Why No Pro Recovery Disc Image Yet?!

[unHoly]

I'm quite honestly really surprised. I've been checking the forums, news releases and tech sites daily for someone to link a simple disc image of the recovery straight from a fresh boot up with no one's profile linked to it, to some website. Or at least for MS to release a link. I mean, having to brick an entire Surface Pro just because you lose your recovery image is not very thoughtful on MS part. I mean, look at the money they are losing out on from having to pay a third party shipping service to send those back to HQ and refurbish them...

My point being is I'm one of the unlucky few that didn't get the whole image on a USB drive, deleted the recovery image off the SSD and then lost my ability to reinstall the OS because of missing recovery files....

Has anyone found a link or otherwise yet for a disk image for people to recreate a new USB without having to brick their Surface Pro?

I'm currently in the process of exchanging mine because of that exact reason and was hoping to avoid having to wait two-whole weeks just for a replacement as I've already waited 4 days and my order hasn't even processed through the RMA Surface site yet... Ugh.

 

[TeknoBlast]

I think it's a long while now that when you purchase a new desktop or laptop, no recover discs are included. Usually it's in it's own partition. I know what you mean, I would also like to have the recovery discs instead of depending on that recovery partition, but what can you do.

 

[unHoly]

You'd figure one of the developers would post a link on their developers site, or something. Just as a pre-cautionary backup. I mean, it won't work with anything but a Surface Pro, so you don't have to worry about piracy. Imagine 50,000 Surface Pro's needing to be bricked because someones Recovery Disc/USB Image is corrupt or defective (something not operator error), and MS paying for expedited shipping of a new one, plus shipping back of the unit needing refurbishing. That alone is about a $60/residence cost (freight, to and fro') totaling about $3,000,000 in additional costs for something easily avoided (this isn't even calculating the labour hours for engineers to troubleshoot/reinstall the OS)... Just seems kind of odd, no? One simple link, save a few million? Jeez, once a capitalist, always a capitalist I thought, unless you're too rich to g.a.f., which MS apparently is.

 

[Kiwibru]

So this can't be rectified by finding another Pro user who has gotten their USB back up done and just cloning that yet again? Or am I missing something here?

 

[unHoly]

So this can't be rectified by finding another Pro user who has gotten their USB back up done and just cloning that yet again? Or am I missing something here?

I thought about that earlier actually and already posted on my facebook for someone in the Downtown Vancouver area with a Surface Pro that would be willing to upload an image to my FTP or at the very least, let me drive over and make a copy of theirs. I had two friends from a city an hour east of here, they don't know how to use an FTP nor create a rar/zip, so, my one option is to drive out there, but I'm lazy enough to wait for my RMA (which apparently shipped from Concord, Ontario today at about 330pm) which should be here by Monday at the latest.

As soon as I get it, I do plan on trying to create the recovery partition on a USB to re-install my OS to the bricked Pro and see if it works. I will know then, otherwise, like you Kiwibru, I am surprised no one has tried it out and written on this or the tech forum to confirm it works (or doesn't...)

 

[bandora]

I get my Surface Pro around this coming Tuesday/Wednesday, I am going to attempt to upload the recovery partition.. Not sure how I'm gonna do it though because it's huge... Might just go with the torrent route.. Only thing I am worried about is I don't want to have trouble with MS for piracy, and I'mnot sure if this will count as piracy..

 

[Cowboy]

The Surface doesn't have a CD/DVD drive so that forces the recovery to a USB stick. The image for the stick would probably run around 2 to 3 GB even zipped. Maybe less, but the ISO for an x64 install disk is over 3 GB so I think that's ballpark. Downloading that image even with a decent internet connection would be a chore. It would probably best to break it up into 30 .rar files to make it more practical. But I have to agree, even with all the difficulty of making it available on line it would seem a lot cheaper than having a flood of RMA requests because of this problem. They probably underestimated how many people would delete the recovery partition. I think their big mistake was in preventing legacy boot in the BIOS and thereby preventing recovery programs that cannot boot in UEFI mode form running. There are going to be a lot of disappointed people who think that just because they can back up to a portable drive that they can recover.

 

[Juli]

Would any of you happen to have a USB recovery for the Surface Pro? Still nothing available from Microsoft and I am in need of one - lost something during an update and got the Recovery message- something about the boot configuration data file missing. My Surface Pro went out of warranty only a week and a half ago. Unbelievable. I live in Texas.

 

[JesseDiaz]

I have one only for the sp3

 

[Juli]

I think it has to be for the Surface Pro 1. Microsoft also has them for the Pro 2 and Pro 3, but they said they didn't create any for the Pro 1. Weird. I think they're full of you know what.

 

[spectre51]

I followed this page and created my own http://thingsthatmightinterestnerds.com/surfacepro_dumpfactoryimage/

 

[guymalloc]

Check this thread for a recovery usb image......

http://www.surfaceforums.net/threads/in-need-of-a-usb-recovery-for-surface-pro.10071/