Surface RT stuck in boot loop

[dry]

Hi all,

 

A friend asked me to have a look at his Surface RT yesterday. It's stuck in a boot loop- goes to 'Windows encountered an error and needs to restart...", reboots and whilst it's rebooting, "Preparing Automatic Repair" comes up and the Surface gets stuck on that. If you restart the Surface it will do exactly the same.

 

Of course he had saved a very precious uni PowerPoint to the Surface itself and is now concerned he's lost it (which he more than likely has). Have tried holding the volume down key on startup but to no avail. Can't boot it into a Linux distro as it's got Windows RT. Can't remove and test RAM/HDD etc as it's a Surface and they're all on one board.

 

The boys in purple have palmed him off- he'd paid the stupid and extortionate 'know how' guarantee (or 'know not' in this case) but they've sent him to Microsoft.

 

I've said his best bet is for a repair/replacement from Microsoft. Anyone got any last-ditch advice before he sends it off? He's come to terms with the loss of his data and I've told him why he's so silly not backing up at all or using Onedrive etc.

 

Thanks.

[Steve21]

Tried external keyboard and safemode?

 

Found generically on Win8+ safemode often fixes the errors a lot more than "auto repair"

 

Steve

[difinity]

Have a look here and see if this helps How to Fix a Bricked Microsoft Surface with Official Recovery Files - Techno Maverick