How do you restore an Image to a surface pro?

I don't actually need to restore and image but am trying to work out how you would do it. The teenager has his new surface pro 9 - it just has one usbc slot. So we were going to do an initial image before he started using it (too late now!) but didn't have a usbc stick big enough - until I can get one. But I'm curious as to how you would restore an image when there's only one usbc slot. Whenever I've done it before you need to also use a usb with Windows 11 on or a recovery drive (Win PE) from EaseUS (or similar) - meaning you need two usb sticks stuck in. Would it work with a dongle with extra usb slots in? I seem to remember that doesn't work (from last time I used a surface pro which was a long time ago now).

One way is put the image on the same usb stick.
Create easeus winpe bootable usb stick, then copy the image onto the same stick . It will need to be a big stck.
Whatever program is in the winpe you are using ( e.g. easeus ) should allow you to browse to it.

Alernatively, boot the winpe stick, then after it has loaded into ram, eject the winpe stick and plug in wnatever has the image on it.
Winpe will remain loaded into ram unless you shutdown or reboot.

You could use any hard disk/ssd to store the image so long as you can connect it to the machine after winpe has loaded. I expect a usb C>A adapter would do if your external disk only has usb A

If you have another computer, you could save your image using a program such as Macrium Reflect to a share on that other computer rather than saving to a USB stick.

Then, if you ever have to restore, you boot your Macrium reflect recovery disk and access that image over the network.

MS advises you to make a Recovery image ASAP after purchase, but in the worse case MS provides Recovery images for every supported Surface PC. They might be a little behind in updates or drivers, which is why they suggest you backup a new system.

Hazel123 said:

...there's only one usbc slot.

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SIW2 said:

One way is put the image on the same usb stick.

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That would work, and you could use any USB stick or HDD with something like this...
Amazon | USB-C Male to USB 3.0 Female Adapter

Something you may not realise is that once you have booted from the Macrium rescue USB you can unplug it. Reflect is running from the X: drive, a virtual drive in RAM. The boot USB is no longer needed. You can then plug in your USB with the image instead and browse to find the image on it. The same probably applies to any other imaging software with a bootable rescue USB.

One more note:

Bear in mind that your UFD can be considerably smaller than the amount of data on your internal drive. This is because large files such as hibernation and page files are not copied and the image being saved is compressed as well.

My System Two is a Microsoft Surface Pro 7.

I do my Macrium Reflect images on a Samsung 2TB T7 Shield SSD. It's large enough for several image files.

My Macrium Rescue is a 32GB Type C Samsung USB flash drive.

Just add a USB Hub, and expand one port out into four ports or so.

The last paragraph in Bree's suggestion above is the best approach, I do this all the time with single USB ported Systems. Once REFLECT is running from the Recovery Media BOOT, pull the Recovery Media, plug in your target, larger media and use the REFRESH key in REFLECT to re-summarize your attached disks. Now image as usual.

@Froggie

Plunk your magic twanger, Froggie!

TraderGary said:

@Froggie

Plunk your magic twanger, Froggie!

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"Hi ya kids, Hi ya, Hi Ya!"

And for extra credit...

Who said, "Plunk your magic twanger, Froggie!"?

Thanks all. So a usbc to usba converter and a 256gb usbc stick are now in our possession. Ended up using the usbc to usbca converter and doing the image onto an external hard drive.

The solution about ejecting/removing the usbc stick after booting Windows PE sounds the simplest one (and I think that is what I did recently on another machine but can't remember).

Just add a USB Hub, and expand one port out into four ports or so.

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I seem to remember that didn't work for restoring an image last time. I may be wrong.

garlin said:

MS advises you to make a Recovery image ASAP after purchase, but in the worse case MS provides Recovery images for every supported Surface PC. They might be a little behind in updates or drivers, which is why they suggest you backup a new system.

Surface Recovery Image Download - Microsoft Support

support.microsoft.com

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Great, thanks - I'd forgotten about that That will be handy to have.

An image has been done now but not before Windows had done a load of updates and it had been used for a day but thankfully everything seems fine. The Recovery Image will be a good thing to have as well in case ever needing to full restore to factory settings.

The Surface Pro is a hit and I would like one myself - but can't afford two!

I don't know the Froggie joke unfortunately! But sounds fun.

Hazel123 said:

I don't know the Froggie joke unfortunately! But sounds fun.

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Me neither - but, as always, 'Google is your Friend'....

Thanks Bree. So not this Froggy then?

Hazel123 said:

Thanks Bree. So not this Froggy then?

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No, this one....

Looks fun!

Hazel123 said:

Looks fun!

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Saturday morning TV in the mid 1950's. I'm a good bit older than you.

We watch talking pictures TV a lot and all kinds of interesting older stuff comes up on there But it's mainly Uk based other than the films.

This is tomorrow's schedule It's mainly 60s and 70s TV but some 1940s and 50s films and series as well. Films that weren't major memorable ones so you get to see all kinds of good stuff that's been forgotten. Well it is still winter!