[sigmatuan1989]

Seems like this should be a thread already but not finding it.

 

About 3 months ago I used recovery image to restore due to no open memory.  That worked, got many GB back.

 

About 2 weeks ago, was running poorly and noticed updates were not coming in.

I got the kb3173424 and kb3172614 manually loaded into Windows RT.

It then downloaded many more updates.

 

Tues it seemed slow again and noticed it wanted to restart for an update, no idea what update number and can't find out now.

When it restarted all I got is the battery indicator to flash on screen about every 5 seconds, nothing else but it is on screen.  

The windows button on center of tablet gives feedback to finger but nothing happens.

Can force it off and on.  Tried some of those "special" start procedures I found on line.

Left on till battery went dead charged and started.

Still only get the flash of battery.

Look forward to any suggestions.

 

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Hello sigmatuan1989,

 

About 3 months ago I used recovery image to restore due to no open memory.  That worked, got many GB back.

 

About 2 weeks ago, was running poorly and noticed updates were not coming in.

 

 

Not sure what you mean by "no open memory" but what you describe sounds like the symptoms that you may get when a storage device is running out of free space.

 

What is the capacity of your HDD or SSD if that is what you have and how much free storage space was available on the device, if too low Windows may have become corrupted.

[phillpower2]

Hello sigmatuan1989,

 

About 3 months ago I used recovery image to restore due to no open memory.  That worked, got many GB back.

 

About 2 weeks ago, was running poorly and noticed updates were not coming in.

 

 

Not sure what you mean by "no open memory" but what you describe sounds like the symptoms that you may get when a storage device is running out of free space.

 

What is the capacity of your HDD or SSD if that is what you have and how much free storage space was available on the device, if too low Windows may have become corrupted.

[SleepyDude]

Hi,

 

What is the device you have? a Surface RT 32G?

[sigmatuan1989]

Surface RT 32GB, going on 5 years old.

It was down to less than 1 GB free space when i did the re install months back.

Before crash it still had over 6GB free space when I last checked.

 

Thanks

[phillpower2]

Surprised that you got away with being below 1GB as 6GB is a bit low on a 32GB storage device.

 

Rui appears to be familiar with your computer so would be best placed to help you tbh, trying to start in Safe Mode and free up some space on the storage device would be what I would suggest first, if none of the data is important a system reset.

[SleepyDude]

Hi,

 

I did that on a Surface RT 32GB some moths ago, its complicated to do things on that machine because RT doesn't allow you to run stuff that isn't from Microsoft!

 

When I did the restore using the image provided by Microsoft it was difficult to make Windows Update work, I also had to install some updates manually using some Microsoft links that someone found out an posted online. After some initial updates, WU offered one update that is a Firmware update for the device, did you notice if that was your case?

 

If the Firmware update failed for some reason most likely the device will fail to work properly and I don't know if its possible to recover.

 

If you have the flash drive with the Microsoft recovery image can you boot the device from it?

[sigmatuan1989]

I am not able to even though I have a jump drive with recovery image plugged in.

When I start I still get the "Surface" flash screen and then it goes to the flashing of battery indicator about every 5 seconds.

During "Surface" flash screen i hit f8 to get the safe mode start option and still nothing.

 

Any suggestions on how to start into the safe or recovery mode?

 

Thanks

[SleepyDude]

F8 will not work.

 

Try the instructions from this page https://support.micr...rt-or-surface-2

 

 

1. Shut down your Surface and plug it in so you don’t run out of power during the refresh.
2. Insert the USB recovery drive into the USB port.
3. Press and hold the volume-down button while you press and release the power button. When the Surface logo appears, release the volume-down button.
4. When prompted, select the language and keyboard layout you want.
5. ...

[sigmatuan1989]

Appreciate the start sequence.  It is refreshing Pc, at 10% right now.

 

Thanks

[sigmatuan1989]

Re fresh done and signed in.  It is installing apps at present.  Any tips on what to do when it comes up in terms of updates?

Thanks

[SleepyDude]

Best Answer

Hi,

 

I tried to follow this guide https://surfacetip.c...-update-3-2017/

 

I remember that not all the updates they say to install are accepted at the first try and I had to reinstall one of them (not sure if it was KB2919355) before all the updates accept to install in the order they suggest!

 

By following the guide the Windows Update should start downloading allot of updates to install...

 

After installing all the updates offered by WU make sure you run SFC /scannow to confirm that there are no system errors, if errors are reported use DISM:

dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth

if all updates are installed and no errors are reported you can free some space by deleting all files inside c:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\Download\ and by using DISM:

Dism.exe /online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup /ResetBase

 

The last dism command will result in more free disk space but the OS will need a reboot and the task will finish on the background. It will take some minutes to complete and see the actual results...

[sigmatuan1989]

Seems to be working, need to still finish some updates.

Thanks

[phillpower2]

Glad to hear that all is well and a job well done both of you 

 

Consider getting yourself an external USB HDD for storage sigmatuan1989, some examples here

[SleepyDude]

Hi Phill,

 

This type of devices with very low storage are build to use the cloud to store documents, photos, etc. to make things worse the Surface RT only have 1 USB port!

 

The problem in my case was the fact the OS itself was using almost all the storage space with Office updates (included on the device) occupying almost 15GB! It seems that at some point Microsoft released one update that corrupted the Windows component store, later the update was fixed but many devices got stuck in a error and start failing removing old updates. Using SFC and DISM didn't help solving the problem because dism always corrupted the component store when trying to run the component store Cleanup.

[phillpower2]

Hi Rui,

 

They seem like a good idea but rather problematic 

 

I had wondered how Windows was meant to get by on a 32 or 64GB storage device, from the amount of folks that have had the same or a similar problem it is apparent that these type of computers could do with a minimum of a 128GB storage device.

 

Some useful information in this thread, thanks for sharing  

 

NB: Did note the single full size USB 2,0 port, this would trip me up straight away as I have to have a USB mouse when using a notebook