That's the confusing point here. It's using a common driver, so that should be easily recognized by (and should be included in) the recovery routine.
Just for the sake of completeness, can you boot to the recovery process with the USB drive on another computer? (don't actually start the recovery, just boot into it to verify that it works).
Interesting note about hard-keying the recovery drive to each Surface Pro. I've addressed this question previously on an RT (see this link:
Surface RT won't reset/boot loop - Microsoft Community ), and got an answer from Steven_B that didn't entirely satisfy me. But as I didn't have a Surface to work on at the time, I forgot about it. The answer I received was this:
Greetings Usasma,
Sorry to hear about the Surface. We do not recommend using another Surface RT's recovery drive, though it may work, the recovery drive carries unique identifiers to the Surface that it is created on.
Sending the Surface in for Repair is the best way to get the Surface back into a working state.
Now, in the past I've seen issues with video that will work on Linux, but not in Windows. My own theory is that the drivers use different functions on the video chip - and so they may not involve the same parts of the hardware. In other words, I think that there may be a hardware problem within the video chip - one that the Windows drivers use, but the Linux drivers don't.
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Cut to the "AHA!!!" moment :0)
Black screen errors used to be (in the XP days) caused by video drivers.
Since Vista came out, they are caused by more than just this.
In particular, I have seen chipset, storage, and networking drivers have an effect on them.
So, it's reasonable to suspect that a malfunctioning motherboard, hard drive, or network device could also cause this.
The question then becomes: "What's different (hardware-wise) between the drivers in the Acronis USB and the recovery USB?"
Frankly, I'd suggest backing up your stuff (with the Acronis USB) and then sending it in for service. When I exchanged my RT, I had another one within 2 days (using the expedited replacement process).