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

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  1. Anonymous
    2018-08-31T07:00:38+00:00

    Not following what you are saying here.

    The Windows Media Creation Tool creates a bootable flash drive with Windows 10 installation files on it. After the tool makes the bootable flash drive, plug the flash drive into a USB port, reboot and tell the computer to boot from the flash drive. This will begin the Windows 10 installation and will put a fresh installation of Windows 10 on your hard drive.

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  2. Anonymous
    2018-08-16T20:21:02+00:00

    Copying the file to the usb drive didn't work for me.  And also formatting to ntfs didn't.

    What worked was to delete the usb partition and recreate it as mentioned in one of the comments here:

    "

    Copying the Media Creation Tool to the USB drive worked for me but I was curious to try a few things.

    It appears that running the Simple Volume Wizard fixes the problem without having to copy the Media Creation Tool to the USB drive.

    This can be accessed in Computer Management > Disk Management.

    Right click on the USB drive in the lower (graphical) part of the window and select Delete Volume.

    Click Yes to the warning. If there are any volumes remaining, delete those also.

    The entire USB drive should now show as Unallocated.

    Right click on it again and select New Simple Volume.

    Click through all the windows in the wizard using the default settings, selecting NTFS as the file system.

    A new volume will be created.

    Now run the Media Creation Tool without copying it to the USB drive.

    "

    This worked for me but with one twist, I decided not to format the drive in NTFS. It was Fat32 and since this is the more compatible option I picked that over NTFS. I formatted the Stick and started the Media Creation Tool from my PC and this time it worked. I also had my Antivir and Firewall turned off during the entire process.

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  3. Anonymous
    2018-08-12T02:40:52+00:00

    Worked for me, too! Thanks man! :D

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  4. Anonymous
    2018-08-06T01:31:19+00:00

    The latest (v. 1803) Media Creation Tool executable (.exe) is 18,671 kb (18.6 mb). If yours is only 10mb something is wrong. I would download it again. The Media Creation Tool's purpose is to download the Windows 10 .iso file (which is a very large file) to your computer in a temporary folder, from there unpack the .iso file into the various Windows OS folders and files and install them on a flash drive in such a way that you can boot from it and begin the installation of Windows 10 on any computer that will run Windows 10. Yes, the flash drive installer is portable. It can be used on multiple computers. By the way, .iso (or just ISO) files are files that contain other files and folders compacted into one file. They are merely containers.

    Hope this helps.

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  5. Anonymous
    2018-08-04T19:08:15+00:00

    Thanks a lot bro I tried it 30 times on my own then I found your thread and voila it worked the first time. Again thanks a lot I really appreciate your help

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