Surface 4 Network boot and Image

[Tom Elliott]

@Psycholiquid What if you use exit?

[Psycholiquid]

@Tom-Elliott Trying it now.

[Psycholiquid]

@Tom-Elliott Back to Chainloading failed

[Tom Elliott]

@Psycholiquid what if you remove the network stuff?

[Psycholiquid]

@Tom-Elliott network stuff?

[Tom Elliott]

@Psycholiquid Yeah, have it boot without being plugged into the network.

[Psycholiquid]

@Tom-Elliott I changed it to SANBOOT and it worked. Testing again to verify

[Psycholiquid]

Excuse me I changed it to REFIND_EFI

[Psycholiquid]

Yep that worked, but what is that?

I am assuming it is just finding the boot partition on the hardware EFI

[Tom Elliott]

@Psycholiquid Yes. That’s why I suggested exit, but why is it trying to chainload?

[Psycholiquid]

@Tom-Elliott No clue

[Psycholiquid]

Testing capture and cloning now that I have most of the kinks worked out. Will report back.

[Psycholiquid]

Arghhh, Surface EFI partition. I got it copying over but that was a pain. Recovery partition next.

[Wayne Workman]

Can we do a summary of what’s been done so far that actually mattered? Have you successfully imaged yet? And, the Exit to HDD type that works is rEFInd ?

[Psycholiquid]

@Wayne-Workman I have no successfully imaged yet, I am afraid that if I image it with my image it will not have the EFI partition nor the recovery partition. If that is needed by the device it might brick it and I will not be able to get back into it.

So this is what I am seeing as partitions:

I am not sure if there is a UEFI section on the board of the device or if it just reads everything off of the disk. If the latter is the case when I put my image on there it wont know what to do. So I am attempting to ad those partitions into my image before I move forward.

I am hoping that if something bad happens I could always just boot from a USB flash drive to reinstall but I am still researching.

This is the Partitioning of my image:

I just added the RAW partition. I have some software here I am going to try and replace it with the partition I pulled off with a quick image form that software. Unless someone has already hit this part and knows a way around it or how to do it correctly.

[Wayne Workman]

@Psycholiquid

https://www.microsoft.com/surface/en-us/support/warranty-service-and-recovery/surface-wont-turn-on?os=windows-10

http://technomaverick.com/2014/12/27/how-to-fix-a-bricked-microsoft-surface-with-official-recovery-files/

http://www.windowsobserver.com/2014/05/21/recovering-from-a-bricked-surface-rt/

https://www.reddit.com/r/Surface/comments/2tpyf2/how_to_unbrick_your_surface_123/

https://www.reddit.com/r/Surface/comments/3qf9rp/sp4_bricked_after_running_windows_update/

https://www.reddit.com/r/Surface/comments/3fbp8o/completely_bricked_surface_pro_3/

https://redmondmag.com/articles/2013/10/21/microsoft-issues-recovery-software.aspx

[Wayne Workman]

@Psycholiquid You might also take a RAW image first. RAW changes nothing on the drive.

[Psycholiquid]

@Wayne-Workman yeah I have done just that with some other software so I would have physical access to it on a USB drive. I’m just trying to find out for sure weather or not I can just boot to a USB flash drive if I was to wipe out that EFI partition on accident

[Wayne Workman]

@Psycholiquid I would think so, as the device’s firmware is what evaluates what devices can be booted from.

[Psycholiquid]

@Wayne-Workman I would agree but I want definitive proof before I move forward.