Microsoft Support Surface Recovery Image

[Barb Frison]

SelectCreate to download and create a USB key with the latest recovery image for a Surface device. Alternatively, if you have a previously downloaded recovery image, select Manage Existing.

On the Select Device screen, choose the specific Surface device that you wish to recover. The toolkit displays a list of managed devices and a dropdown menu for all supported devices. Select Next.

If creating a new recovery USB, select the base language and version of Windows for the recovery image. Options for Windows 10 and Windows 11, along with different feature updates like 21H2 and 22H2, are available. Select Next.

I got my hands on a test unit, a Microsoft Surface Go 4, and wanted to see if we could image it via SCCM as we currently are doing for Surface Go 3 models. However, the problems became apparent quickly.

So how to fix this ? The easiest choice was to grab the driver pack from Microsoft and inject the missing storufs.inf driver into the Windows 10 ADK version 2004 boot wim. So I went down what I thought was the path of least resistance.

But guess what, those UFS storage drivers are not available in the downloadable MSI. You will need to rip the needed drivers from the factory image so keep that in mind before you blow it away. I found the needed files in the following folder on the factory install:

It's easier to use the Windows 11 22H2 ADK/WinPE since Windows 10/11 versions older than 22H2 don't support UFS disks. This works to image a Surface Go 4 and other UFS devices, without having to add any drivers to Windows PE. Download and install the Windows ADK Microsoft Learn. The newer "ADK 10.1.25398.1" has a known issue with UFS documented on that page, in addition to the known VBS issue you mentioned. Also, Surface Go 4 is only supported on 22H2 and newer versions of Windows according to this article Surface supported operating systems - Microsoft Support, so I don't think WinPE 2004 is expected to work.

Similar experience on Asus. They also direct you to 22H2 as the solution, though they do it by telling you to reimage with a fresh image created with the Media Creation Tool or update Windows (so you end up on 22H2/23H2) [Notebook] Troubleshooting - Universal Flash Storage (UFS) Controller Exclamation Mark and Inability to Enter System Official Support ASUS USA

I did test with Windows 11 ADK and that has it's own issues including the inability to use bitlocker during imaging. See the known issues here -us/mem/configmgr/core/plan-design/configs/support-for-windows-adk

Hello Niall,

thanks for this awesome post!

We thought / hoped that the update would help, as we have the same problem within imaging the Surface Go 4.

We first had the problem of an old version of Windows ADK and PE, so we updated that to the latest 2004er version.

So at the moment we have Windows 10 Version 22H2 with CU of december, our boot image is also 22H2 with updates of december (we had the BSOD, because I thought it would be smart to directly apply CU of january, but for windows it was not yet available so boot.wim and windows.wim where on different level).

So as far as we know we are at the level where it should work, but I still get the error message before the ADK update that says in general, that it does not find the storage.

What else can we do?

We don't want windows 11 yet (maybe directly jump to Win12 if available).

I'm building a recovery usb for surface right now to have a look if the signed driver is available by now (I guess not).

did you run the script i posted to patch your boot.wim exactly as I explained ? if so then storage will not be a problem when pxe booting using that boot image, so i think you've missed something, please verify the steps i posted above again

I have recently been given a used Surface Book 2 (15", maxed out). However, it seems like the previous owner had some Windows Insider Preview version installed on it (Slow Ring). And all of the usually pre-installed apps were missing (among them: store, mail, calendar, ...) so the thing was basically useless. Any attempt of re-installing them manually failed.

As things could not become worse anyway (narrator: like hell they would!) I decided to simply migrate to the fast ring update ring in the hope that the migration / update would somehow restore windows to a better state. But alas, the apps were still missing.

I suggest in this case that you call Microsoft Support and ask for the USB Recovery Key to be shipped to you. This will allow you to install Production Windows fresh and build the recovery partitions for you. I think this is the best way to go.

I shall put this here. I have this same issue and this should work in ALL surface.Hopefully it helped someone save time for the 2 days I have wasted. I have gone through so many different USBs, recovery image files, vanilla Win 10 installation.

