I press power I get the white logo for a second and then a black screen. Hard reset doesn't work. After multiple calls to Microsoft the woman said it was a hardware problem and that it was my fault for updating it, even though I didn't ask it to update. Then she said that this occasionally happens and nothing to do to get my files off it. My surface is 1.5 yrs old. Ill never buy one again!!!!!!!

Answer 4

It's such a pain and so annoying that I've seen so many incidents of it happening but Microsoft do nothing about it.

I let my battery drain completely and left it off for a few weeks. Plugged the charger in, tried again and as if by magic it worked. I took the opportunity and grabbed everything off it and did a full reset of the whole system wiping the lot and starting from scratch. It worked beautifully for a couple of weeks until low and behold it did a windows update a couple of days ago and now it won't go past the Surface logo again.

I have a fully working machine until this update kills it. How can that even be possible? Microsoft you need to do something about this and at least compensate us so we can buy a new one!

Answer 5

The same thing happened to my Surface Pro 6. It was working perfectly fine until it got an update around August 2020, after that it restarted and went black screen as soon as I touched it. After rebooting, anytime I would touch the screen it would go black and not come back. For awhile I was actually able to use it without touching the screen, but then it randomly started going black and now it's unusable.

I've done complete Win10 installs to factory settings, and disabling the power saving screen off option, and disabling the touch function on the screen and nothing worked. They offered me another Pro 6 for $600 usd, but I refused. 

The one irritating thing is the device works perfectly fine in the Bios menu!! I can touch the screen all I want, enter and type with no black screen locking it up! If I could run it with the Bios then I'd have no problems! So it's pretty clear to me that this is a software issue. I thought of having the hard drive and ram completely replaced but I'm not sure if it's even worth it, as the next windows update might disable it again and it would be back to the same problems! I'm saving up for a Samsung Galaxy Tab 7 now, I won't be going with Microsoft anymore.