Upgrading ASUS CM6870 to Windows 10 Creators Edition or April 2018 release 1703, 1709, 1804 (RT3090 PCIe wireless card)

Anonymous
2017-04-29T19:14:40+00:00

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.

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Windows update

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.

0 comments

228 answers

Sort by: Oldest
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Anonymous
    2017-11-11T19:22:14+00:00

    I think you need to start with a blank hard disk, or one partitioned for GUID for the UEFI install to stick.  I don't remember the exact steps. If there are any hints that the system needs legacy support, it falls back to MBR install.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  2. Anonymous
    2017-11-12T15:25:16+00:00

    yes, you are right about having to delete all partitions on the hdd in order for w10 to install in uefi. everything went smoothly (I wish I had seen your post before five very late nights of frustration): I removed the wireless card, I installed w10 in uefi mode in about 15 minutes, updated the NVidia driver (the only one w10 did not automatically during install, but found the new one and installed it when I entered the device manager and chose to update driver so w10 went on internet and found the new one). then put the wireless card back in, and w10 installed some MS driver for it. all good and sane so far. then I had the itch to go to Asus and install the driver they had for the wireless card; and that's when it started going wrong, i.e. the driver installed, then asked for a restart, and once it went to restart it froze solid, so I had to just use the power button to shut it down then restart; it did restart well, all seemed fine, except that my second HDD (a Samsung SATA, 250Gb, 7200rpm), disappeared. to be clear, I was able to see the second hdd up to that point, bios was seeing it w10 was seeing it, no problem whatsoever. and now even bios does not see it. tried unplugging the second hdd then plugging it back, took the darn wireless card out, still bios and w10 cannot see the second hdd. now, I have to consider the off-chance that my second hdd failed, so I will keep trying different things, e.g.  I will try unplugging the main hdd and plug the second hdd in its place to se if bios sees it. it is not that I desperately need the second hdd, but I do have a w7 system image I created before I installed w10, and it is now the challenge of figuring this out. if not, I will probably reinstall w10 again, maybe it will clean up any artefacts that maybe the wireless card driver left behind, and maybe I will see my hdd again.

    any hint/tip/advice would greatly help.

    thanks very much

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  3. Anonymous
    2017-11-12T17:26:44+00:00

    Thanks for the long update! Glad it worked out (mostly) well.

    The second hard drive failure seems coincidental.  See if it shows up in Device manager or Disk management.  If so, I would try to force-mount the partition. If not, I would test it in an external enclosure or on another machine.

    The ASUS wireless driver is WAYYY out of date. Get the latest driver from the MediaTek website (MediaTek acquired RaLink). Or just use the Microsoft driver to be safe.

    "Force Mounting" can be as easy as assigning a drive letter: https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/3azap7/2nd\_hard\_drive\_not\_showing\_up\_on\_windows\_10/

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  4. Anonymous
    2017-11-14T02:52:19+00:00

    This is a (hopefully) short and last summary, in order to clear up one aspect relevant to this thread:

    The advice Remaker gave atop this thread worked for me perfectly (desktop Asus CM6870) and I am very thankful for that. That includes the part about installing back the wireless card after installing w10, that works too; so that's the clarification.

    It turns out my remaining issue, i.e. not being able to see the second hdd after w10 install/upgrade is fairly common, with no clear solution, if anyone has the same issue just Google "second hdd not showing after windows 10 install". My case seems to be the worst, i.e. I cannot see the second hdd in bios, nor in w10 (disk manager or device manager). I can see it for a while after cleanly installing w10, then it just suddenly disappears on me from everywhere (bios and w10) when I try to copy files on it. Once that happens, I can only see it when I boot from the w10 installation media (i.e. USB stick) and go as far as where it asks "where do you want to install windows". Anyway, I will keep trying, but will no longer clog up this thread with my second hdd frustrations.

    Best to all!

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  5. Anonymous
    2017-11-14T06:20:16+00:00

    WOW! That's really weird. Is there anything in Event Manager when it disappears?

    Does it reappear after a full power off (unplug power supply for 30 seconds or pull battery). It sounds as if the drive is getting hung. Is it a hard drive or SSD?

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments