How to fix Surface Go 1 boot error - No Bootable Device

SwC 0 Reputation points
2026-09-06T21:15:01.66+00:00

Surface Go 1 reset pc - remove everything. Issue occurred during reset. Tried to reinstall using surface recovery image using USB thumb drive by holding volume down during power on, still received No Bootable Device error. Also tried recovery image with no bootable device option and received the same error. Seems like I need to recreate the bootable partition on the Surface then use the recovery image to reload windows 10. Looking for instructions on how to do this if it's the correct steps.

Surface | Surface Go | Install and update
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  1. Ian-T 11,040 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator
    2026-09-07T03:24:10.8933333+00:00

    Hi @SwC

    You should not need to recreate the boot partition manually. For the original Surface Go, Microsoft provides a dedicated USB fix specifically for the“No Bootable Device” error. This is different from the normal Surface recovery image you already tried.

    On another PC:

    1. Format an 8 GB or larger USB drive as FAT32.
    2. Download Microsoft’s dedicated SurfaceGo_FixNoBootableDevice.zip package.
    3. Extract all contents directly to the USB drive. The completed USB should contain 38 folders and 2 files.
    4. Connect the USB to the Surface Go, hold Volume Down, then press and release Power.
    5. Keep holding Volume Down until“Please wait while we install a system update” appears.

    You can find the download and full instructions here: Surface Go or Surface Go 2 shows “No Bootable Device”.

    If this tool repairs the boot issue but Windows still cannot start, then recreate the model-specific Surface recovery USB and reinstall Windows. If the dedicated USB fix is not detected at all, verify that Enable Boot from USB devices is enabled in Surface UEFI

    Hope this helps. Have a nice day!

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