Solved Black screen, no cursor after login - Win 11 Home Surface Pro X

Not sure where this should be posted so I'll start her.

I was installing some programs I normally install and the last one I installed was to add seconds to the taskbar time display. I've done this hundreds of times with no probles, Win 10 and Win 11. It's one of Shawn's:


When start explorer executed, I never got a screen back, it remained black and nothing I've done has helped. To complicate things, the Surface Pro X does not have a keyboard attached and now I can't attach one since I can't get to Bluetooth on the Surface to pair one.

I'm willing to start over with a clean install of Win 11 but I can't do that either as I've been unable to get this turkey to boot from USB (it has to USB C ports). UEFI settings have USB as the first bootable device but still no joy.

Google searches indicate press and hold volume down then power should and it being up a recovery menu but it has no effect. Since I have no keyboard I can't do a normal Fn or Esc during boot, so I'm stumped.

Any ideas or suggestions to try?

Oh, as an additional bonus it has Bit locker installed and active so I can't do anything with the drive or Recovery tools since I don't have the key.
Note: This Surface Pro X was donated, I've been working on it for 3+ days so far. It's a really nice system.

Edit: Hmmmm, I wonder if I can do a RESET? Nope, Bitlocker won't allow without key.

Only clean install can get past bitlocker.

As mentioned, I can't do a clean install because I can't get it to boot from USB.

I have my own Surface. I wonder if I can mount the M.2 there and reinstall the OS then put it back in the Surface Pro X?
If it boots then I can do a reset.

Guess I'll give that a try as soon as I get home.

Where bluetooth keyboards won't work a wi-fi keyboard with dongle might if you can borrow one.

With dilemmas and limitations this was an alternative method for clean install:



Maybe reinstall the GPU while in Win RE?

Fabler2 said:

Where bluetooth keyboards won't work a wi-fi keyboard with dongle might if you can borrow one.

Click to expand...

Good idea, I'll see if I can grab one tomorrow at work. Thanks
Edit: Surface has two USB-C ports but I have a USB-C to USB-A connector so I may just get this to work.

Ztruker said:

I have my own Surface. I wonder if I can mount the M.2 there and reinstall the OS then put it back in the Surface Pro X?
If it boots then I can do a reset.

Guess I'll give that a try as soon as I get home.

Click to expand...

Not working. I moved the M.2 to my surface, did the first part of Win 11 clean install, then moved it back to the Surface Pro X.
All I get is "Couldn't find a bootable operating system". I still can't get it to boot from a USB flash drive, even now that I've gotten rid of Bitlocker.

If I could just get the Surface Pro X to boot from USB I'd be all set but I can't make that happen. Does the Pro X require different Fn keys to be used or some combo of power and volume + or - that I haven't found yet?

Someone must have done this, reinstall WIn 10 or 11 on a Surface Pro X. If so, how did you do it?????

once you get a keyboard to work, check the winlogon reg string value to make sure nothing changed it. can launched regedit from task manager, or boot into recovery and load the hive to access your system's reg

Found a fix (I think). I downloaded the recovery image for the Surface Pro X from Microsoft (didn't know it was available but turns out all the Surface products are). Created the Recovery flash drive as directed, held down the volume - key and hit the power key and voilla`, I'm in the process of recovering this baby to Win 11 2H23.

Didn't require a keyboard at all, pure touch screen. I will setup the backlit bluetooth keyboard I have for it tomorrow though.

Thanks all. I'm a happy camper.