Media Creation Tool v1903 Error 0x80042405-0xA001B

Spitfire400 said:

Should my windows drive be MBR also?... ...It is an HP Envy M6-1178sa machine with UEFI if that makes any difference

Yes, that is normal. A default install of Windows 10 on a UEFI system will have a GPT main drive (be it HDD or SSD).

Spitfire400 said:

Should my windows drive be MBR also? I did the command and found both the USB drive I created, as well as the main OS drive had ended up as GPT. Somehow, that doesn't seem correct to myself. Can someone confirm this?

It is an HP Envy M6-1178sa machine with UEFI if that makes any difference

Your USB flash drive should be MBR. The internal HDD/SSD on a UEFI computer should be GPT.

For the past couple of weeks, I too have been wracking my brains on this media creation tool error 0x80042405-0xA001B -- I even went as far as buying new USB flash drives thinking it was the security mechanism in SanDisk flash drives. This afternoon I downloaded a USB flash drive formatter and noticed the format failed because access to the drive was locked exclusively by a background process. Using process explorer as described in How to check what process is your holding external device , I was able to locate the mysterious process that had exclusive access to the flash drive, in my case was a shadow backup app. Once I closed the process, started the media creation tool and was successful. Performed the task two more times success. I hope this helps.

robbieboi78 said:

For the past couple of weeks, I too have been wracking my brains on this media creation tool error 0x80042405-0xA001B ... I was able to locate the mysterious process that had exclusive access to the flash drive, in my case was a shadow backup app. Once I closed the process, started the media creation tool and was successful. .... I hope this helps.

Welcome to TenForums.

Microsoft don't seem to document the 0x80042405-0xA001B error for the MCT, so knowing that it can mean that the MCT doesn't have exclusive access to the flash drive is very helpful.

Thanks.

Mortiferon said:

Took me a few tries (and formats), but I finally managed:

Quick format USB drive NTFS.
Put 'MediaCreationTool1903' onto USB drive.
Right-click and 'Run as Administrator'.
Installation media for another PC...
Architecture BOTH (x32 and x64)

When the File Explorer window on my USB closed, I pulled it back up and left it selected for the entire duration thereafter.


Hopefully this helps somebody. My error was also 0x80042405 - 0xA001B.

thanks
worked like a charm

The July 26, 2019—KB4505903 (OS Build 18362.267) cumulative update permanently fixes this error and this error no longer occurs. Addresses an issue that causes failures to create a recovery drive (USB key) with the error, ”0x80042405[gle=0x00000715].” https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...date-kb4505903

Mortiferon said:

Took me a few tries (and formats), but I finally managed:

Quick format USB drive NTFS.
Put 'MediaCreationTool1903' onto USB drive.
Right-click and 'Run as Administrator'.
Installation media for another PC...
Architecture BOTH (x32 and x64)

When the File Explorer window on my USB closed, I pulled it back up and left it selected for the entire duration thereafter.

Nothing else I tried, several times, worked. It finally did and the aforementioned is how (I did NOT delete the temporary files, '$Windows.~BT' and $Windows.~WS' generated in C:\ and nor did I screw around with Diskpart as I see suggested ad nauseam for this problem).

Using a 8GB PNY flash drive (and used my chassis front USB 3.0 port), which I'd already used for this back in 2016.

Hopefully this helps somebody. My error was also 0x80042405 - 0xA001B.

I'm going to try this and hope it works for me as well. I need to re-read your method, thank you so much and glad you nailed yours finally