that is incredible... The instructions on the MS surface support site (
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...erecoveryimage) include this:
7. Go back to the recovery image .zip file that you downloaded and open it.
8. Drag the files from the recovery image folder to the USB recovery drive you created. Then choose to replace the files in the destination.
Those two extra steps make the process take 30 minutes and fail. Take those steps out and the restore takes 10 minutes and works!
Thanks for your help