Solved Restart loop

[Leesy]

I received my surface pro 4 today and it was working fine for about an hour, my daughter borrowed it for about an hour after me and in that short period of time managed to get some malware on it (as far as I can tell she only installed one app, some drawing program) rather than battle with trying to remove the malware (i am rarely successful with those) I figured I would just reset the device since there seemed to be an easy way to do it and I figured since we just got it, we wouldn't have to worry about losing data.

I plugged it in, told it to reset (chose the option not to keep any files or anything- just to be sure it would properly clean the mess) and went about the house doing chores. It was slow to reset I noticed taking about 30 minutes to get to 7% but then for the next 2 hours it stayed on 7% I started to worry.

I couldnt find anything on Google, it was all talking about the surface pro 3 or a windows 10 error and their method of repair would be difficult for me since I didn't choose to get their keyboard (I have a third party one coming in the mail)

After another hour on 7% I took a chance a chance and did something, I held down the power button and interupted it, it told me there was a problem and it needed to be reset, yes fine, good! Go reset! It starts the reset at 7% again.....

I let it go for a while, not long this time, I was fed up, never progressed past 7%

I held down the reset button but this time it just kept trying to restart i think? Its just showing the surface logo for maybe 10 seconds then powers off, then it turns back on and repeats this process, I let it carry on for 10 cycles while I freaked out about how on earth I could fix it. Tried interupting the restart cycle by holding down the power button 30 seconds (just something I read) then turned it on again, still stuck! I have no idea how to fix this, anytime I had a pc problem in the past I could get into bios and boot from a disk! Now I have no keyboard to boot to bios, and no disk anyway! I do have a regular usb keyboard somewhere I might be able to dig that up if it can help me.

Any suggestions welcome I am desperate now!

 

[nachonadal85]

I lived something similar updating to win8, the solution was to update with internet conection turned off... You should try, maybe it works. Hope to!

 

[Leesy]

How will I update it if I can't even start it. It wont go past the surface logo before it reboots itself

 

[GreyFox7]

Is the power button moving freely and not stuck?
If it's still looping in boot cycle Try holding the volume + button it should go into UEFI.

The official hard reset method is hold the Power button for 30 seconds (forced shutdown), wait 10 seconds then hold the volume + and press power on and keep holding volume + until you see the Surface logo. Once in the UEFI just exit.

Use the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) on Microsoft Surface Pro and Surface 3 | UEFI settings

It may be necessary to create a bootable USB with the Media Creation Tool from another PC, use the "Download Tool" button. Run it and choose to create USB (if I recall correctly the USB should be at least 4GB). There is an option for 32bit or 64bit, use 64bit only.

In the UEFI - Unified Extensible Firmware Interface - there's an option to set the boot order in case you need to although normally you would just hold the volume - while powering on until the logo appears.

This sounds like a bad unit and nothing your daughter did. Is there a Microsoft store nearby? You might try taking it there if these suggestions don't help or wherever you bought it.

 

[Leesy]

Thanks very much for this info, ive just made a recovery drive and now it is resetting! I'm going to go to bed now, its just past midnight here and hopefully its fixed by morning. I will come back and report then.

 

[Leesy]

It worked. Good as new! I'm a happy camper! Thanks again

 

[GreyFox7]

So now the question is will your daughter ever get to touch it again

Please say yes.

 

[Leesy]

Ah yes she will, I just didn't have it ready with chrome, adblocker, antivirus. Once i get those installed (doing right now) I'll let her have a go, she did mention some popup that was being particularly intrusive while she was reading a tutorial, I normally wouldn't let anyone on a new computer until I'd taken some precautions, you know how clicky tweens are? She has her own ipad which keeps pretty clean no matter what she does but she really wanted to try the drawing side of the tablet, if it's any good i will get her her own one to mess up!

 

[AARON.S]

Sir, I am experiencing the same problem right now… My question is… How can I create a bootable flash drive… please teach me a step by step procedure. thank you.

 

[Leesy]

go to this page on the microsoft website: Download a recovery image for Microsoft Surface

you need to login to download the file, it is also rather large, 5gb from memory and their speeds werent very good either, took me like 5 hours and i had to put in my devices serial number at some point too, like register the specific device the file was to be used for.

once you have the file you can follow the steps on this next page to use it (I used an 8gb flash drive which was sufficient to hold the entire extracted file.) https://www.microsoft.com/surface/en-au/support/storage-files-and-folders/create-a-recovery-drive?os=windows-10

 

[robin.rarugal05]

I have surface pro 3, and im experiencing the same problem.

 

[robin.rarugal05]

I also interupted the updates, I was fed up too, the last thing I did was remove all the files, devices and feautures and I shutdown my sp3. And the result is im now experiencing the restart over and over again, literally infinity restart loop. I don't have a USB recovery drive, so im having predicament on this. Ive tried all the "push volume button" etc... But nothing have worked... Still stuck on 64% restart loop
I bought this sp3 in Orleans 1 year ago, now im living in philippines, (im not very well to speak English) my sp3 now is just put aside like antiques in my room because of this problem. I charge it every once a week cause im still hoping someday i'll find a solution to this. Until I found your forum here, you solved it, then maybe you could help me?. Teach me??? My email is {removed, never post email addresses on public forums}