Surface Book no longer booting - trying to recover a few files

Hello all,

Running Windows 10 Home on a Surface Book 2nd generation - my wife's computer. It was occasionally blue screening for her a few months ago, and apparently following one incident, it will no longer boot past the surface logo - it bluescreens immediately with BAD_SYSTEM_CONFIG_INFO. I don't think the internal SSD is dead but I'm trying to avoid a re-installation because there's a about a week's worth of work at stake that I'd like to retrieve for my wife if possible.

Things I've tried:

-Normal Windows Repair options: all immediately fail as if they don't recognize the windows installation

-Running command prompt from the recovery menu. After unlocking the drive (apparently bitlocker was on), I can see the top level folders of the C: drive, but if I do dir on any of the children directories, they all appear empty

-Booting into Ubuntu & Kyhi's Recovery Tools to see if I could get at the files - the windows installation volume doesn't even show up in either case; not too sure if this is because of Bitlocker but I guess I'd expect to still be able to see the volume.

-Creating a Windows 10 Recovery Bootable - again, doesn't seem to recognize any windows installations, nor do I even see the volume using DISKPART so I'm not really sure what data recovery options to attempt to use

Any other suggestions? Only thing I can think to try before giving up and wiping it would be to take the thing apart and physically attach the SSD to another PC, but if that's the final option I'd probably just reinstall and hope the drive's not busted.

Thanks for any help provided!

It almost seems like your entire Windows installation has been wiped- especially since all the child folders were empty, not to mention that bug check refers to a corrupt system hive, though I wouldn't be surprised if it was caused by a missing one as well. At any rate I would definitely try a fresh install- if nothing else to see if the hard drive's still working

Bad system config info is bugcheck 74 and typically indicates problems with the registry.

The impact of Bitlocker is the unknown.

Find a camera or smartphone camera to take pictures and post images into the thread.

With a bootable windows 10 iso these are options:

a) startup repair
b) system restore
c) remove the latest Windows update
d) backup files
e) perform a custom install
f) run chkdsk /r /v
g) perform a clean install

With Kyhi you can:

a) check the status of the drive with HD Tune, HD Sentinel, Sea Tools, Crystal Disk, etc
b) backup files

With Ubuntu you can:

a) check the status of the drive with HD Sentinel
b) backup files

Again, the unknown is the Bitlocker impact


If the drive is removed you can use a HD inclosure or install in an empty bay of another computer.


The "My Computer" section displayed Windows 7/10.
If it is dual boot and Windows 7 is available there is another recovery option.

Agreed that bitlocker seems to be an unknown..my experience with it is pretty limited.

I've attached a picture to demonstrate what it looks like at the root of my windows installation, including what happens when I try to navigate the folder structure (Windows.old in this example - same happens in every directory)

Prior to unlocking the drive with my wife's bitlocker recovery key, I could not access the drive in any capacity.

I am still not sure why I cannot see this drive at all in, for example, HD Tune. Nothing I have tried has given any indication that the drive is accessible except booting to the system recovery tools from the installed Windows version. Even if I boot to the Windows 10 recovery drive off of USB, DISKPART doesn't list the volume.

Thanks for the suggestions thus far! Happy to take more images of other tests that might be helpful.

What were the results for startup repair?
Did it create a srttrail file?

How many system restore points were there?
What were the results for each?

Was Windows 7 installed as a dual boot?


Using Windows RE command prompt:

Type: notepad

Find a flash drive to move files from the problematic computer to a working computer.
Or upload pictures into this thread.

Type the following commands. (some may not work in windows RE)
(comments will be in parenthesis)


bcdedit /enum
bcdedit | find "osdevice"
reagentc /info

diskpart
lis dis
lis vol
sel dis 0
det dis
lis par
sel par 1
det par
sel par 2
det par
sel par 3
det par
sel par 4
det par
sel par 5
det par
sel par 6
det par
sel dis 1
det dis
lis par
sel par 1
det par
sel par 2
det par

(continue in a similar fashion for any other disks or partitions)


When these have completed > right click on the top bar or title bar of the administrative command prompt box > left click on edit then select all > right click on the top bar again > left click on edit then copy > paste into notepad > save to the flash drive used to transfer files

I've attached the results of startup repair (StartupRepair.jpg). It did create a file, but that location is not accessible to view it.

I've attached the Restore Point attempt - no restore points were found (SystemRestore.jpg)

Windows 7 is not dual booted; Windows 10 is the only OS on this machine.

I've attached cmd.txt with the requested commands.

I've also attached cmd2.txt which shows that bitlocker claims the drive is unlocked.

Finally, I've attached NotepadDirectories.jpg demonstrating that I can access the top level directory of C:, but no further. None of these folders are accessible.

Thanks for your assistance!

Command line displayed problems > back up data
(move to HD enclosure or into an empty drive bay)



You can try:
notepad
view look in
change from sources to windows > system32 > logfiles > srt > srttrail

Full path: c:/windows/system32/logfiles/srt/srttrail.txt

Unfortunately, since this is a surface book, I can't get at the drive without taking it apart with tools and skills I don't have. I've also discovered I can't even format the drive with diskpart, nor can a bootable USB attempt to reinstall Windows - it just says "your PC could not be recovered", or something to that effect.

As far as I can tell, the device is bricked and there aren't any tools or resources to try to recover files from the drive. Interestingly, in my time fighting with it, I could occasionally make it to the login screen, even as far as getting to the desktop before it would bluescreen.

Frustrating that the drive seems to be functional but the surface book is so restrictive that it seems like a waste of time to continue fighting it. Unless someone else knows of a way to get at the filesystem without booting into this specific windows installation, I'm not sure I can do much with it considering I can't even reformat the drive.

- - - Updated - - -

Attaching an example of what I mean. In conjunction with the other uploads, I really don't understand what's going on. The drive is clearly there and operational in some capacity, but no external boot method has even acknowledged its existence.

These are Microsoft links:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4036297
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4036280
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4023537
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4023527

Have you turn off Bitlocker with this command:

Code:

manage-bde -off C: