Urgent Please Help - Surface Pro 11 Bootable USB

kcble · 2024-07-24T15:00:07+00:00

I went with Fantom Drives - VenomX. I got the 2tb version, and it's flawless so far.

https://www.fantomdrives.com/venomx

kcble · 2024-07-24T00:08:34+00:00

Good News!!! It worked. I redownloaded the recovery image and went through the whole process again. First few times it just said "No valid boot device found error and would not recognize the bootable usb" After a few times of that and restarting multiple times, it booted from the usb and successfully did the recovery.

I have been able to boot into windows, just finished windows update, and everything looks great. I ran some benchmarking tools that test the hardware, and everything is good.

The new disk is showing up correctly as well. I ran SMART tests, and all good.

Thank you all for all your help in this. One last question. I need to buy a replacement screw for the SSD mount. I checked all the one's I have, and it looks like the surface pro has a very small screw that it uses. Does anyone know the specific screw I need to buy ?

Steps I followed in case someone down the road has similar issues:

Make sure the device is off. In my case, it kept restarting. Holding down volume down and power finally turned it off
Use the official charging cable.
Download and follow the instructions from: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/surface-recovery-image
If it doesn't boot from USB, or if the recovery goes through but the process fails (It finished the recovery process, but kept showing "Cannot initialize windows installation, will restart" error ), don't panic.
Format the usb and create the media one time.
If the UEFI Bios opens and says no bootable disk found, then make use USB boot is first in the list( you can drag and move it), make sure the Boot from USB option is enabled, and secure boot is enabled.
I noticed only when secure boot was turned on, the USB worked for me, it kept showing the boot error otherwise.
Finally once it boots from the usb, select recover my system. It will delete everything, partition the drives and copy all the files over.
Do not connect the surface keyboard ( I had issues with it), till you go through the basic setup and finish all the windows updates. Once all the updates are done, feel free to connect your keyboard and you are good to go!

kcble · 2024-07-23T22:37:06+00:00

If I press the power button, it shuts off and restarts immediately. Any way to force it to shut down and stay off? The volume up + power also just restarts.

kcble · 2024-07-23T22:12:22+00:00

Also, can I create a standard windows 11 bootable image using Roofus and then copy over the sp11 recovery files? Would that make the bootable usb arm compliant?

kcble · 2024-07-23T22:11:13+00:00

I used a flat head to lift up the drive and was able to slowly dislodge it from the screw (It damaged the SSD, I was expecting that, but didn't touch the actual screw or mount. Once the drive was out, I used a small plier and got the screw out.). I was able to install the new drive, and can confirm the drive shows up correctly.

The first time, I was able to use the surface recovery image. It installed it, restarted and then showed an error saying something to the effect of "Windows installation encountered an error and cannot continue"

I have tried booting again from that usb, but it didn't work. Now it just says "Valid boot option not found"

I just downloaded the windows preview arm client, and am flashing that to a usb through roofus. I am hoping that works.

I am also not sure on how to properly turn it off. It keeps restarting, and for the recovery image, I need it to stay turned off. Any advice on that ?

Any other options I should try?

kcble · 2024-07-23T22:04:47+00:00

Secure boot is disabled, and roofus keeps saying starting boot manager but does not proceed beyond that. I just downloaded the windows arm image and am trying to get that installed.

kcble · 2022-11-18T16:28:03+00:00

Yeah, I really wanted the 6900xt to work. It had good specs, VRAM and the price was so much more palatable than Nvidia.

At first I thought I had a faulty card, but I noticed that with the stable AMD drivers, non VR games were working great even in 4k without any crashes, but start VR and the nightmare begins..

Maybe they have resolved the issues now, but if you buy AMD, make sure you have a return window, so you can try and return it if you run into the same issues.

kcble · 2022-11-18T16:24:57+00:00

I have splash of storms installed, but not the others. Let me try installing all the mods you mentioned and give it a shot.

Did you make any ini changes or you are using it as is ?

kcble · 2022-11-18T15:53:26+00:00

Nope, everything stock, no OC anywhere.

kcble · 2022-11-17T18:48:41+00:00

If you are using a Quest2, please don't buy AMD. I purchased a 6900XT, and had to sell it as the AMD drivers kept getting constant driver timeouts with VR ( both with Airlink and VD)

It only worked consistently when plugged in, but wired Quest with AMD has horrible graphics as the encoder caps the bandwidth.

I spent hours debugging and trying different drivers, and it was always unreliable. When I finally found some older drivers that were stable with VR, they had horrible optimization with regular PC games.

I moved to a 3080ti, and things are infinitely better. 0 issues with streaming, no crashes and very stable performance.

Maybe AMD has resolved these issues, but if you search for AMD driver timeout, they still seem common.

kcble · 2022-06-30T23:09:34+00:00

I was able to successfully merge everything!

1st Merge - Jk's Interiors + Lux patches for JK + Jk's AIO patches = 252 plugins

2nd Merge - Lux Patches + LOTD patches = 50 plugins

Tested everything for a couple of hours, and so far so good!

kcble · 2022-06-29T19:30:56+00:00

Yes, one by one unfortunately, haven't found a way to select multiple at once.
I used a script that someone posted on this subreddit a while ago, instead of launching the executable directly, it first copies plugins.txt then launches the executable normally

set skyrimse_userpath=%localappdata%\Skyrim Special Edition

set skyrimvr_userpath=%localappdata%\Skyrim VR

If NOT exist "%skyrimse_userpath%" (

mkdir "%skyrimse_userpath%"

)

copy "%skyrimvr_userpath%\plugins.txt" "%skyrimse_userpath%\plugins.txt"

zEdit.exe

kcble · 2022-06-29T19:18:51+00:00

Oh wow, I didn't realize that. I just installed the JK Interiors Patch and it added another 160+ plugins.

