Media Creation Tool Error 0x80042405 0xA001B

I know, thanks, not for me.

Why would I want to complicate things that are simpler and working fine ?   :)

Yes. Strangely enough, no other prep work needs to be done. The USB drive will be bootable. You do need to do what it takes to make the PC boot from USB drive instead of disk drive of course 😊 

Roy Beaulieu,

You may be right that 99% do not download both 32 and 64 bits.

I usually download only the 64 bit version and did not have any issue with it.

So I just tried today to download both 32bit and 64bit and everything worked for me at the first try.

It is hard to say what causes the problem if the bug is inconsistent, I have created the USB windows installation media many times without ever see error 0x80042405 0xA001B.

I only noticed the latest installation media build downloaded today has changed again from 18362.175 to 18362.239.

Not sure if MS fixed anything in the latest MCT 1903 ?

This below is what I see on the USB stick after it completed.

It boots fine giving the option for 32 or 64 bit.

It is formatted as FAT32 to be bootable both for UEFI or Legacy BIOS machines, the partition is set active.

As for the Boot sector it is prepared when the device is formatted with Windows and contains BOOTMGR. 

The biggest file in the x64 folder is around 3.5GB, so there is no problem with FAT32 format which has a file size limit of 4GB.

The total space used on the USB device is 6.72GB. 

I only noticed the latest installation media build downloaded today has changed again from 18362.175 to 18362.239.

Not sure if MS fixed anything in the latest MCT 1903 ?

OMG - again? I wish MSFT would explain what's going on with that. Now I must decide whether to make a new .ISO & a new USB Installation drive. Also, I must decide whether to do another 3 hour upgrade/over-install.

I must be doing something wrong because I always have the update fail with some BS error like this. What are the proper steps to run this tool?

I download the tool to the desktop. I'm on an Admin account. I insert a 16GB thumb drive. I format it. I start the tool. I point it to the thumb drive. During the phase where the files are copied to the USB, I get some stupid error like this:

Why are my steps not good enough? Where is the hole in my logic? Or is this tool just written poorly. I'd like to use stronger language here as I used to have to start it all over again and burn bandwidth trying this failed endeavor over and over.

I've heard people make it work by running the tool FROM the USB. Why would that matter? I've tried to write files to the thumb drive just after the format and before running the tool to make sure I have successful writes. Doesn't help. 

As a workaround today, I left the error up for a bit. Tried to access the thumb drive and it said it needed to be formatted AGAIN! So I did. Then I just opened the C:$Windows.~WS\Sources\Windows and copied the files to the drive by hand. Made the dang thing myself! WHO WRITES THIS STUFF??