Windows 10 Media Creation Tool Error: 0x80042405 - 0xA001A

Anonymous
2017-11-16T13:39:26+00:00

Greetings,

Recently, I have seen many people inquiring about this error regarding the Media Creation Tool. I myself got this error when I try to create a bootable USB drive (aka Create an Installable Media).

Here's what I tried:

Reformatting USB drive to FAT32

Deleting files

Tried to locate and run Setupprep.exe (I couldn't find this file in C:\$Windows.~BT\Sources or anywhere)

Change Startup Type of Update-Related Services (Startup Type: Manual -> Automatic)

Uninstalled and Reinstall Windows 10 Media Creation Tool

Made sure my USB is above 8Gb as instructed by the tool (it is 15Gb)

The Fix (for me at least):

1. Downloadthe Windows 10 Media Creation Tool directlyinto the USB drive that you want to use as a bootable device (meaning you download the Tool into the same USB you chose to use as an Installation Media). If you already downloaded the tool on your PC's Desktop, copy it into your USB.

2. Run the Tool directly from your USB, meaning you open File Explorer, locate the MediaCreationTool.exe in your USB and double-click to run it.

The installer should then create an Installation Media/Bootable USB.

Hope this helps!

Cheers,

Tom

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Install and upgrade

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.

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  1. Anonymous
    2018-08-31T12:17:10+00:00

    Send a screen shot

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  2. Anonymous
    2018-08-26T21:56:52+00:00

    Tom , you've performed a random action, of writing the Media Creation Tool direct onto the target USB stick and it's randomly worked for some people. You could have just as well have thrown holy water over the USB stick and it might have worked.

    From https://www.diffen.com/difference/FAT32\_vs\_NTFS

    "All operating systems support FAT32 because it is a simple file system and has been around for a really long time. NTFS is more robust and effective than FAT since it makes use of advanced data structures to improve reliability, disk space utilization and overall performance. Support for NTFS has grown but is not as universal as FAT32."

    So maybe formatting the USB disk in NTFS might pick up on any errors writing to the  disk or correct any errors after being written to disk.

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  3. Anonymous
    2018-08-04T19:06:32+00:00

    This is the Microsoft thread and to get their attention u have to get upvoted a lot that's the only way and if u ask people to upvote ur ? They'll kick u off...

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  4. Anonymous
    2018-07-12T14:03:10+00:00

    There seem to be several work arounds for the problem building a viable installer using the Media Creation tool. Downloading the Media Creation Tool, moving the file it directly to the flash drive and then executing it from the flash drive seems to work for most people. Have you tried that?

    Another option is using the online Media Creations Tool's option to download the Windows 10 OS ISO to your computer. Next, with the flash drive inserted in a USB port, download and install a free tool called Rufus. Open Rufus and tell it where the ISO is downloaded to on your computer. Then let Rufus build the installer for you.

    No need to buy a third part fix for this issue. How much did you pay for that software that didn't work? If you don't mind me asking, that is.

    Hope this helps,

    Steve Trent

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  5. Anonymous
    2018-07-07T15:12:41+00:00

    hi

    thanks! it did work for me. 

    kind regards

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