sysprep in preporation to create an image Surface RT says winload.efi is missing

[MeFran]

I was trying to make WIM image of the surface RT to deploy to other systems. When i ran a sysprep the surface rebooted and came back up with the a recovery screen. the recovery screen says:

your PC needs to be repaired

The aplication or operating system couldn't be loaded because a required file is missing or contains errors.

File:\windows\system32\winload.efi
error code: 0xc000000f

You'll need to use the recovery tools on your installation media. if you don't have any installation media (like a disc or USB device), contact your system administrator or pc manufacturer.

Press the windows key to try again

The main issue is when i try to boot from a USB by holding the volume down key and hitting the power key. The USB starts flashing like its reading it but however it doesn't boot to to. I tested the USB by plugging it into a desktop with windows 8 and it booted into the USB correctly. next i made a recover CD via windows 8 and hooked up a USB DVD rom and it has the same symptoms. I completely hit a wall. any ideas?

 

[jnjroach]

Did you also remove your recovery partition? As far as the Thumb Drive, UEFI can only boot from Fat32 IIRC.

 

[bosamar]

I was going to ask you why do you need an image of your RT but I suppose the answer is, 'because I can'.

 

[leeshor]

The information in this link may be out of date but it would appear to me from reading it that sysprep may not have been a good idea on RT. Unsupported Sysprep scenarios

 

[jnjroach]

I was thinking the same thing, I've been doing Enterprise Desktop Deployments for a long time and I haven't seen any of the tools that support the ARM Architecture. I did verify that DISM.exe is included in RT but still haven't seen Windows PE 4.0 for ARM though.

 

[MeFran]

Thanks for the info. I do IT for a company that's using the the RT as a test tool. therefor it requires a lot of re-imaging. I needed to update the image with the Latest firmware update. I'm used to using sysprep before creating a wim that i didn't think of the possible incompatibility along with sysprep was included in the built in tools. I do have the thumb drive formatted to Fat32. It doesn't have a recovery partition. it's just stuck on the Recovery screen and so far i cant figure out how to get around it.

 

[jnjroach]

I don't think RT supports reimaging, so unless you created back media prior to Sysprep and removing the recovery partition, I think Service from MS is your only viable option, unless you have some level of Premiere Support off your EA. All RT devices support reverting back to a known state out of the box and you'll want to treat these as Companion Devices and not IT Assets like a x86 device.

 

[MeFran]

I have the back media. I even have the image created for it prier to the sysprep. however the main problem is i cant get it to boot to any kinda of media. for example, if i hold the down volume key and hit the power button while having a USB with a win 8 recovery boot image connected. the USB LED will flash until it gets to this blue recovery screen. if i connect the USB and and not hold down the volume key then the LED flashes a couple times and then stops. so i'm sure its trying to read but it seems kinda like it hits that recovery screen and wont let it finish booting to the usb or the OS. i've tested the USB on a different Tablet and it works fine. Below is the screen it gets stuck on.

 

[jnjroach]

I believe the only supportable recovery method is here: Increase Surface storage space | USB recovery drive for Surface

 

[MeFran]

i dont have a surface at the moment that has the recovery drive on it. could someone send me a ISO of there recovery that i can put on a flash drive? sorry dont mean to be a pain in the butt.

 

[jnjroach]

From my understanding, the recovery partition is unique to the device due to Bitlocker is enabled from the factory. I also believe this is due to the fact the RT is only available preinstalled by the OEM.

 

[leeshor]

It sounds like a trip to a MS store or Redmond, (for your Surface), is your best option.