Reinstall W8.1 Pro or 10 Pro

[Ivan05il]

I wanted to downgrade from W10 to 8.1. I downloaded the necessary recovery image from MS, but the Surface did not want to use it. Some clever guide recommended deleting the partition. Which, being stupid, I did. So now I have a recovery image that does not work and no Windows. I turned off secure boot to see if it changes anything with USB stick, but no. Now I am downloading W8.1 pro as an USB stick. Will this work? Are there any issues? If this fails I could try the same with W10, it was already activated, so it should activate again. Help me Thanks.

 

[Ivan05il]

So, my SP3 is back In case somebody needs it I did the following. I reinstalled from the USB with 8.1 downloaded from MS, the result was a generic installation with a lot of drivers missing, including the WiFi, so no connection to Internet to download anything. Then I used the recovery image on USB special for SP3 to reset the Surface and this time it was accepted. After it was done it connected to WiFi and synced my settings, email accounts etc. So apparently the problem is Windows 10 and recovery image for 8.1 do not like each other. I do not know if the W8.1 install step can be avoided, but at least I know what to do the next time