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
    2018-11-04T16:29:49+00:00

    Seriously, I can't figure out what had happened but this method is working. 2018/11/05

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  2. Anonymous
    2018-11-05T21:21:58+00:00

    HerculaPC,

    This "kind of" worked for me.  The Disk Management did allow me to Unallocate the USB drive, but it would not start the New Simple Volume afterwards.  I could see it and it was not grayed out, but clicking on it did nothing.  It left my USB drive unusable.  I could not even format it.  I finally took the USB drive to an old XP machine and started the Volume wizard there and it worked perfectly.  Then I brought it back to the laptop I was working on and ran the Media Creation Tool and it worked great!  Success finally, with a little detour!  I don't know what I would have done without the XP machine.

    Thank you very much.

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  3. Ramesh 181.1K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2018-11-06T04:20:10+00:00

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  4. Anonymous
    2018-11-06T05:24:08+00:00

    Thanks, Ramesh, for taking the trouble to compile the various solutions/workarounds that have been shared by numerous people in the course of this  thread.

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  5. Anonymous
    2018-11-12T19:26:26+00:00

    I know there are alot of different ways that people have fixed this error. none of the ways seemed to work for me until I ran a SLOW format of the usb (using fat32) and ran the program as an admin. after that it worked just fine. and i even retested it but swapping the  usb from 64 bit win10 to having both 32 and 64 bit installed on the drive.

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