"Hi, I made a Recovery Image with Microsoft but could not restore it properly. When I unzipped the file with Secure Boot turned off, initially, there were no errors, but upon reboot, I was asked the BitLocker Recovery Code to continue booting. Then, I tried doing a full factory surface recovery Image with everything done. At the end, the system displayed an error message stating, "Error while trying to reset the system."

A Surface Recovery Image is a file provided by Microsoft to perform a clean and factory-state installation of Windows on a computer. It is available for Microsoft's Surface devices like Surface Pro, Surface Laptop, and Surface Book. It is stored on a dedicated partition to restore (get back to a previous state) or reset (factory settings) the computer. Some common scenarios where we use Surface Recovery Image.

So, if you want to create a surface recovery image and do not know how to create one for Surface Devices, follow the guide below to learn to download, or create a surface recovery image with EaseUS Todo Backup.

All the Surface comes with Windows Recovery info by default, which you can use to refresh/reset your device to factory condition. If that does not work, you have to go with downloading the Surface Recovery Image with a USB flash Drive.

And remember to format the USB drive to FAT 32. You can use the Windows Disk Management or Diskpart tools to format the USB, but they can do this only for USBs less than 32 GB. For more, you have to depend on third-party tools.

If you don't want to download a Surface recovery file, there is another available option that can help you restore the operating system when your device is unbootable, which is creating an emergency recovery disk.

EaseUS Todo Backup is a professional backup tool that requires only three steps to create a recovery drive with a USB disk. With the WinPE features, you can create a Bootable disk to quickly restore/reset your Surface system. The tool provides advanced backup and clone options to safeguard your data and system anytime.

After downloading the software, you can follow the guide below to create a Surface Recovery Image on the USB flash drive easily with EaseUS Todo Backup. Using this way, you need to ensure that you have another working computer or laptop that is running the same operating system if your device is unbootable.

Step 6. Choose from Just remove my files or Fully clean the drive from the recovery options based on your requirements. The former will refresh the computer, and the fully clean option will recycle the entire Surface device.

Now, you know how to download Surface Recovery Image, create it with USB, and restore it on your Surface device. Learn thoroughly to complete the process securely in a go. To create the emergency USB drive with Surface Recovery Image, download the EaseUS Todo Backup. With simple yet advanced programs create the Surface Recovery Image with three steps.

To reimage the Surface device, navigate to PC settings > Update and recovery > Recovery. Find the Remove Everything and reinstall Windows section, and click on Get Started. You can just remove your files or fully clean the drive and continue with the reimaging process.

Unfortunately though, I failed to realize that the encryption software is not compatible with systems that don't use a MBR so that I ended in an endless "attempting automatic repairs" loop as the Surface tried to access the system but could not because of the encrypted hard drive.

All options to resolve the issue using the automatic repair options were fruitless, and since I could not reset the PC either because the data was still encrypted on the drive, I had to grab a recovery image manually and use it instead.

The process itself is straightforward and the requirements are that you need to have a Microsoft account (which you can create if you don't), the serial number of the Surface device and a USB Flash drive with at least 8 Gigabyte of storage.

I finally got my surface pro 4 to recover after days of failed attempts. A couple of notes:

1.Absolutely be sure to choose default allocation size when formatting the usb drive.

2. Use the built in windows software to extract the zip file image

hi, is there any download managers that can download from microsoft site? I`ve had many several failed attempts because this file is huge and 5.7GB, it can`t be download with explorers.please help me. thank you.

Just an addition Martin, having used this process for an Acer laptop, ASUS tablet and a Surface Pro 2, the recovery process can take a few tries to get it to boot to the USB drive with the new image on it.

In this article, I will share a List of Surface Device Recovery Images with Windows OS Versions. Microsoft announced that the Windows 11 Surface recovery images would be available for the latest Surface devices like Surface Laptop Studio, Surface Pro 8, and Surface Go 3.

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