One of my favorite features of Windows 8/Windows 8.1 is the ability to Reset or Refresh Windows.

These tools allow you to quickly refresh your Windows 8/8.1 system and keep all of your personal data in place or you can do a reset that will return your Windows 8/8.1 system back to the way it was on the day you first turned on the system.

Now this functionality is built in and your Windows 8/8.1 system should have a recovery image stored on your system that these tools will use to refresh/reset the system.

However, what do you do if that image is corrupted and the refresh/reset process is not working properly? In the past Microsoft has only ever released a recovery image for its Surface hardware line in one unique circumstance and that was to fix an update issue in the early days of Windows 8 RT.

Well now you can download a recovery image for any one of the Surface devices from Surface (RT) all the way up to Surface Pro 3 thanks to a handy recovery image download page at the Surface support site.

http://www.microsoft.com/surface/en-us/support/warranty-service-and-recovery/downloadablerecoveryimage

The process takes just four steps.

First, sign in with your Microsoft Account that you used to register your Surface hardware with the support site. If you have not registered it yet you will be given the opportunity in this process. If your device is already registered there will be an entry for it – just click on the selection button next to it then click Continue.

After clicking Continue you will get the download link.

Once your recovery image download has begun you will move to Step 3 for the instructions on how to create a Recovery Drive.

The final step is to use the newly created Recovery Drive to refresh/reset your system and there is a link to Microsoft’s support page on how to use this drive.

If you are a Surface user this will be a page to book mark for future reference.

Thanks to Kyle Reddoch (@WinPhanKyle) for the tip.