Surface Go a new budget Surface Device from Microsoft, ships with Windows 11/10 Home in S Mode enabled. But users can switch the OS to the normal Windows Home version. This indirectly offers them a Surface Go running the full version of Windows Home. But it may happen that after having switched out of Windows S Mode, you may want to go back to Windows 11/10 Home. Although there is a recovery partition available in Surface Go by default, the method that we are going to see brings the latest of Windows to your Surface Go.
Reinstall Windows 11/10 Home in S Mode on Surface Go
As with every other Recovery process, this process also comprises of 3 major steps. They are GET, SET and DEPLOY-
- GET means that first, we will get the latest Surface Recovery Image
- SET meant that we will create the Recovery Partition in a USB Pen Drive
- DEPLOY means that we will finally Deploy it to our devices.
You can use any to download the recovery image and create the Recovery Partition.
Download Surface Recovery Image
First of all, start by downloading the Surface Recovery Image. You need to be logged in to your Microsoft Account to get your devices listed automatically on the page.
You can skip this step and select your product as the Surface Go from the drop-down list.
Enter your Surface Go’s serial number. You can find it in the Surface app on your device or on the underside of the kickstand.
Click on Continue.
This will redirect you to a new page from which you can get your device’s latest available recovery image. It will be around 6GB in size.
Download and keep it in a secure location.
Create a USB Recovery Drive
Now, that we have the downloaded recovery image for ourselves, to create a Surface recovery drive, we have to write it as intended to a USB Pen Drive, of size at least of 16 GBs and should be empty.
Once you are ready, plug in your USB Pen Drive and search for Create a Recovery Drive in the Cortana Search box. Click on the result to open the wizard.
Deselect Backup system files to the recovery drive and then click on Next.
Then you will be asked to select your USB Pen Drive. Select it and click on Next.
Click on Next, and you will get a screen asking you to confirm the creation of the Recovery Drive.
Click on Create to finalize the creation.
Your recovery drive is ready!
Extract the Recovery Files
Once your Recovery USB Pen Drive is ready, you can extract the Recovery Files.
Locate the recovery image that we downloaded early. Right-click on it and click on Extract All.
You will get a new mini-window where you just need to click on Extract to get the extracted files in the same folder.
Open the folder created due to extracted files and copy those files to the USB Recovery Drive we just created.
You may get prompts asking if you want to replace the existing files, click on Yes.
After you copy these files, you can carry on to Recover your Surface Go now.
Recover your Surface Go
Now that your Recovery Drive is ready, we can recover it to its OOBE.
First, turn off your Surface Go. Then insert your Recovery USB Pen Drive into one of the USB Ports and hold down the Volume Down and Power Button at the same time.
As soon as the Surface Logo appears, let go of the buttons.
Now, you will be prompted to select a Language for the language and keyboard settings. Then select Troubleshoot and then click on Recover from a drive.
You will get two options, namely, Just remove my files and Clean the drive fully. Select the most appropriate one for yourself.
Just for your information, we will describe what each of those options will do for you.
- Just remove my files: It will remove your Documents and Downloads – but in case you have other partitions too, those files will not be deleted.
- Clean the drive fully: This will clean everything on the storage disk of your Surface Go and will reinstall Windows Home with S Mode enabled.
After making a selection, you will be redirected to a new screen where the impact of your selection will be addressed to you.
You can click on Recover if you want to proceed. If you wish to reconsider your selection, you can click on Cancel.
If you selected Clean the drive fully, it would take some time to make the requested changes to your Surface Go, and if you selected Just remove my files, it would take a shorter time than that of the other option.
That’s all; your Surface Go will be recovered to Windows 11/10 Home with S Mode enabled.
