Solved My Surface won't boot up - MS support Can't help :-(

[mseck99]

Greetings All,

This is my post and unfortunately not for the reason i wanted,

I've recently completed a trip to Disney World with my family and took over 3oo Pictures. I used my SF PRO 3 to store the pics and do some work.. Unfortunately i woke up today and the device won't boot up.

I took the Microsoft store where i bought it for assistance and i was told it is most likely gone forever.
Since this is suppose to be a Laptop replacement, Aren't then able to Hard drive registry and pull any folder that is customer created or use a USB drive and install the corrupted files?

I was wondering is there is any ways to retrieve this pictures or document. Know with a standard laptop its possible. Why not the pro.


You may ask why, Why i didn't save it thru One Drive, Well the photo were too big and the types of transfer is not allow... I never had these types of issues with my android devices($500) and Surface pro 3 ($1400).

 

[sharpuser]

Do you still have the device? If so, put it in the freezer for 15 minutes. Take it out and try to boot it up immediately. It could be that a gap in a circuit exists, which would close.

Have some portable storage (USB, etc) handy for offloading if you get it started.

 

[mseck99]

In the freezer? The device tries to repair but failes. I actually upgraded to an i5-8gb pro3 and left the other for troubleshooting. Does windows created and .old (windows.old) when resettling ur device.

 

[megatronium]

Boot into Ubuntu using USB stick. Grab files in there.

 

[Kif]

The problem is that it's hard to recover stuff from a failed SSD drive. You can pretty much throw out the book of old recovery tricks. Here's a article I quickly googled that might help. http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/data-recovered-failed-ssd/

Sorry, I just read the article and it's not super helpful. It's a real pickle since it's an SSD drive and it's not user accessible.

 

[LinkRS]

Greetings All,

This is my post and unfortunately not for the reason i wanted,

I've recently completed a trip to Disney World with my family and took over 3oo Pictures. I used my SF PRO 3 to store the pics and do some work.. Unfortunately i woke up today and the device won't boot up.

I took the Microsoft store where i bought it for assistance and i was told it is most likely gone forever.
Since this is suppose to be a Laptop replacement, Aren't then able to Hard drive registry and pull any folder that is customer created or use a USB drive and install the corrupted files?

I was wondering is there is any ways to retrieve this pictures or document. Know with a standard laptop its possible. Why not the pro.


You may ask why, Why i didn't save it thru One Drive, Well the photo were too big and the types of transfer is not allow... I never had these types of issues with my android devices($500) and Surface pro 3 ($1400).

Hi Msek99,

When you say it won't boot up, what exactly do you mean? When you press power nothing happens, or that Windows fails to go all the way to the desktop/Metro interface? IF it is just that Windows Fails to load, you can boot off of a bootable USB drive and recover your files that way. If it won't turn on at all, that is a different can of worms :-(

Rich S.

 

[wynand32]

Boot into Ubuntu using USB stick. Grab files in there.

I might be mistaken, but won't the Bitlocker encryption make grabbing the files by booting to a different OS (e.g., Linux) a little difficult? Unless the OP also has the encryption key...

 

[malberttoo]

I might be mistaken, but won't the Bitlocker encryption make grabbing the files by booting to a different OS (e.g., Linux) a little difficult? Unless the OP also has the encryption key...

Interesting, and I would like to know the answer to this as well. I've used Knoppix (Linux-based OS) many times to retrieve the files directly from the drive, when the OS was too hosed to function. I was going to advise the OP to do the same, but now I'm not sure how it would work...

 

[mseck99]

The device boots up and tries to repairs itself but fails. Would ms tech let me use Ubuntu on the divice? I actually upgraded to the 8gb-256gb .

 

[GreyFox7]

The device boots up and tries to repairs itself but fails. Would ms tech let me use Ubuntu on the divice? I actually upgraded to the 8gb-256gb .

MS would likely use WinPE to do the same thing, did you ask them to or did they say they would try to recover your files? In generic terms, boot from USB and run recovery tools.

 

[Kif]

I have a couple thoughts. If you have a twitter account try sending a tweet to @surface with your dilemma. MS is pretty active there and they might help get you in touch with the right support people. Secondly, I think there's a specific tool you can use to recover Windows 8.1. I'll ask the imaging guys I work with tomorrow morning and report back. Finally try posting your questions to the MS forums as well as call Microsoft support. Sometimes you just need to get connected to the right resources.

Not to pour salt on an open wound but at the very least get yourself a nice big Micro SD card as a quick backup storage device. A millions things can happen you your machine including having it stolen or damaged.

 

[mseck99]

Thank you for the advice,

I did reached out to the @surface team and was given the following Link (surfac.ms/0s4Tbi ). Just Bought a 128GB SD Card but the Pro3 crashed before . just got back from my trip. :-(