How to reset any Microsoft Surface via USB (Bare Metal Recovery)

hey what is up everybody it is aj here

and in today's video i'm going to teach

you how to do a bare metal recovery on

any surface device

so a bare metal recovery is essentially

restoring any surface device back to the

factory settings as if you're taking it

out of the box for the first time

so why would you want to do a bare metal

recovery in the first place well there's

a number of reasons you might want to do

a bare metal recovery on your surface

device the first might be that your

surface device isn't working correctly

and you can't log into windows therefore

you can't do any extra troubleshooting

if you do a bare metal recovery via a

usb you can actually bypass the windows

itself and reload it on there as if

you're taking out of the box the first

time and that way you can start up your

computer from scratch

the other reason may be that you've

forgotten the password to your computer

and you can't log in to actually do any

troubleshooting so a bare meta recovery

again is going to let you reinstall

windows for the first time it could be

that you've bought a laptop off ebay or

facebook or whatever it may be and you

might not trust the person that actually

had given you the computer that you

bought it from and you know a bare metal

recovery is going to completely wipe the

drive and again restore it back to

factory settings or there could be any

other reason you want to do a bare metal

recovery whatever your reason this video

is going to show you exactly how to do

it there are a few things you're going

to need to do a bare metal recovery on

your surface device the first one is a

usb with at least 16 gigs of ram so you

can load the image on there the second

thing you're going to need is a working

windows computer it doesn't have to be a

surface device just has to be a windows

10 or windows 11 pc of course it's going

to be connected to the internet and you

are going to need your faulty or your

problem surface device that you are

going to restore

and once you have your internet

connection your working windows device

your usb key and of course your problem

device we can get straight into this so

let's actually jump on the computer and

start downloading that bmr image

what we're going to do first is go on to

the surface recovery image download

website i'll put the link in the

description down below so it's easy for

you guys to access but this is basically

how you can download and access any

surface recovery image for any surface

device we're going to scroll down and

it's going to tell us a bit about what

we need which of course is going to be

that

usb with at least 16 gigs of memory and

what we do in step one is of course

select the surface that we want to

recover what you're going to need here

is of course the model so for this

example we're actually going to do a

surface pro 7 plus and then you're going

to put in the serial number of your

surface device and you're going to hit

continue once you hit continue it's

going to bring you over to step two

which is where you're going to download

the surface recovery image some

computers may actually have two or three

versions of here and that gives you a

few different versions of

a factory image it could be say windows

10 and a windows 11 image it could be an

earlier in a later version of that

recovery key

select whichever one you're after

they're all going to be the right one

for your computer

in this instance the surface pro 7 plus

only has one option and then we're going

to simply select on download recovery

image i do want to let you know that the

recovery image will be around 10 gigs so

it will take a little bit of time to

download but that's okay we just got to

be patient and then once it's fully

downloaded we can move on to step three

so you can see in my downloads here that

the surface pro 7 plus bmi has

downloaded and what we're going to do

now is go into our start option and

we're going to type in the words

recovery

you can see that we have the option of

recovery drive and we're simply going to

select on recovery drive and open up

this program

it's going to open up and say do you

want to allow the recovery media creator

to open and we're simply going to go yes

and then it's going to help us create a

recovery drive so you can leave the

option tick to backup system files to

the recovery drive and that's going to

back up your existing computer but

because we're going to do this for a

separate pc we're simply going to untick

this

and then we can go next give this a few

seconds to load

and then it's going to find all the

external usb drives that are plugged

into your computer of course we only

have the one usb which is our 16 gig

that we've plugged in makes it really

easy to find when you only have the one

plugged in and then we're gonna go next

what's gonna happen here is it's gonna

prepare that usb drive to become a

recovery usb for a surface or a windows

device and we're just gonna go next

we're gonna get another warning saying

hey everything on this drive is going to

get deleted so make sure you have a

backup of it if you're okay with that

then simply hit create

and then give it a few minutes to format

that usb that you've plugged in

after a couple of minutes it does say

the recovery drive is ready and we're

simply going to go finish

what you want to do now i find it easier

if you snap two file explorers side by

side so you can see on the left hand

side i have my general pc file explorer

on the right hand side i have my

downloads which has the bmr inside of it

and i'm simply going to open up the

recovery drive that it's formatted and

