Can't boot from Windows PE thumb drive

[wthalliii]

My Surface Pro 7 won't boot from a Windows PE based thumb drive. It was produced by Acronis as rescue media. I have consulted with Acronis tech support and they haven't gotten it working, but the same thumb drive will boot up my Surface Laptop Studio with no problem. So, I'm thinking, is there a setting or something that I need to do to my Surface Pro 7 to get it to boot up on there? I do have it set to prioritize USB drives over the SSD, and it does partially boot up. It shows a screen with a DOS box on it, but then it stops - freezes maybe - and I can move the mouse, but it doesn't respond to clicks. Looks like it's trying to run a program in \Windows\System32, but it crashes. Can't tell what - it's truncated on the screen. Also tried an external USB mouse, and it can't click, either. BTW, this thumb drive was created on the Surface Pro 7 by the Acronis tools.

 

[GreyFox7]

Did this USB ever work on the Pro 7?

Try enabling diagnostic boot mode to help see what/where its going wrong ...

1. In the Windows PE environment, press the Windows key + R key to open the Run dialog box.
2. Type MSCONFIG and click OK.
3. In the General tab, select Diagnostic Startup and click OK.
4. In the System Configuration dialog box, click the Restart button to restart your device in diagnostic mode

you'll have to do this on the system that boots ...

 

[wthalliii]

Yes, this USB thumb drive has booted before on my PS7. But I thought I would regenerate it from Acronis in case they had changed anything or if Windows had changed. So now it won't boot on the PS7. However, as I said, this thumb drive will boot on my Surface Laptop Studio. That's why I was asking if maybe there was some option I needed to change on the PS7.

I'll try using the diagnostic. But step 4 will cause it to reboot on the Laptop Studio, and it works there. I think what I should do instead is to put in the PS7 and reboot from there.

I'll let you know how that goes.

 

[wthalliii]

Okay, I successfully booted my Surface Laptop Studio from the thumb drive. It didn't respond to the mousepad or keyboard, so I plugged in a USB keyboard and mouse. Those work. I hit Windows+R and got no response. There is a Search box in the Acronis app, and I was able to type into there, so the keyboard is working. But there's no response to Windows+R.

BTW, here's the commands inside the dos box:
X:\windows\system32>wpeinit
X:\windows\system32>"X:\Program Files\Acronis\CyberProtectHomeOffice\trueimage_starter.exe"

That brings up a graphical box that says Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office at the top, and has tokens for Home, Backup, Recover, Log, and Tools & Utilities. Tools & Utilities has things like Clone A Disk, and such.

Any other ideas?

Thanks.

 

[GreyFox7]

so Windows+R is just to get to the run line to run MSCONFIG.
if there's no run line try running it at a Command prompt. It all depends on the configuration of the Boot Drive as to what's available. I was thinking this setting in msconfig would be saved for future boots of the USB ... I'm not sure off the top of my head (been awhile) but there should be a way to do that ...

 

[wthalliii]

Okay, I regenerated the rescue media on the Surface Laptop Studio, and now that will boot on the Surface Pro 7. I notice that it included a couple of drivers that I had not seen before. I guess their build process doesn't work correctly on the SP7. At any rate, it now brings up Acronis.

Thanks so much for your help.