Solved Going back to Windows 8.1 from 10

[plnguyen]

Can anyone make a copy of their SP3 factory image and send it to me? The one Microsoft provides does not seem to work. Sigh.

 

[plnguyen]

still no luck. any help would be appreciated thanks!

 

[AllTaken]

I'm trying to go back to Windows 8.1 from Windows 10 but it does not seem to work. I tried doing recovery through Settings. Reset PC resets it keeps it on Windows 10. Doing recovery gives me a blue screen error (see picture 1).
I also tried to download the surface pro 3 recovery image (SurfacePro3_BMR_10_3.4.1.zip) from Microsoft. Their instructions says to extract the .zip file into a USB drive and try booting from it. It gives me this black screen error (see picture 2).
I tried calling Microsoft support about this and they have no idea what went wrong and suggested I goto a Microsoft Store for support (none is near my house).

I got a feeling I'm overlooking something. Any help is appreciated. Thank you.

Okay, I recently did just this. Its annoying.

You are right in that you boot from your USB recovery, from there you need to run a cmd prompt.

Run diskpart
List disk
Select whichever volume is your surface ssd running windows 10
Then you need to delete the partition
Do the same for any recovery partition using the override command.

That's it, you can now install from your surface recovery USB choosing to partition drives and erase everything during the install.

Windows editions don't like allowing older versions to install over them.

 

[plnguyen]

Okay, I recently did just this. Its annoying.

You are right in that you boot from your USB recovery, from there you need to run a cmd prompt.

Run diskpart
List disk
Select whichever volume is your surface ssd running windows 10
Then you need to delete the partition
Do the same for any recovery partition using the override command.

That's it, you can now install from your surface recovery USB choosing to partition drives and erase everything during the install.

Windows editions don't like allowing older versions to install over them.

Deleting the partitions with diskpart worked! Thanks so much. Back on 8.1. I really liked Windows 10 too. Hopefully try it again in a few months. Couldn't run a few programs with it right now.

 

[AllTaken]

You're welcome. Its easy to forget that Windows new vs old install and recovery arguments apply to any machine. I forgot and assumed that because this surface is made by Microsoft that recovery would work no matter what.

 

[GreyFox7]

You're welcome. Its easy to forget that Windows new vs old install and recovery arguments apply to any machine. I forgot and assumed that because this surface is made by Microsoft that recovery would work no matter what.

If Microsoft did all sorts of customized things for themselves they'd have to maintain two code bases and they'd get sued for using secrete APIs and unfair practices blah blah blah, we've been there before.

 

[AllTaken]

If Microsoft did all sorts of customized things for themselves they'd have to maintain two code bases and they'd get sued for using secrete APIs and unfair practices blah blah blah, we've been there before.

I wouldn't want to get into Microsoft using a 'separate' Surface version that's coded into Windows - that would be a nuts way to do things, however, I wouldn't have thought it a far fetch for Microsoft to include a custom recovery script that can recover a surface even if the windows version on the system is higher. They are providing a recovery download anyway.... (The script could just delete current partitions ignoring the higher version of Windows).

We know that is not the case but I wouldn't see it as unfair to OEM's. It wouldn't even be two code bases, just an added override to the recovery image in 8.1, 10, 11 etc. It could be added by any OEM or Microsoft in the case of the Surface and only added to the recovery image for a specific machine. Many OEM's already use modified recovery systems running various scripts anyway so it wouldn't be unfair practice by Microsoft, Acer for example could add a script deleting partitions to allow recovery just as easily.

See where I'm coming from?

 

[Chrick]

Sounds like you got your issue fixed. I had a similar problem and found I had to remove my SDHC card before booting the computer while holding the volume down button to avoid errors. Just in case anyone else comes across this issue.

 

[malberttoo]

Okay, I recently did just this. Its annoying.

You are right in that you boot from your USB recovery, from there you need to run a cmd prompt.

Run diskpart
List disk
Select whichever volume is your surface ssd running windows 10
Then you need to delete the partition
Do the same for any recovery partition using the override command.

That's it, you can now install from your surface recovery USB choosing to partition drives and erase everything during the install.

Windows editions don't like allowing older versions to install over them.

Good call! I Googled it for a bit and got nothing.