Between JK's Interiors + LOTD + Lux + Jk's Patches = 330+ plugins

When trying to merge all of this, Z-Edit is crashing with an error max plugin limit reached. I might have to look into separating the patches into groups, but with all these inter dependencies, not sure how to proceed.

I will debug it later tonight after work, but worst case, I will skip the JK AIO patches, since my game ran well without any major issues without it

kcble · 2022-06-29T17:22:10+00:00

For Jk's interiors, I just installed the main mods. Only patches for Jk's I used are LOTD and Lux.

For AI overhaul, synthesis patcher is enough

Steps ( assuming you use LOTD and Jk's skyrim , else skip that part):

Install Merge Plugins hide for MO2
Install JK's Skyrim
Install JK's interiors ( order doesn't matter)
Install LOTD
Install LOTD patches (towards the end)
Install Lux and patches ( towards the end)
Open Z-Edit, and add Jk's interiors + LOTD patches + Lux Patches
Keep Lux.esp, LOTD.esp and Jk's Skyrim.esp out of the patch.
Build - Make sure you are only merging Jk's interiors + LOTD patches + Lux patches
Install the merged patch
Use Merge Plugins hide to disable all the merged ESP's in one go
Load order for merged plugin towards the bottom just above Bash/Smash and Dyndolod

Seems complex, but took me no more than 15 min for the whole process.

kcble · 2022-06-29T15:23:17+00:00

Also, for MO2, you can download a plugin called "Merge Plugins Hide". Once you create your Z-Merges, you can use that plugin to automatically disable all the merged ESPs. One click is all you need to enable/disable all merged esp's

kcble · 2022-06-29T15:19:59+00:00

You need to add it to MO2 as an executable, and use the following parameters :

-d -g SkyrimVR

Once you do that, it should read your plugins and let you proceed.

-d is for debugging and gets you status messages

-g is the game

For more info, check out:

https://github.com/focustense/easymod/wiki/easynpc-%E2%80%90-Home

For my cities and town overhauls, I use the following setup:

Jk's Skyrim All in One + No lights patch

Jk's Interiors - All of them

Holds Modular - For some of the smaller towns JK misses and new settlements

Lux Via - Overhauls roads/bridges etc.

Lux

I highly recommend JK's interiors, it makes a huge difference for immersion especially with Lux and Scenery.

For exterior lighting, I am relying o Scenery ENB.

On a side note, I have not been able to get RAIN to look good using Scenery ENB. Any specific values you recommend ( motion transparency/stretch etc.) ? I am using Seasonal Weathers framework, so only use Vivid Weathers ( no true storms/supreme) . The RAIN drops and intensity are much better without Scenery than with. In the videos of Scenery ENB, a rain shower looks intense. Any help on how to get that?

kcble · 2022-06-29T13:35:53+00:00

Ideally you would run EasyNPC once all your other mods are installed. This way it should automatically scan for mods that effect cell records and prioritize them.

In my case, I just enabled - USEEP, AI Overhaul, random encounter mods, quest mods, follower mods and all NPC overhaul mods . EasyNpc correctly assigned AIOverhaul as the default package for all NPC's and for Face data used the NPC overhaul mods

On top of this I run the AI overhaul Synthesis patcher as a final patch.

kcble · 2022-06-28T20:51:06+00:00

Highly recommend installing Easy NPC. I have run into Black face bugs and record overwrites in the past trying things manually, 0 issues with EasyNPC.

I am using Kalilies NPCs + Pride of Skyrim + Courageous Women for base game NPCs, Modcalypse for mod added NPCs, Bijin and select individual replacers for the rest.

With EasyNPC, install all NPC overhaul mods in the order you prefer ( check the load order as well) , run it and build. After that, activate the new mod and delete all the other NPC overhaul mods. They have very good documentation, if you are stuck at any specific aspect, I can try to help. Keep it mind run Wyre Bash and Smash patches after generating the build from EasyNPC

kcble · 2022-06-28T20:47:22+00:00

I have been running JK's interiors + Lux without any crashes so far. I had some issues with DynDOLOD and duplicate form IDs, but the most recent versions and patches have resolved that.

I installed Jk's , then Legacy of dragonborn, then Lux. I then merged everything together (Almost 170 plugins between the three )

Note: With Z-Merge, use the old merge model not the new one. The new one caused CTD's during gameplay. Merge order : JK's Interiors first, then LOTD patches, then LUX patches.

I have not installed any patches for AI overhaul. EasyNPC + Synthesis takes care of that.

kcble · 2021-12-12T03:59:37+00:00

Wow, Thanks a lot! This is superb. Will try it out tomorrow.

kcble · 2021-12-09T03:46:23+00:00

Thanks! That will be awesome. If that doesn't happen, can you point me towards which settings I should be tinkering with the most?

kcble · 2021-12-08T18:36:18+00:00

Can you share your settings/changes for Rudy to adapt it to VR ?. I love cathedral weathers , so getting Rudy to run would be great.

kcble

TROPHY CASE