Solved Problems with USB recovery disk

[andersostling]

Apologies if I have already asked this questions, but I need more help

Before installing the Windows 10 Tech Preview I followed the guide and created a USB recovery flash drive. No errors although I used an 8 GB drive instead of the 16 GB that was stated as requirement. As far as I could see, the used space was approx. 6 GB.

Installed the W10 DP without any hickups. Have been using it with success, but some things made me regret the update so I decided to use the recovery drive to go back to 8.1.

Boot the recovery drive using vol down + power. I get a menu letting me choose language (Norwegian, Danish, Finish, Swedish). Selects Swedish. Next screen is keyboard layout. I choose Swedish here too. Third screen have the following options

Exit and continue with Windows 10 DP
Use an USB drive for recovery
Advanced recovery options

I select Use an USB drive ...

The system reboots but instead of starting the recovery I am back to the same menu.

I downloaded the recovery zip file from Microsoft using my serial number as input. This file is also approx. 6 GB. I followed the guide at the MS site and formatted the drive as a bootable disk and unzipped to the drive. No errors.

But I get the exact same result with this downloaded recovery image.

I have tested the USB stick on another computer and it boots to the same menu, except that the "Exit and continue" now says Windows 7 which is correct. Also, there is no "Use an USB ...". Since this machine is not a Surface Pro 3 I guess that this is expected.

So the only remaining theory I have is that the size of the USB is important after all. Shall I buy a 16 GB stick and try with that one instead?

Help?

 

[GreyFox7]

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.

You probably need to go into the Advanced Options and delete the Win 10 partition or at least format it.

 

[AllTaken]

The size of the USB has to be 16gb or above and fat32 you can't negate this. External hard drive with a fat32 partition works just as well. What you could do is download a standard win image onto a USB 8gb which of course will boot..... install surface drivers after.

 

[andersostling]

The size of the USB has to be 16gb or above and fat32 you can't negate this. External hard drive with a fat32 partition works just as well. What you could do is download a standard win image onto a USB 8gb which of course will boot..... install surface drivers after.

Thanks both of you. Will try the 16 GB first, if that does not work then I will do the CMD method.

 

[andersostling]

Moved all files from the 8GB to a 32GB stick. Booted and used the diskpart command to remove the recovery and OS partitions. After that I managed to do the reinstall with 8.1, now all is GOOD again.

Guess I will wait until the Consumer Preview is ready for prime time before jumping on the 10-train again.

Thanks everyone