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Is there a way to make Surface 3 device boot from the micro-SD port?

I recently installed Ubuntu 20.04 on a micro SD card (128GB). I carried out the installation process on a Microsoft Surface 3, with the SD card inserted in the SD reader on the back of the device. I have to specify that the internal SSD of the Surface 3 is broken and not accessible by any means, this is why I installed the OS on the SD card.

The installation went well, but when I rebooted the system the UEFI menu appeared and I wasn't able to launch the OS, even with Secured Boot disabled. After some research on internet I concluded that the problem might be that the device doesn't see the microSD reader during boot, it seems it can only boot from the internal SSD or from USB. As a proof of that, when I plugged the SD in the USB port the OS booted normally.

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  • This is not about Ubuntu.
    – Pilot6
    Oct 6, 2020 at 9:23
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    Does this answer your question? Surface Pro 3 - No Grub menu
    – Pilot6
    Oct 6, 2020 at 9:23
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    @Pilot6 This is certainly about installing and booting and running Ubuntu. Oct 6, 2020 at 10:01
  • How did you make your bootable USB? there are lots of reasons that one will not boot: askubuntu.com/questions/1190764/why-doesnt-a-bootable-usb-boot/… Oct 6, 2020 at 10:16
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    A quick way to check is to use this method: askubuntu.com/questions/1279465/… It flashes a pre-built Full install Ubuntu 20..04 image to a USB device, including SD cards. It will allow booting in BIOS and in UEFI modes. in Ubuntu it can be flashed using mkusb, Etcher or Disks. It is 1.5GB to download and expands to 15GB when flashed. The system partition can then be expanded to fill the card. Oct 6, 2020 at 11:55

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