Restore - MS Surface 5 Works

Restore
1

It works!

I had a MS Surface 5 get factory wiped and thankfully we had recent image and file backups thanks to UrBackup. Below is the most basic guide for those in the same position.

  1. Create most recent USB UR restore drive
  2. Disable all boot drive options except USB in the surface bios.
  3. Disable secure boot
  4. Purchase USB hub/Ethernet adapter. I went with this one and I can confirm it works - ( TECKNET USB to Ethernet Adapter, USB C to Ethernet, Aluminum 3 Port USB 3.0 Hub with RJ45 10/100/1000 Gigabit
  5. Have spare USB keyboard - Built in surface keyboard and trackpad wont work from select "GUI or Text dialog box on)
  6. Plug tecknet hub into surface USB port. Plug URrestore USB and keyboard into USB hub.
  7. Power surface on.
  8. Enter at first URRestore screen to start.
  9. Select Text/console based interface. I was lost and dead in the water with GUI because I couldn’t get the GUI to find a network adapter… Maybe I’m an idiot, but text was simply easier.
  10. Text will also say it cant find your network. I entered my urbackup IP:port. Asked me for login info, and I was good to go. Rest of process is normal.

Hopefully this post helps someone else down the road.

2

Thanks for reporting that it works. People usually only report if it doesn’t…

Sounds like a bug, though.

Theoretically secure boot should work.

The image will soon be updated to Debian bookworm, if possible. Maybe that will improve the situation on the keyboard front.

3

Yeah, I was stumped with the key board situation. It worked at the first URrestore dialog. But when it got to "pick GUI or text nothing responded. I thought it froze up. So I obviously restarted about 10 times and remade the restore USB a few more. Then I got a spare keyboard :upside_down_face:

The few forum threads I found via search didn’t confirm which usb>ethernet adapters work. Figured someone else will find this thread and save themselves the headache.

Pretty thrilled I didn’t have to manually restore this PC and was able to just image it.