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A few months back I purchased the new Surface Book 2 for a bit over 3,000 EUR. I had high hopes that as Microsoft knows this hardware inside out (just like Apple does with their MacBooks) I would not anymore have to go through the usual driver issues and what not but instead have a nice, reliable machine at hand that would make my everyday work life easier, not harder.
1. Sleep of Death
Before my holiday I then started using my old Dell notebook again, as there was no way, I could put this 3,000 EUR Surface Book 2 to hibernate (or sleep! - both did actually not work) without having to do press the power button thereafter for 20 sec or so and hardresetting the thing to wake up. It seemed to be the (what seems to be quite common actually!) sleep of death issue. In light of the many users seeming to have the same issues I was hoping Microsoft would get on to a firmware update during my vacation and all would be solved upon my return. In fact, after my return this morning there were about 20 or so updates that got installed after I powered the SB2 up, amongst them a firmware update.
2. Laptop Bricked after Update - for good!
After installing and restarting I then had this issue: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/forum/surfbook2-surfupdate/surface-book-2-bricked-after-latest-firmware/06fb11b2-4eb2-4141-9cd1-1e02d54afd78 - A blue screen with a prompt to enter the BitLocker key. Well, I looked it up and seemed to have recovered the key in my MS account (luckily! as other users seemed not to be so lucky as can be read in the link above). The (almost funny by now) thing is, that my keyboard does not work. My touchpad works just fine, I can "change keyboard layout" or "skip this drive" (obviously of little use, as this drive is my system drive with my Windows installation on it). But when I click into the blank field to enter the key, my keyboard does not respond at all and I cannot enter a key.
3. Excel Pixelated Issue with Surface Dock
Did I already mention how much I like the idea to have my two 1080p monitors hooked up to my laptop via Surface Dock with just one magnetic cable? Well, Excel becomes almost unreadable and in general the (text) image quality is poor compared to my old Dell, which has a HDMI and a Mini Display port so that I can hook up the two displays directly. This is sad...
Microsoft, seriously? I had such high hopes that (after investing 3,000 EUR) I would finally get a machine that would give me the same reliability as my Mac Book Pro. You cannot ask these prices, offer a super fancy top of the nodge notebook and then have issues like this. I mean, my laptop is bricked! I am having nothing but issues with the thing, can't even close the lid (to slee or hibernate) without recovering all my files as the bloody thing goes into a sleep of death. WTF is wrong with this thing ... I thought the old days of bootable CDs (or USB sticks nowaday) were kind of over by now... especially after paying this price!
Any ideas how to get around this w/o investing half a day to re-install Windows and all my programs?
Had I not started to like the new Windows 10 and have many programs that need Win, I think I'd already be back to a Mac Book.
Thanks for your help in advance.
Moved from: Windows 10 / Windows update, recovery, & backup
Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.
The Surface BitLocker Protector Check tool is now available to verify that the BitLocker settings are properly configured on your Surface Book 2 13” NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1050 and to help ensure that future updates go smoothly on your device.
For more information, please view our Known issues and additional information about Surface Book 2 article.
Updated 11/2/2018
Brian
It has worked, I now have a fully working Surface with all devices operating as normal. I believe that Bitlocker is now broken, but I hate Bitlocker with a vengeance. This episode actually made me ill.
4 Microsoft support staff were no help whatsoever. They would just send me the "boot from USB" instructions & close the case, without checking if it actually worked. Truly awful support for one of the most expensive laptops in the world, broken by their own updates.
To fix this you need access to a second computer. You will lose all your software & data on your USB drive & your SurfaceBook2.
Download the media creation tool from here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10
Put a 16gb+ USB drive into your spare computer. (Using USB3 will save a lot of time)
Run the Media Creation tool to the USB drive. (This will download Windows 10 & take quiet some time)
Take the completed USB drive & insert to the Surface Book.
Turn on the Surface & choose "Skip this disk" at the Bitlocker screen.
Go to the Troubleshooting option & choose Command prompt.
At the command prompt screen, type D: & press enter.
Type setup & press enter.
This will start the Windows 10 installation.
It will ask where to install it & present a list of 4 partitions. On my computer, partition 3 was the largest & the obvious location of my Windows installation.
Erase partition 3.
Create new partition & accept the default size. This will create a new partition 3.
Choose to install Windows 10 to partition 3. Windows 10 will run through the installation process & then the Cortana process to configure everything.
At this point you will have a working Windows with Internet access, but with basic drivers.
Download the Surfacebook drivers from here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=56261
I downloaded both.
Double click the downloaded file to install the first driver with the lowest file number in the name. You should reboot afterwards. Then double click the 2nd downloaded file to install the next drivers, then reboot afterwards.
Verify your user account details as normal.
Result will be a fully working vanilla laptop. All function keys working, drivers all correct.
Reinstall your software & restore your data backups. Remember that if you have Office 365, you will need to remove the installed computer from your account, before installing again.
Total time is about 2 hours work (I like to get things perfect). Plus 2 hours for downloading Windows 10 & the drivers.
I've had the same issues as NickHill5, but I do not have the technical skills to try all of those things, and frankly I'm still not totally sure that whatever he did worked(?). I thought this update was supposed to *improve* reliability. So frustrating. Microsoft, please fix this.
Hi Nick,
Thank you for the update I am always learning put this one on the books for next time.
Regards,
Linnell
Hi Nick,
So booting to USB and deleting partition worked. That's a great! From what I have read if you try to install without deleting partition you'd run into the same problem.
Regards,
Linnell
Thanks Linnell
Except I was never able to boot to the USB. Instead, I ran command prompt, fro the prompt. logged to D: & just ran setup.exe
Within setup, I had to delete & recreate the partition.
As it stands, I have rebuilt, but I think that the relationships to the other partitions is broken. Bitlocker will not activate & I doubt that refresh would work.
Nick
