I had one if these with the same issues, not worth the agro, opening them up is a pain and you will probably end up spending 60 quid or more. You dont need to swap out the drive. Simply remove the drive that is in there, fdisk with override and you can nuke the bitlocker partition and install windows to that same drive. I replaced the battery in the one I had put it back together and it set itself on fire on the first charge. Total nightmare machines to repair.
Locked Surface Pro 4 - BitLocker & UEFI
- Thread starter silver-bridge
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sorry it took me sometime, was waiting for the M-Key SSD reader..
now I can verify and confirm it.
I changed the SSD completely and installed a recovery image of windows, the Surface Pro 4 loaded into the recovery straight ahead and did not show the UEFI password screen at all.
so I reckon reformatting the original SSD will also work..
now time to hunt for a good deal on a surface pro 4 screen and I think I will have a fully functioning neat Surface Pro 4 for around 200 quid, maybe 250.
It was an entertaining project, thank you every one.. much appreciated ..
Hi there, hope you are doing well.
I myself am facing the same issue as yours bitlocker plus uefi locked sp4.
i have removed the ssd but don't know how to install the recovery image while the ssd is outside of sp4, since the port on the device is already locked so the Windows needs to be installed outside of the sp4 obviously, can you tell me how you managed to do that?
i was originally planning to do fresh install of windows10 pro not from the recovery image but that does not work as i saw from all other forum posts..
your timely reply will be much appreciated.
I had a surface pro 4 the same as this, do yourself a favour and throw it in the bin. I did eventually manage to fix it by opening it up and replacing the bios chip (bios chips for the surface pro 4 are about £40) but in doing so also had to replace the screen. It ended up costing about £120 to fix and wasn't worth it. Mine came from a lost/unclaimed possessions auction for the railway. Genuinely wouldn't bother fixing this one.
for what it is worth you can take the drive out, kill off all the partitions using diskpart etc then reinstall windows and port the drive back in but you will still be stuck with no access to bios, no booting from usb etc. Basically the way the surface is built it's just not worth the time/effort expense of fixing it.
Also where is the sudden influx of stolen/recovered sp4's coming from?
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Sounds like the security is doing it's job correctly. Without the right keys you won't get in regardless of what you do. Make sure you backup your own keys if you have any kind of security activated like this.
My new laptop comes with Bitlocker, TPM and UEFI locked. When I first turned on the laptop it told me that it was important I made a backup of that recovery key. It wouldn't let me get past the screen until I said I had taken a backup of it safely.
My new laptop comes with Bitlocker, TPM and UEFI locked. When I first turned on the laptop it told me that it was important I made a backup of that recovery key. It wouldn't let me get past the screen until I said I had taken a backup of it safely.
If your windows 10 is attached to your microsoft account microsoft also keep a copy on their servers for you. you can log in, wack in a code and it will spit out your recovery key
In this instance though I can assure anybody reading that unless you a) know what you are doing with a hot air station / soldering iron b) don't kill the screen on disassembly (genuine ones are around £100), non genuine ones are generally total rubbish and still set you back £60.Min repair cost on this if you have all the tools, know what you are doing and make 0 mistakes is £40, proper repair cost (its an open surface you will replace the battery) is £40 for bios chip, £100 when you inevitably kill the screen, £80 on a battery.
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If your windows 10 is attached to your microsoft account microsoft also keep a copy on their servers for you. you can log in, wack in a code and it will spit out your recovery key
It is - I tested recovery to make sure it worked.
It is - I tested recovery to make sure it worked.
It's always good to know that MS have your back if you mess up. The surface pro 4 is interesting though, it's build more than anything makes it not worth repairing. As I said above proper costs on repair for this are about £220. I had one with this same issue above, fixed it, everything was good, worked with the old battery so put a new battery in, re-assembled it, turned it on to test and it instantly set itself on fire, I mean big proper fire. That was the last surface pro 4 I ever bothered attempting repairs on. If I get one like this now I don't bother repairing and just sell it for parts.
I literally sold a genuine folio, 2 chargers, a couple of new batteries and a couple of screens on the bay last week because i'm done with "repairing"/fixing stolen surfaces.
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I'll never touch a repair on any latest gadgets - most of them are not repairable by 99.9% of us any more.
This one is doable it's just level of skill/toolset that makes them a pain, plus the screens. I can say with some confidence that if its the first time you are taking a screen out of a surface that you will break it, even if you are being really careful. there are a couple of cables that run right along one of the edges that are a pain to work around they are also super fragile, also one edge is close to the frame so you dont have much space to work, go in too far and you rip the lcd off of the digitizer. Then the bios chip is an smd so you need a hot air station. Frankly if you are taking it apart and it has this issue and you don't replace the bios chip then you are doing it wrong.
Companies don't want the user to be able to do repairs. They can make more money from either paying a registered repair place or buying a new one.
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So the thing is unlike you i hail from a 3rd world country, no ebay/amazon, the person i bought this from said she got it from a relative(who bought it off ebay/amazon most probably) who had recently returned from a foreign country and it stopped working after a Windows update, started asking for BIOS+Bitlocker passcodes not all of us are familiar with tech so most probably the person was unaware of such protections and did not reset the device.
I am good a handy person i did manage to get my hands on a hot air gun an expired student card and did remove the ssd properly without causing any damage to any components so far so good.
And to answer why would someone like me buy a device with UEFI and Bitlocker?
Its simple i got it for 1/3rd of the price they go for working ones infact i could not find any other SP4 i7 6th gen models in my country on sale at the moment so you can understand the situation here and being a student i did need a device but we dont have any oppurtunities for honest part time wage so had to make ends meet and pull a sneeky one.
