How to update Surface Pro 2 Recovery Image drivers

So what does updating drivers in your recovery image do?

– Resolves the “Unknown device” issue, permanently
– Known to resolve some instances where the Surface Pro 2 crashes upon resume
– Wonderful for perfectionists. Having the latest drivers when your Surface Pro 2 boots for the first time makes you feel warm and fuzzy

Microsoft have done a fantastic job with the Surface Pro 2 (best gadget I’ve purchased in years) but nothing is flawless and Surface Pro 2 is no exception. If you perform a reset on your Surface Pro 2 you will notice in Device Manager that there is an “Unknown Device”. As you probably know the “Unknown Device” is the “Surface Cover Telemetry” device.

After some investigation I found that the recovery image itself does not contain the driver for this device. Ooops! Some people have found a temporary solution by manually installing the driver right after a reset before any Windows Updates are run but you’re going to run into the same situation again when you perform another reset on your Surface Pro 2. I’m sure Microsoft will release a hotfix for this problem in the near future however, that hotfix will not fix the recovery image itself.

If we compare the Windows drivers repository (C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository) on the original recovery image against a Surface Pro 2 that has the driver installed we can see straight away that the Surface Cover Telemetry driver files are missing.

FAQ (I’ll add more FAQ’s when the questions start coming through)

Question: Do I lose my original Recovery Image that is shipped with the Surface Pro2?
Answer: No, this image is backed up and can be restored

Question: Can I still run the firmware updates from Windows Update
Answer: Yes, you can run ALL the available Windows Updates when you have finished resetting your Surface Pro 2

Question: Will this work on the original Surface Pro?
Answer: I don’t see why not, however I have not tried

Question: Will the recovery partition on my Surface Pro 2 be updated with the new recovery image when I use the USB stick?
Answer: Yes

Prerequisites

– Windows 8.1 (RTM\GA) so we can use the correct version of DISM.exe
– 8GB USB stick
– Surface Pro 2 driver pack (http://www.microsoft.com/en-au/download/details.aspx?id=40856)

Step 1: Create a USB recovery drive using your 8GB USB stick (I prefer not to delete the recovery partition)

http://www.microsoft.com/surface/en-au/support/storage-files-and-folders/create-a-recovery-drive

Step 2. Create some temporary directories to perform all our work in

Hit Start + X and select “Command Prompt (Admin)” then run the following commands

mkdir C:\Temp\SP2Recovery\Source
mkdir C:\Temp\SP2Recovery\Destination
mkdir C:\Temp\SP2Recovery\Mount
mkdir C:\Temp\SP2Recovery\Drivers

Step 3. Now using your favourite zip program extract October2013SurfacePro2.zip to C:\Temp\SP2Recovery\Drivers

Step 4. Copy the source image files to your computer where “E:” is the letter of your recovery USB stick

copy E:\sources\install*.swm C:\Temp\SP2Recovery\Source

Step 5. The recovery WIM image is split into multiple images on the USB recovery stick because the USB stick is formatted as FAT32. FAT32 has a file size limit of 4GB and the recovery image is over 5GB

Split WIM images have the extension SWM. Since we can’t mount SWM image files we’re going to merge them together to create a single WIM file for mounting

DISM /Export-Image /SourceImageFile:C:\Temp\SP2Recovery\Source\install.swm /swmfile:C:\Temp\SP2Recovery\Source\install*.swm /SourceIndex:1 /DestinationImageFile:C:\Temp\SP2Recovery\Destination\install.wim

Step 6. Time to mount the merged WIM image for editing

DISM /mount-wim /WIMFile:C:\Temp\SP2Recovery\Destination\install.wim /index:1 /MountDir:C:\Temp\SP2Recovery\Mount

Step 7. Let’s import the new drivers into the image

DISM /Image:C:\Temp\SP2Recovery\Mount /add-driver /driver:C:\Temp\SP2Recovery\Drivers /Recurse

Step 8. Save the changes and unmount the image

Note: Do not have any Windows Explorer windows open or Command Prompts on C:\Temp\SP2Recovery\Mount else DISM will not be able to close the image

DISM /Unmount-wim /mountdir:C:\Temp\SP2Recovery\Mount /Commit

Step 9. Split the WIM image into multiple parts so that it can fit on the FAT32 USB stick

DISM /Split-Image /ImageFile:C:\Temp\SP2Recovery\Destination\install.wim /SWMFile:C:\Temp\SP2Recovery\Destination\install.swm /FileSize:2048

Step 10. Copy the new split image files back to the Surface Pro 2 Recovery USB stick and overwrite the old files

copy C:\Temp\SP2Recovery\Destination\install*.swm E:\sources /y

Step 11. Time to reset your Surface Pro 2 and use that new USB recovery image.

Make sure you backup all your data and don’t forget to backup the original split images in C:\Temp\SP2Recovery\Source in case you want to use original image some day.

1. Shutdown your Surface Pro 2 (Start X -> Shutdown or sign out -> Shutdown)

2. Plug in your USB recovery stick

3. Hold the volume down (-) button and push the power button (don’t release the volume down button until you see the “Surface” wording on the screen)

4. Select your language

5. Select your keyboard layout

6. Select “Troubleshoot”

7. Select “Reset your PC”

8. Select your OS

9. Select “Next”

10. Select “Yes, repartition the drives”

11. Select “Just remove my files”

12. Select “Reset”

and we’re Finished!

Enjoy a beautiful looking Device Manager

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I want the original recovery image back!

Simple! Just copy the original split image back to the USB stick where E: is your USB stick drive letter and perform a reset on your Surface Pro 2

copy C:\Temp\SP2Recovery\Source\install*.swm E:\sources