I have been futzing around trying to get a Surface Pro 4 wiped and back to factory original settings. It was donated to my church. Without a power supply. I'm not sure that it is worth having, given its display wonkiness. But, the donor, in his infinite wisdom, chose the bitlocker protection option with a PIN. Of course, we have no PIN. I have tried using the YouTube guidance on resetting the device, but I am in a death spiral of sorts. I can't get on a WiFi and stay on that WiFi to then reset from the cloud. Is there any way to just nuke this thing so that I can get it back to a state of "out of the box" condition? Otherwise it is going in the trash.

No help here. Sorry.

But if it ends up in the trash, I might buy the detachable keyboard thingie from you if it's not too much trouble. Mine - keyboard still works but not the trackpad - problematic when it loses the bluetooth pairing to external mouse.

You could try taking the screen off and replacing the SSD. If you break it while trying to take it apart, well you were going to throw it away anyway. Obviously that would be the last resort and don't buy a new SSD until you've successfully taken it apart.

Smashed Microsoft Surface Pro 4 Restoration & SSD Upgrade

If you want to completely wipe it, not a security wipe of the drive, you can always download the Windows Media Creation tool. Load it on a Flash drive and boot from it. It should let you do a clean install of windows and if is a brand name it will automatically activate without you providing a license.

This will not help you if there is something mechanical wrong. Second the suggestion of putting a new SSD in if you don't mind taking things apart.

quote:

Originally posted by cruiser68:
If you want to completely wipe it, not a security wipe of the drive, you can always download the Windows Media Creation tool. Load it on a Flash drive and boot from it. It should let you do a clean install of windows and if is a brand name it will automatically activate without you providing a license.

This will not help you if there is something mechanical wrong. Second the suggestion of putting a new SSD in if you don't mind taking things apart.

This was my thought as well.
Boot to Win10 iso on a flash drive, delete partitions.
Power off if you want to scrap it, or proceed from there to reinstall windows.

From what I've been reading the DISKPART command when the correct drive and partition are selected should be CLEAN.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-...isk-without-key.html

I appreciate the wise counsel. However, I am an Apple guy, and have no Windows machine from which to do the recovery tasks. I have messaged who I think is the former owner, and perhaps he will respond and I can get him to wipe the machine. Of course, he may have forgotten his PIN, his password, and all that.

Here is a procedure for Windows 10:

https://www.techradar.com/how-...ory-reset-windows-10