Surface Pro 4 won't boot to USB

Anonymous

I have tried every instruction method I have found online to get the surface to boot from USB.

The only requirement I have seen is the USB is formatted fat32 with I have verified.

It was made with the recovery disk creator.

Juat at can't get it to boot to it.

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Anonymous

If you are trying to boot to the recovery usb flash drive using the 2 button power + volume down power up that may be your problem. That procedure does not work on my sp4 i7 and may not work on any sp4s.

Method to boot to Recovery usb

Make sure your sp4 is shutdown, insert your usb flash drive, then hold down the Volume UP button and tap the power button momentarily, as soon as the SURFACE logo appears release the Volume UP button. This will bring you to the UEFI configuration screens. Go to the Boot configuration screen and make sure the "Enable boot from usb devices" is checked and that USB Storage is selected(the box will be blackened if it is selected). To boot the usb swipe your finger from the right to left on the "USB Storage" line. Answer the following message to boot from that device and your sp4 should boot to recovery drive. Your usb stick should be formatted as fat32 and the recovery image should be unzipped in its entirety to the usb stick. Rufus is not necessary if you formatted your flash drive on the sp4.

Note that I have used both 32gb and 16gb flash drives successfully. You do not have to disable Secure Boot.

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43 additional answers

Barb Bowman 80,820 Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator

2016-07-10T19:07:52+00:00

if you formatted FAT32 GPT, it would be correct.

Are you in the US? If yes, go to the closest physical retail Microsoft Store for

assistance. Otherwise, you will need to contact support

https://www.microsoft.com/surface/en-us/support/contact-us

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

Barb

MVP-Windows and Devices for IT

My Blog - http://digitalmediaphile.com/

Please mark as answered if this answers your question
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Anonymous

2016-07-10T20:07:13+00:00

yes, I have made certain it is GTP and Fat32. And you can full create the bootable device in RUFUS because the Surface image download is a .zip file and RUFUS wont extract a .zip directly to the USB. I did a copy after and it seems to work on other PC's. It seems rather dumb that the recommendation is to use a 3rd party tool like RUFUS when MS has the Create recovery Drive tool built into the OS who's purpose it to build a bootable recovery USB drive.

Not worth it to me to take the time and drive 2 hours to a MS store. I will just take the device back to Best Buy.
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Anonymous

2016-12-05T21:20:31+00:00

Yo I have tried all the stuff on this page and many others around the web, and yet anytime i try to boot from USB, it either takes me back to the UEFI or boots windows off the SSD. I have tried so many different things and they all just end up returning me to the UEFI or booting off the SSD. Im using Surface Pro 4 i56300u. Anyone know what the big deal is?
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Anonymous

2016-12-05T23:47:03+00:00

Yo I have tried all the stuff on this page and many others around the web, and yet anytime i try to boot from USB, it either takes me back to the UEFI or boots windows off the SSD. I have tried so many different things and they all just end up returning me to the UEFI or booting off the SSD. Im using Surface Pro 4 i56300u. Anyone know what the big deal is?

What are u trying to boot from the usb?
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