Yes i am well aware the UEFI and USB boot will be blocked but being frank i think for the price i got it for i think just windows10 will suffice.
Now back to the main agenda, will a fresh install work or do i need to get the recovery image installed i did find mine through serial i have it on download just dont know how to get that safely on this drive without any issues.
and if you have ran a fresh Windows10 install by having the ssd inside another device and installing it back in and it did work then let me know i found that dos not work on other forums and threads.
I hope things have been clarified enough.
P.S: buying a new BIOS chip isn't an option where i come from it wouldn't make it even if i tried but what i can try is to remove the UEFI through a SerialProg,
take the dump of the current bios buy the winbond chips that are similar but cheap since this one isnt available and mess with different writes through those while not disturbing this chip and its BIOS so that it doesnt get BIOS corruption and stuck on LOGO issue.
I am good a handy person i did manage to get my hands on a hot air gun an expired student card and did remove the ssd properly without causing any damage to any components so far so good.
And to answer why would someone like me buy a device with UEFI and Bitlocker?
Its simple i got it for 1/3rd of the price they go for working ones infact i could not find any other SP4 i7 6th gen models in my country on sale at the moment so you can understand the situation here and being a student i did need a device but we dont have any oppurtunities for honest part time wage so had to make ends meet and pull a sneeky one
.Yes i am well aware the UEFI and USB boot will be blocked but being frank i think for the price i got it for i think just windows10 will suffice.
Now back to the main agenda, will a fresh install work or do i need to get the recovery image installed i did find mine through serial i have it on download just dont know how to get that safely on this drive without any issues.
and if you have ran a fresh Windows10 install by having the ssd inside another device and installing it back in and it did work then let me know i found that dos not work on other forums and threads.
I hope things have been clarified enough.
P.S: buying a new BIOS chip isn't an option where i come from it wouldn't make it even if i tried but what i can try is to remove the UEFI through a SerialProg,
take the dump of the current bios buy the winbond chips that are similar but cheap since this one isnt available and mess with different writes through those while not disturbing this chip and its BIOS so that it doesnt get BIOS corruption and stuck on LOGO issue.
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So the thing is unlike you i hail from a 3rd world country, no ebay/amazon, the person i bought this from said she got it from a relative(who bought it off ebay/amazon most probably) who had recently returned from a foreign country and it stopped working after a Windows update, started asking for BIOS+Bitlocker passcodes not all of us are familiar with tech so most probably the person was unaware of such protections and did not reset the device.
I am good a handy person i did manage to get my hands on a hot air gun an expired student card and did remove the ssd properly without causing any damage to any components so far so good.
And to answer why would someone like me buy a device with UEFI and Bitlocker?
Its simple i got it for 1/3rd of the price they go for working ones infact i could not find any other SP4 i7 6th gen models in my country on sale at the moment so you can understand the situation here and being a student i did need a device but we dont have any oppurtunities for honest part time wage so had to make ends meet and pull a sneeky one
Yes i am well aware the UEFI and USB boot will be blocked but being frank i think for the price i got it for i think just windows10 will suffice.
Now back to the main agenda, will a fresh install work or do i need to get the recovery image installed i did find mine through serial i have it on download just dont know how to get that safely on this drive without any issues.
and if you have ran a fresh Windows10 install by having the ssd inside another device and installing it back in and it did work then let me know i found that dos not work on other forums and threads.
I hope things have been clarified enough.
P.S: buying a new BIOS chip isn't an option where i come from it wouldn't make it even if i tried but what i can try is to remove the UEFI through a SerialProg,
take the dump of the current bios buy the winbond chips that are similar but cheap since this one isnt available and mess with different writes through those while not disturbing this chip and its BIOS so that it doesnt get BIOS corruption and stuck on LOGO issue.
In theory a fresh non-bitlockered install of windows on the SSD should boot, I think that is what silver-bridge did in the end, and it seemed to work.
I believe you can download the recovery image from microsoft directly here, not sure how or if you can install that on a drive not in a surface though: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/surfacerecoveryimage.
EDIT: sounds like you just copy the recovery image to the new drive and it will work
https://community.spiceworks.com/to...ery-boot-drive-without-a-working-surface-book
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Yes in theory a fresh install should work but on multiple forums i found that does not work and the SP4 then does not recognize the drive afterwards.
and wat silver-badge did was recovery but i have no idea how thats possible without a SP to get done.
Still once its downlaoded will give both options a try and hope for the best.
Exactly, but apparently no one here actually had a clue about how tpm chips and SSDs work with BitLocker, although I did tell them that's how it worked and it wasn't going to be easy. Perhaps their understanding of "security" is far more lax than they realised.
Exactly, but apparently no one here actually had a clue about how tpm chips and SSDs work with BitLocker, although I did tell them that's how it worked and it wasn't going to be easy. Perhaps their understanding of "security" is far more lax than they realised.
Hahaha, still waiting for you to provide that example of how your interpretation of BitLocker and TPMs work.
Exactly how we're seeing the sp4 play out. Tpm is a pairing, especially 2.0 with hardware chips. The keys match both ways. Swap the drive, SP4 won't boot because the keys mismatch, pull the drive and try and access it from another system, no luck. That's how it's always worked, especially on the SP4
The OP replied back in May saying they swapped the SSD and the Surface booted straight to it - without any requirement to enter the locked-out UEFI. You don't even need to swap it, you just need to format it so no BitLocker volumes exist on it anymore and the Surface will just boot the first UEFI bootable volume it finds.