How to stop Surface Pro 3 booting into the BIOS?

[jesusfreak420]

Hey all,

I have been trying to downgrade from Windows 10 Technical Preview to Windows 8.1, but wasn't able to boot from USB. I contacted Microsoft support and they recommended that I go into Advanced options and use a command called LIST DISK. Since then, my Surface Pro 3 continually reboots into the BIOS. I have tried draining the battery, holding down the power key, and using the boot USB key combination, but nothing seems to work. Whenever I exit the BIOS, it goes straight back in when it boots past the Surface logo.

Does anyone have any ideas of what I can do? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance,
Stu

 

[Cleavitt76]

Is there a partition/OS for it to boot to or have your wiped it out? I'm just guessing, but if there is no OS for it to boot to then I would imagine it might just take you straight into the UEFI/BIOS menu on each reboot.

 

[jesusfreak420]

Hi Cleavitt76, thanks very much for your reply. I'm guessing it has wiped the partition when I used the command that they gave me. Do you know if there is any way I can force a reboot to USB? I have tried the power + volume down combination but that doesn't seem to work. Stu

 

[Guzzler3]

Okay... If you had W8.1, installed W10 (didn't like it), created a bootable recovery USB with W8.1, and reinstalled W8.1, but now you SP3 won't boot directly to W8.1.

Been there, done that. The issue is all the partition manipulation that has gone on in the background during the various installs. You going to have to start all over, one more time, and reinstall W8.1 from a bootable USB drive.

Boot off the USB recovery drive, but this time you are going to have to choose "custom install", it will eventually bring up a GUI showing your internal drive and all the partitions on it. You HAVE to delete ALL the partitions on the internal SSD first. Then after you have deleted all the partitions, just select the drive and then 'next'. The setup process will create all the necessary partitions (including the hidden recovery partition) and then you should be good to go.

This is the easiest way to do it. There are ways of manipulating the partitions manually, and a lot of command line entries, but it's a royal pain to do so.

Just make sure you backup all your data off you system before to start!

 

[jesusfreak420]

Hey guys, thanks for all your help. I tried a different brand of USB and it worked fine. Thanks again - really appreciate it.