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This was a pain for me, so I hope this helps someone.
I made 15 attempts to update my ASUS CM6870 from the Windows 10 Anniversary Edition to the Creators Edition (Creators Update), I *always* hung hard around 40 or 42% after the first system reboot, with the 'rolling' animation ground to a halt. This almost always points to a hardware problem.
I did everything to find the bad hardware! I disconnected all of the USB, ripped out all of the superfluous drivers, did a clean reboot, did a driver uninstall on my NVIDIA drivers using DDU, and uninstalled every program that had a funky driver like the VMWare standalone converter and my Cisco Anyconnect VPN. Nothing worked.
Each reboot reported "0xc1900101 - 0x30018 the installation failed in the FIRST_BOOT phase with an error during SYSPREP operation"
Digging into the clues from files left behind in C:$WINDOWS.~BT\Sources\Panther, I saw that the last thing before failure was a bunch of SPPNP messages which seems to be the SYSPREP driver loading phase. There were also a bunch of <NUL> characters at the end of the file. Some piece of hardware was refusing to play nice. I had painstakingly removed everything I could without opening the case.
Finally, based on various hints on forums, I cracked open the PC and pulled out my PCIe wireless card. Boom. Fully installed.
The Wireless card was a PCIe x1 in a PCI x16 slot if that matters, and it was the ASUS branded MediaTek Railink technologies RT3090 wireless card.
(PCI\VEN_1814&DEV_3090&SUBSYS_760111AD&REV_00)
Once the Creators Update was installed, I was able to reinstall the card without incident. Go figure.
Edit: This problem probably applies to any system using a P8H61 or P8H77 motherboard. According to this thread, the P8H77-M PRO (CM6870) is affected, as are other ASUS desktops like the ASUS CM6730 with a P8H61‑M PRO with that RT3090 wireless card.
Other commenters report that the ROG CG6480 / TYTAN CG8480 and CM1855 are also affected, presumably also with the errant RT3090 card.
I also observed the problem with an Ascend Ascendtech WN7601R-H1 PCI card in HP desktops. This is also an RT3090 PCIe card.
Commenter Chris Deer reports that he also had the problem with the Acer L4610, L4620, and L480, possible other Acer "L" models.
The Fall Creators Edition and April 2018 update also have this problem, so the installer is not yet fixed to place nice with the RT3090 wireless card.
One commenter noted that moving the card from a PCIx16 slot to a PCIx4 slot also fixed the problem, so it may be an interaction between the card and the northbridge (motherboard chipset) in certain slots.
EDIT: WARNING: Be careful removing and re-inserting the wireless card; make sure the power cord is removed from the power supply. The sound card chip is right at that slot and I damaged it, so now my system no longer recognizes when speakers are attached. Looks like I scratched a trace on the motherboard. I know it is a hardware problem because booting a Linux Live USB showed the same problem.
Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.
Hello MikeZ4
What PC and motherboard? Is the wireless card pulled out? What are your exact errors?
You may want to start a new question with all the details rather than trying to address it in the middle of a thread for another question. You can then point us to that question.
Regarding a comment on ASUS, I am very happy with my computer and this is not really an ASUS caused problem.
When I bought the machine, it had Windows 7 installed. I was then able to upgrade to Windows 10 without any problem when it first became available. The problem started well after a year or two using Windows 10. I think it is a Microsoft caused problem and the computer is fairly old. I am pleasantly surprised it was compatible for so long, and I have had no other problems with it over the years.
See my others post on how shameful it is that neither Microsoft or ASUS knew about it, despite my talking with tech support at both. I discovered the cure accidentally through this site.
I tried everything but still no luck. Took all the steps here: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows\_10-update-winpc/windows-update-error-0x80070020-in-windows-10/c195d9d1-eaaa-4325-9b5f-cdcf55a3843b
Plus removed video card, uninstalled virus software, did a clean boot, removed all connections, including usb mouse & keyboard at final reboot, and it still failed. I am stuck on 1709, build 16299.134. All this effort after having to suffering for months attempting to upgrade from version 1607 to version 1709.
AT
Al T46 <---- YES, exactly. Those are exactly my thoughts, too..
To be fair, it's not really an ASUS problem - it's their card supplier.
Their support is not much worse than any other PC company. When you get free support, it's worth about that much.
You would have thought with all the posts on this forum (this thread was started over a year ago and there has been multiple posts on other threads) that Microsoft and PC manufacturers would be advising customers by now that this Wi-Fi card (and any PC manufacturer badged variants of card) is giving problems. From my experience Microsoft seem keen on advising people to do a clean install or uninstall all apps from Windows and PC manufacturers seem keen to say their couple of year old PC's wasn't designed for Windows 10. You would have thought Microsoft would have compiled a list of reported/known problem hardware devices / problem apps/programs from the reports of people on these forums and from other sources. I emailed my PC supplier to say this card was the cause of the problem but I am not sure whether they will update their advice.
I think PC users like me are looking at resolving upgrade problems a lot quicker than at present (it took me several months on & off to upgrade my PC to 1709 , I also spent several days getting my pc to boot into Windows again after Windows failed on 1 update attempt). I think some users that has not dug deeply for the answer (or less technically minded) may have given up and either scrapped their PC, incurred costs in employing computer firms to solve the problem or wasted time on doing a clean install (which involve considerable time in backing up and restoring programs & files)
