How to boot Surface from USB Drive at Startup

In cases where you are unable to boot into Windows and cannot access your files, you can create a bootable drive and use the media to boot and repair your OS installation on your device. In this post, we will show you how to boot Surface from USB Drive at Startup.

How to boot Surface from USB Drive at Startup

Starting your Surface from a USB drive can be useful if you want to change firmware settings or Windows startup settings or if your Surface device does not turn on, start, boot, or wake from sleep.

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. To boot Surface from USB Drive at Startup, do the following:

Configure your Surface to Start or Boot from your USB drive

Plug in a bootable USB drive into a USB port on your powered-off Surface device.
Next, press and hold the volume-up button and press and release the power button.
Continue holding the volume-up button until the Surface or Windows logo no longer appears on the screen.
On the Surface UEFI screen that appears, depending on your Surface device, do the following:

For Surface Pro 3 and Surface 3

Select Configure Alternate System Boot Order.
Next, select USB > SSD or Network > USB > SSD as the case may be.
Afterwards, select Exit Setup.
Now select Yes to save the configuration and restart Surface.

For Surface Pro 1 and Surface Pro 2

Select Secure Boot Control.
Select Disable (this may affect the look of your Surface splash screen) to allow Surface to search for an alternate device to boot from instead of from your SSD.
Select Exit Setup.
Select Yes to save the configuration and restart Surface.

For all other Surface device

Select Boot configuration.
Select USB Storage and drag it to the top of the list OR swipe left on USB Storage to boot to the device immediately. This will not affect the boot order.
Select Exit and then select Restart Now.

Start or Boot your Surface from your USB drive

Now that you have completed the steps above, you can now proceed to start your Surface from your USB drive. Do the following:

If you don’t want to start your Surface from your USB drive, make sure the drive is not inserted in the USB port on your Surface when you start it. Otherwise, you need to change the boot order so that your Surface boots from an external USB drive, and make sure you don’t have any other USB devices connected to your Surface, including USB mouse devices, keyboards, or other storage drives. Surface will try to boot from any other connected USB devices.

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

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

For all other Surface device

Shut down your Surface.
Insert the bootable USB drive into the USB port on your Surface.
Press and hold the volume-down button on the Surface, then press and release the power button.
Continue to hold the volume-down button when the Microsoft or Surface logo appears on your screen.
Release the button once spinning dots appear beneath the logo.
Follow the on-screen instructions to boot from your USB drive.

Watch this quick and short video from Microsoft.

If you’re having trouble starting your Surface following the instructions above, you can boot Surface from the USB drive within Windows.

That’s it!

How do you get to the boot menu on a Surface?

Press and hold the volume-up button on your Surface and at the same time, press and release the power button. When you see the Surface logo, release the volume-up button. The UEFI menu will display within a few seconds.

Why is my USB not bootable?

If the USB isn’t booting, you need to make sure: That the USB is bootable. That you can either select the USB from the Boot Device list or configure BIOS/UEFI to always boot from a USB drive and then from the hard disk.

How do I know if my USB drive is bootable?

You can check your USB drive bootable status via the Disk Management tool in Windows 11/10. To do so, select and right-click the formatted drive and select Properties. Navigate to the Volumes tab and check the Partition style. You should see it marked with some kind of boot flag, such as Master Boot Record (MBR) or GUID Partition Table.