Surface Pro 4 won't boot to USB

Anonymous
2016-07-10T08:39:13+00:00

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.

Surface | Surface Pro | Install and update

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Anonymous
2016-07-11T00:30:30+00:00

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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  1. Anonymous
    2017-08-04T03:50:14+00:00

    James, I have three pen drive and one of this was sent to me directly from MS Italy so it is Microsoft Official Hardware tested.

    No one of these pen drive make SP4 boot from USB. At this point what I have to think about?

    Luca

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  2. Anonymous
    2017-08-04T05:57:22+00:00

    I think at this point, you may need to see if you can swap out the tablet via customer support.  Something has to have corrupted the BIOS and that is burned onto a chip and cannot be replaced.

    Looks to me like you tried everything with no luck.  Failures with more than one pendrive is not normal.

    If you are still under warranty, it may not cost you anything for the swap out.

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  3. Anonymous
    2017-08-09T08:04:17+00:00

    I've disabled secure boot and loaded with usb. But all I can see it's blue screen with touch keyboard. And after few seconds the surface turns off. Does anybody boot surface from usb successfully ?

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  4. Barb Bowman 80,820 Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2017-08-09T13:04:13+00:00

    lots of people do this. are you trying to boot from an official downloadable

    recovery image

    https://www.microsoft.com/surface/en-us/support/warranty-service-and-recovery/downloadablerecoveryimage

    using a 16GB USB 2.0 flash stick properly formatted FAT32? did you ever have an

    Insiders Build on your SP4?

    >> Does anybody boot surface from usb successfully ?

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