ryandunt

after a little digging, it appears one noticeable difference is the USB drive has this folder: SMSBOOT\EFI\Boot - contains bootia32.efi and bootx64.efi from some quick research it looks like those files are key to boot a UEFI device.

I finally got it to work using an 8GB Lexar FAT32 drive. Looks like my issues was creating the standalone media to CD/DVD set and not directly to the USB drive. All of my testing was done using the media created this way. Then I was copying the files from the share to a USB drive. Odd that it would boot on other devices, but not the Surface. Either way, it is working and another reason I should follow directions better. Does the USB flash drive option create files/settings needed that the CD/DVD set option does not? I assume so, but curious if in fact that is the case and what those files/settings are. Thanks for your help with my issues. This guide was very helpful.

I've been testing with 8GB and 16GB drives.

Same results with FAT32 drive

The workaround I used was manually kicking of the deployment using the TSMBAutorun file. E:\SMS\bin\i386\

I was using NTFS formatted USB drive. It was bootable on other laptops, just not the Surface. I do see the light flash on the drive. I tried letting go off the volume down button once it flashes, but was never able to get it to boot. I've handed out all of the Surfaces we got in, but I'll attempt to get one back and test out using a FAT32 USB drive.

Yes, I tried booting up with all combinations of the boot options being enabled or disabled. We purchased 5 Surface Pros and I am not able to get any of them to boot to USB. At this point it's not a huge deal as I found a workaround. But if they become more popular in our environment I will have to dig into it.

I've tried two types of Lexar USB drives. BIOS version 2.15.1226.

I tried changing the secure boot and secure device options. I also tried using a different type/brand of USB drive. Still no luck booting to the USB drive.

Yes, I am able to boot to the USB on a laptop.

Yes, I made sure to shutdown. I held the volume down key while I pressed the power button and kept the volume down key pressed while it booted up. It seemed to just boot like normal. I also tried letting up on the volume down key after I noticed the USB flashing. But no luck so far. Using the advanced startup option, then booting to the USB drive also didn't work and booted up like normal as well. I'll keep trying it out because from what I've read it shouldn't be difficult.

I was struggling to image the Surface Pro until I found this guide. Worked great, thank you. I wasn't able to boot to the USB drive using the volume down key and power button. The advanced startup to USB drive didn't work either. But, I was able to run the TSMBAutorun file manually and it worked.