there's going to be two folders in here

the efi and the sources what we're going

to do now is we're actually going to

open up the surface pro 7 plus bmr you

don't need to unzip this but we're just

going to double click and open

everything up

and then we're just going to control a

we're going to select all of it

and copy it and paste it over into that

recovery usb drive

it will come to a point where it says

hey there is already an existing folder

called efi an existing folder called

an existing folder called sources and

what you want to do is you want to

select on the option of replacing those

drives i'm right now using a usb a not a

usb c drive so i might actually swap

this out just so it speeds up the

process of copying this 10 gigs across

so that's another tip make sure you're

using a fast drive otherwise you will be

waiting quite a while to copy everything

from the recovery onto that external usb

once all the material from the bmi is

saved onto the usb you want to grab your

faulty surface device in this case we

have a pro 7 plus and you want to do a

soft reset or stuff soft restart to do

that on the pro 7 plus you want to hold

the power and the volume down button

until it does a complete restart so

right now it's just on the um the

loading screen or the the screen saver

the screen's flashing once i'll show you

what happens in a second the screen has

just gone black we're going to keep

holding the power and the volume down

button the windows logo is going to

appear in a couple of seconds so there

we go we have the windows logo on here

it will then start spinning so you can

see a preparation symbol down the bottom

under the windows logo in a couple of

seconds you want to keep holding the

power and the volume down bottom

during this set during this option

it says please wait keep holding it

otherwise it will just launch or try and

launch into windows please wait it's

loading and now it's gonna go into the

blue screen and here we're now in our

recovery option and it says um it looks

like your computer didn't start properly

you can hit the restart my computer

option that's just going to try and

restart and boot into windows 10 but

what you want to do is actually go see

advanced repair options

this is we're going to use the

keyboard on here so we're just going to

go to

see advanced repair options

and then we have the option of

continuing or using a usb drive which is

the second option down the bottom here

of um booting in a usb drive and

restarting the computer so now i'm just

going to plug in the usb

to the drive

and let's just focus on the computer for

a second

there we go

and we're just going to use a usb device

to recover and then it's going to ask us

which device we're going to use internal

storage is the hard drive on the

computer you don't want to use that you

want to use the second option which is

usb storage and we're simply going to

select usb i do want to note that if you

are going to do this make sure your

computer is plugged into power because

the last thing you want is the computer

to do a restart

and um or do a install and run out of

power during this process

but you can see here it is now trying to

boot into the recovery mode it's now

pulling data from the usb and it's

launching from the usb and it's starting

the restore

process to do a bare metal recovery on

your surface device

you can see instead of going into

windows 10 it's actually loading down

the bottom here

and now it's going to ask us we're

basically in the restart options it's

going to ask us to choose a language so

i'm going to say english us

it's going to ask us to choose our

keyboard layout so i'm going to go again

us

and then it's going to ask us if we want

to do a recovery from a drive or bring

it to windows go back to windows 10 or

start again from a usb drive the option

you want to pick is the first option of

recover from a drive and this is going

to reinstall windows from the recovery

drive connected to the pc that recovery

drive of course is the usb here so we're

going to select the first option recover

from a drive

and then you have the option of

just removing your files so select the

first option if you're going to keep

your computer or you can do a fully

clean the drive this takes a couple of

hours but this fully cleans all the data

off the drive and that's the option you

want to pick if you're going to give

your computer to somebody else because

we're going to keep this computer we're

just going to go the first option of

just remove my files and go select

and now we've started the option of

recovering from the drive and it's

getting things ready to reinstall

windows 10 or windows 11 from the bare

metal recovery

of course it gives us a warning here

saying if you do this it cannot be

undone it's going to delete all your

information and your data and if you're

ready to proceed hit the recover button

or if you want to you can go cancel i'm

ready to proceed so i'm just going to

hit recover and put this thing on charge

and you can see now we are recovering

this pc it may take an hour two hours

depending on your computer but once this

process starts make sure you put your

computer on charge and just let it do

its thing so there you guys have it that

is how you do a bare metal recovery on

any surface device and restore it

straight back to factory settings i hope

you guys found this video useful if you

did of course let me know by giving this

video a thumbs up if you want to

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computer hit that subscribe button as

well thanks for watching and we'll see

you next time bye

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