How to boot a Surface from a USB device | Microsoft

Starting your Surface from a USB drive can be useful if you want to change firmware settings or Windows startup settings. Booting from a USB device doesn’t refresh or reset your Surface. Instead, it lets you start your Surface using Windows or another operating system that’s on your USB device.

How to configure your Surface to start from a USB device:
Once your USB drive is set up as a bootable drive with an appropriate operating system on it, you’ll need to set up your Surface to boot from this drive. This requires you to make changes in the UEFI so that the USB drive is the first option:

1. Shut down your Surface.
2. Once Surface has turned off, press and hold the volume-up button.
3. With the volume-up button held down, press and release the power button.
4. Continue holding the volume-up button until the Surface or Windows logo no longer appears on the screen.
5. You should now see the Surface UEFI. Do one of the following:
- Surface Pro 4, Surface Pro (5th Gen), Surface Pro (5th Gen) with LTE Advanced, Surface Pro 6, Surface Book, Surface Book 2, Surface Studio (1st Gen), Surface Studio 2, Surface Laptop (1st Gen), Surface Laptop 2, Surface Go or Surface Go with LTE Advanced: Go to Step 14 below.
- Surface Pro 3 and Surface 3: Go to Step 6 below.
- Surface Pro 1 and Surface Pro 2: Skip to Step 10 below.
6. Select Configure Alternate System Boot Order.
7. Do one of the following:
Surface Pro 3: Select USB -- SSD.
Surface 3: Select Network -- USB -- SSD.
8. Select Exit Setup.
9. Select Yes to save the configuration and restart Surface.
10. Select Secure Boot Control.
11. Select Disable. This will allow Surface to search for an alternate device to boot from instead of from your SSD.
12. Select Exit Setup.
13. Select Yes to save the configuration and restart Surface.
14. Select Boot configuration.
15. Select USB Storage and drag it to the top of the list. Alternatively, you can swipe left on USB Storage to boot to the device immediately. This will not affect the boot order.
16. Select Exit and then select Restart Now.

Once you’ve followed the steps above, you’re ready to start your Surface from your USB drive.
Start Surface from a USB drive:
(For Surface Pro (5th Gen), Surface Pro (5th Gen) with LTE Advanced, Surface Go, Surface Go with LTE Advanced, Surface Laptop (1st Gen), Surface Laptop 2, Surface Book, Surface Book 2, Surface Studio (1st Gen), Surface Studio 2, Surface Pro 4, Surface 3, or Surface Pro 3 with a configured boot order in UEFI)

1. Shut down your Surface.
2. Insert the bootable USB drive into the USB port on your Surface.
3. Press the power button to turn it on.
4. Follow the on-screen instructions to boot from your USB drive.

(For Surface Pro (5th Gen), Surface Pro (5th Gen) with LTE Advanced, Surface Go, Surface Go with LTE Advanced, Surface Laptop (1st Gen), Surface Laptop 2, Surface Book, Surface Book 2, Surface Studio (1st Gen), Surface Studio 2, Surface Pro without a configured boot order in UEFI)

1. Shut down your Surface.
2. Insert the bootable USB drive into the USB port on your Surface.
3. Press and hold the volume-down button on the Surface. While you're doing this, press and release the power button.
4. The Microsoft or Surface logo appears on your screen. Continue to hold the volume-down button. Release the button once spinning dots appear beneath the logo.
5. Follow the on-screen instructions to boot from your USB drive.

[rpkanthan]

Hi, several people have had this problem but MS staff repeat the same mantra which is of no use. My Surface Pro 7 fails to boot. It shows the windows logo and then blank screen. Tried all suggestions from vol-up plus power, 30 seconds then wait 10 then power etc. No use. Created Recovery USB but it won't boot from it either. Yes I press vol-down then power but still get the Win logo then blank screen.

MS, please don't reply with the usual stuff about creating a recovery USB. What is the next step if the device fails to even boot from the recovery USB?

[timswan]

This is not working on my Surface. It seems to do everything except I never actually get the option to reset from a drive under advanced options?

[mauriciodelpalacio]

Could i boot my surface RT 1st gen(i would like to start reusing it) from the internal SD CARD slot with windows 10 boot?

[deepsanlove]

Windows Rt 8.1 surface 64gb with 32 -bit AMR process and 2 gb ram, didn’t workout as a video !!! Help Needed

[vega]

For anyone with Surface Pro 9 wondering why this is not working, it´s Volume UP button and Power.

[Petrovich]

LIARS! This is not a bios, this is just Windows recovery menu. You can't boot to it again after installing linux on Surface Go, for example

[sxrva]

i cannot get to the bios menu on my surface book 2 i pressed the volume down button and press and released the power button but windows starts up normally i want to go into bios so that i can factory reset my surface pls get back soon and thank you

[jimgaba]

Finally got it to work - Took several try's

[devxdiamondman]

CAN YOU BOOT THE SAME WAY FROM THE 1 GEN SURFACE BECAUSE I WANT WINDOWS TEN FOR A PROJECT BUYT I CAN (caps sorry)

[jimgaba]

I can get into the BIOS but it only has 4 options like Disable Secure Boot - Nothing about booting from USB

[yasira]

so, I have try that method and what it does is turn on and turn off but it have a locker open in the top of the screen. What is next?

[TVDramaHome]

When boot from USB Wi-Fi range not show in the list how to fix?

[mehrkhalid]

Dear i am not getting BIOS screen, kindly help please. Surface go 32 GB windows rt

[haseebkahn]

Feels good to be introduced to the BIOS of Surface!

[budhytaj]

Hi.. I have my surface laptop 3, recently bought a few days ago, since the first hours after start up the windows, my screen is always go on UEFI screen. I've tried to do recovery image but is not working ?? Need

[na.thananjaayan]

i am having suface 2 but i am not able to boot it from usb if i press volume up and press power button it not gets booted up if i press volume down button and power it up it boots into default windows rt what i can do even i am not able to run .exe program

[nickolaswismer]

Dont have a large enough USB flash drive, can anyone tell me if I can copy/extract a downloaded Win10 ISO from Microsoft website onto a 1tb external usb hard drive and boot from that to do a clean install? Factory reset from within Windows keeps resulting in errors saying aborted reinstall without changes. Its my sons tablet & Ive never worked on Surface tablets before

[shyamyenagandula]

Can't boot my external SSD nor external HDD in my Surface 3 but can boot Pen Drives 🫠

[AndreasElf]

But what if I want to boot from an sd card using the internal sd card reader?
It works great using an external sd card reader connected to the usb port, but using the internal one it goes straight to Windows.

Don't want anything sticking out on the side and don't want to fiddle with a thumb drive just to boot into the sd card.

[nicolemelendez]

It only does 1% thank says error cant recover no changes were made