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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.
When you say disconnected, do you mean that you have physically removed of the entire wireless card from the PC? That is necessary. Also, I would recommend that once the First shut down is happening, unplug everything from the USB ports including the keyboards and mice. I did see one PC where a Logitech wireless receiver was causing the upgrade to fail.
What eventually worked for me in upgrading from 1607 to 1709 was that I took out the wireless card, and then I did a clean install (everything short of that failed). It was a pain to do the clean install obviously as I had to re-install my programs, and re-copy my documents, but it was the only thing that worked. However, I note that I never have been able to successfully install the monthly 1709 updates since then, and I still haven't been able to upgrade to 1803.
My PC is the Asus Essentio CM6830. The motherboard shows as CM6330_CM6630_CM6730_CM6830-8. Yes, I pulled the wireless card when I upgraded to 1709 back in March, & I never put it back in. I'm not getting an error; it just keeps telling me that the update could not finish. I've tried all the suggestions in this thread since I asked about upgrading to 1803, but still no luck.
My current thinking is that I'll stick with 1709 version for a few months or so, and then I'm thinking to ultimately purchase a new or refurbished PC. In retrospect, this CM6830 worked quite well for me for almost 6 years, but it seems to be outdated, and I'm OK with eventually replacing it. I might try to attempt again the 1803 upgrade if I read any further suggestions, but otherwise I won't bother or stress out about it.
Thanks for your help & responses!
Ah, looks like someone else is still struggling.
Sounds like I'm a step behind you - I'm still stuck on version 1607. Out of interest, how did you get round your problems trying to upgrade from ver 1607 to ver 1709?
Thanks,
I.
Hi Remaker,
Firstly, many thanks for sharing your solution and for selflessly continuing to offer support to so many frustrated users. Unfortunately, I must be one of the very few people to have read this thread for whom your solution doesn't seem to work.
Some details about my desktop PC:
Model: ASUS K30AD_M31AD_M51AD_M32AD, x64, running Windows 10 home version 1607.
For months now, I've been unable to update to the latest version of Windows. The automatic update process gets as far as downloading the necessary packages, and then errors out during the install. Nearly every time the update process exits suddenly after having reached 83%, after which I'm told that the process failed, with the corresponding error code 0x8007007e.
I've searched for this error on Google and have tried many of the recommended solutions - unfortunately, none of them work for me. I'd got tired of trying and failing, but then came across your solution. I've opened up my PC and disconnected the wireless card completely (It's branded "AzureWave .... ANATEL").
I've then powered up my PC and run Windows update from the Control Panel. Disconnecting the wireless card appears to have made no difference at all - the update process still fails at 83%, and exactly the same error as before is returned.
It's really frustrating - nothing I've tried over the past few months has seemed to make any impact at all.
If anyone has any suggestions as to how I can crack this problem once and for all, needless to be say, I'd be extremely grateful. :)
Many thanks..
I.
