HELP - SP2 crashed and I can't get it back

[r_europe]

My Surface Pro2 froze totally two days ago. Haven't been able to bring it back to life yet. Keep on getting this BIOS/UEFI screen and have probably tried all the available options on it - not really knowing what they meant. After that, the best I have so far is a screen saying it is 'carrying out automatic repairs to disk errors' and these may take 'more than one hour'. Two days later - no change - it's still churning away with no resolution to the problem.

Am now reaching a stage of some desperation. Any ideas very welcome...

 

[jnjroach]

It appears something has impacted your SSD, do you have a recovery drive or can you boot into recovery?

 

[r_europe]

jnjroach - many thanks for your reply. I really fear I may have done something stupid when fiddling around with the different options on the BIOS/UEFI screen which came up. I don't have a recovery drive and I'm not sure I would know how to 'boot into recovery'. I do also have an SP1 (which I'm writing on now) fortunately, otherwise I would have been in real trouble this last couple of days. Can I somehow 'clone' something useful for this purpose from the SP1..?

 

[jnjroach]

Unfortunately - no different recovery information between the two. Set everything in UEFI back to default and then see if you can into the Advanced Boot Options by pressing the FN F8 key and go into recovery.

 

[r_europe]

jnjroach - thanks again. I have tried to do as you advised several times. Unfortunately with no luck, though. The SP2 will not go into recovery. As before, the screen just keeps coming back saying 'Repairing disk errors. This might take over an hour to complete'. I have now left it like that for over 24 hours and there's no change.

Any other ideas on what I might do..?

 

[ZachBui]

I'm not sure if this would work, but see if making a usb recovery from your SP1, plug it in your SP2, and boot into recovery mode (power + volume down I think). And see what options you can get to. If you can get to the command prompt and see what state your drive is in, you could get some ideas on what to do.

 

[jnjroach]

Is you data backed up to your OneDrive? If it is I would do an RMA if not try what Zach is suggesting or if you can a hold of a Windows 8.1 Pro ISO.

 

[r_europe]

Thanks guys. What is an RMA? What is an ISO? Sorry to be so hopeless...

 

[jnjroach]

RMA = Return Merchandise Authorization which is what you get from the merchant (MS in this case) to return the product (Your Surface) for exchange or repair

ISO = is an image format that DVDs, CDs and Blu-ray Discs use (Image File of the DVD in this case, usually through a Digital Purchase or MSDN Subscription)

 

[r_europe]

jnjroach - you're too good! So basically, I should try what Zach suggests or send it back to Microsoft (the majority of my stuff is on Onedrive, although
I guess it's also still on the SP2). Can't believe it could have just frozen like that. All I was doing was browsing in the list of apps which you see on rolling up the 'start' menu - nothing very demanding.

Despite all this, I really love this machine and want to get it back - working. My SP1 is good, but this is better. Having both is the business - even essential, as I have found out...

 

[jnjroach]

jnjroach - you're too good! So basically, I should try what Zach suggests or send it back to Microsoft (the majority of my stuff is on Onedrive,

Correct...

 

[r_europe]

Well - it came back!

I tried what Zach suggested and created a recovery disk on usb key from my SP1. After many attempts with different combinations start-button-and-volume-down at the same time, start-button-without-volume-down, frantically pressing Fn-F8 in both of those combinations, finally Windows started and my SP2 gradually came back to life. I'm not really sure which combination did it in the end...

Now I'm in the middle of the lengthy task of reinstalling 3rd party programmes and other bits and pieces as the SP2 was wiped clean in the process. Some strange stuff going on though - e.g. Mail App has decided to stop working on my SP1, but works fine on my resuscitated SP2; Zune, which I need to connect to my phone, doesn't work on the SP2 but is fine on the SP1. As I said at the beginning, you really need two of these machines to be on safe side. I felt distinctly vulnerable when only one of them was working.

Many thanks jnjroach and Zach for your advice and help.