Skip to main content

Surface Pro 3

Thread needs solution

So, been trying to use SND to a Surface Pro 3. I created a master image following these instructions.

Boot from a USB drive that has the SND agent on it.

Followed these steps:

> Surface keyboard must be attached and surface must be removed from docking station.
> Update the firmware to at least 10/28/2014
> Disable WiFi and Power Off Surface Pro 3
> Boot to Surface Pro 3 BIOS (hold +vol and press power button for about 3 seconds, continue holding volume button until you see the Surface logo)
> Disable secure boot
> Set alternate boot order to Network->USB->SSD
> Save & Exit and then Power Off Surface Pro 3

> Place Surface Pro 3 in docking station with network cable attached (WiFi must still be disabled) DO NOT close docking station "wings" (this speeds up the boot process)
> Boot to Surface Pro 3 BIOS (hold -vol and press power button for about 3 seconds, continue holding volume button until you see the Surface logo)
> As soon as you see the USB flash drive booting to Acronis immediately close Docking station "wings"
> Continue booting Surface Pro 3 to Snap Deploy Agent
 

I have the image on a USB drive. I can browse to it, select it, says it deployed but then the Surface is unbootable and I have to use the recovery media and thus back at square one.

 

Anyone get SND 5 to deploy an image to a Surface Pro 3 an if so, how?

 

Thanks

0 Users found this helpful

Hello, Robert

I have tried to deploy Surface Pro 3, but without a docking station. I used a USB hub to connect a USB network adapter and a flash drive with Bootable media to the USB port of the Surface Pro 3. Standalone deployment succeeded, as well as deployment using Snap Deploy Agent (WinPE or Linux-based). 

You mentioned that you used Snap Deploy Agent to deploy the Surface Pro 3. Did you try to use Standalone Utility instead? Does deployment succeed in this case?

And please describe what exactly means "Surface is unbootable". Is there any error message on the screen while booting?

Best regards.

I have been trying to deploy a Master Image to a Surface Pro 3 w/ Windows 8.1 for several days now and I can not get Acronis Snap Deploy 5 to work. I am creating the master image and deploying to the same computer to test whether Acronis is a viable solution for my client.

No matter what option sequence I use with Standalone Utility, the deployment starts, and in less than 1 minute it says it completed. It does wipe all partitions, but creates none.

Would Acronis supply step-by-step instructions for Creating the Master Image and Deploying the Image back to the same Surface Pro 3. Including which partitions to create in the Master Image,

 

Jeff, this is how we do it. I don't know if the Surface Pro Dock has any issues of it's own, but we use a generic USB to ethernet adapter with 3 USB ports like this Anker one and hook up a mouse and keyboard to it.

Boot into the Surface Pro bios and disable secure boot, disable TPM.  Power off completely.

Plug in the USB hub adapter, connect ethernet, mouse, keyboard and Acronis bootable Snap Deploy USB drive.  

Boot into Bios and select boot override to boot Acronis USB in UEFI mode.

Use the image creator on the drive and create a full disk image of the system - save to a network share (alternatively, can save to an attached USB hard drive if preferred).  I recommend using a Surface Pro speficially for creating a surface Pro image for deployment - this is one of the few where we rarely use a generic image since the Surface Pros have standard hardware and their own firmware updates directly from Microsoft.

Once image is created, use the same setup but do the restore in reverse to other Surface Pro 3's with the built image and the stand-a-lone deployment option instead of the deployment console (for us this works because we have hands on for all new builds and it's easier than creating a new template).  During deployment, generate a unique SID.  We don't generalize the hardware since we use use only a Surface Pro 3 image for deploying to other Surface Pro 3's.

During the entire process, everything is done from the stand-a-lone USB boot media and your restored image should be bootable.  You can enable TPM and/or secure boot after the image has been deployed and verified to boot.

Hello,

Here is some step-by-step instructions on how to create a master image:

1. Online imaging;

2. Offline imaging;

 

And here you can find step-by-step instruction on how to deploy the image to the Surface Pro 3.

Also, you can deploy the master image using the Standalone utility.

Best regards.