Keep getting reboots/bluescreen during Recovery. What else to try?

[baydude]

Was working in Windows 10 yesterday and suddenly got a bluescreen that kept on happening so I followed some guide to enable and boot to Safe Mode and removed some drivers that were showing issues (!).
This caused Windows 10 to unable to fully start, so I followed some other guide to get into UEFI to do a Recovery.

Followed Microsoft's Surface Recovery guide and copied the uncompressed Recovery Image files to a USB and went into UEFI to tell it to boot to USB but kept on getting blue screens shortly after clicking Troubleshoot --> Reset this PC. Even tried turning off Secure Boot in UEFI, changing boot order and still could not fully load the USB Recovery Image or it would crash when I selected Reset to Factory.

Brought it to the MS Store and the tech said he was having issues changing boot order so he needed to keep it a few days to try other things. Said since I wasn't an Assurance customer and I bought the SB from some else, it'll be about 4-6 days. The fact that he also asked if I can return it to where I bought it made me feel less confident that it could be fixed. Anyone had similar issues and how did you end up getting it fixed?

 

[zerospace-net]

What was the original blue screen message? Do you recall?

 

[baydude]

It had multiple that seemed to revolve around the following:

0xc000021a
MEMORY_MANAGEMENT
DPC WATCHDOG VIOLATION

 

[peter leung 10586]

Was working in Windows 10 yesterday and suddenly got a bluescreen that kept on happening so I followed some guide to enable and boot to Safe Mode and removed some drivers that were showing issues (!).
This caused Windows 10 to unable to fully start, so I followed some other guide to get into UEFI to do a Recovery.

Followed Microsoft's Surface Recovery guide and copied the uncompressed Recovery Image files to a USB and went into UEFI to tell it to boot to USB but kept on getting blue screens shortly after clicking Troubleshoot --> Reset this PC. Even tried turning off Secure Boot in UEFI, changing boot order and still could not fully load the USB Recovery Image or it would crash when I selected Reset to Factory.

Brought it to the MS Store and the tech said he was having issues changing boot order so he needed to keep it a few days to try other things. Said since I wasn't an Assurance customer and I bought the SB from some else, it'll be about 4-6 days. The fact that he also asked if I can return it to where I bought it made me feel less confident that it could be fixed. Anyone had similar issues and how did you end up getting it fixed?

try download a standard version of windows 10 pro image from microsoft and install it.

 

[zerospace-net]

It had multiple that seemed to revolve around the following:

0xc000021a
MEMORY_MANAGEMENT
DPC WATCHDOG VIOLATION

The watchdog violations are relatively normal ... I've seen that error a bunch of times on my book (though, admittedly, not recently).

peter leung... the OP can't. If the system won't load from a Surface-specific USB recovery image, using a non-Surface specific Windows image isn't likely to make it work, either. It sounds like the machine may have faulty RAM with that RAM management error. The good news is that that can be determined by booting from a USB drive containing something like memtest86 (which is what I'd recommend if the MS guy can't fix it).

OP, the machine should be under warranty, regardless of where you bought it unless you're in a different country, I would think. Or is the MS store employee telling you something different? You can always attempt to initiate a replacement online after registering the device to yourself/your MS account.

 

[baydude]

The store just asked if it's been less than 30 days since I bought it and asked if I wanted to return it where I bought it from, which made me feel like I had a defective unit or they weren't confident in fixing their software issues.

The Windows ISO image might actually be an option because it seems to work for this guy who had similar issue..

JME's response below
http://winsupersite.com/windows-10/how-download-recovery-images-surface-book-and-surface-pro-4

 

[zerospace-net]

The store just asked if it's been less than 30 days since I bought it and asked if I wanted to return it where I bought it from, which made me feel like I had a defective unit or they weren't confident in fixing their software issues.

The Windows ISO image might actually be an option because it seems to work for this guy who had similar issue..

JME's response below
http://winsupersite.com/windows-10/how-download-recovery-images-surface-book-and-surface-pro-4

Well, if you decide to run with that, do post back here if it works for you -- it's definitely something I'd like to know about (because I don't have full trust in my SB at the moment). I actually thought you were talking about having tried doing a complete re-image of your machine, but re-reading your message, if you were attempting to "reset this PC" from a bootable USB, then you were just doing the same thing as a refresh/reset from within Windows.

If I were you, I'd try the official Surface Book USB recovery image (you're basically re-imaging the SSD with a fresh factory image), but barring that, a straight Windows 10 ISO will also work for any machine with a valid Win10 license. You'd just need to go get the drivers & software packages specific to the Surface Book from MS afterwards to get everything working. But, a ram management error would concern me, and if it were MY device, I'd be running memtest86 first (bad ram can make any machine fail at the worst possible moment).

 

[baydude]

Actually I thought if you boot from USB Recovery Image and choose Troubleshoot --> Reset your PC, it would use the recovery image on the USB drive. There seems to be another option in Troubleshoot --> Advanced Options --> System Image Recovery or System Restore which I think recovers from the image you created on your SSD within Windows. There's also Troubleshoot --> Refresh Your PC which I never tried.

This is the guide I followed:
https://forums.windowscentral.com/e...Fusbrecovery%3Fos%3Dwindows-10&token=zR3WIcn8

 

[zerospace-net]

I would boot from a Windows 10 ISO, and in the install process, I would delete the existing SSD partitions and let the installer set them up again ... I presume you were attempting a complete wipe and re-install from the Surface Book's official recovery image?

Again, I'd also be running memtest86 before doing anything else.

 

[peter leung 10586]

I would boot from a Windows 10 ISO, and in the install process, I would delete the existing SSD partitions and let the installer set them up again ... I presume you were attempting a complete wipe and re-install from the Surface Book's official recovery image?

Again, I'd also be running memtest86 before doing anything else.

I agree with you in two things. firstly I recommend the op to run memtest86. secondly I recommend him to completely wipe the ssd before installing windows. does the op know the "clean" command in "diskpart"? if yes, go ahead. if no, we will write the procedure for you. hope your surface book will become normal again.

 

[baydude]

Update:

The tech at MS Store couldn't fix it so I went in w/ my old charger and pen and they exchanged it for a brand new one. Also bought the protection plan since I bought it from eBay new within 45 days. Kudos to MS Store.

I guess my issue is an outlier because from all the googling I did the consensus seems to be either Recovery Image or Win10 ISO should work.

 

[zerospace-net]

Update:

The tech at MS Store couldn't fix it so I went in w/ my old charger and pen and they exchanged it for a brand new one. Also bought the protection plan since I bought it from eBay new within 45 days. Kudos to MS Store.

I guess my issue is an outlier because from all the googling I did the consensus seems to be either Recovery Image or Win10 ISO should work.

Glad to hear they exchanged it for you! That's fantastic. :smile: My experience with MS store employees has always been positive.