Media Creation Tool not working March 2023

The March 2023 Windows 10 update messed up my PC and got stuck in an auto-repair loop. Tried everything and some more, no dice. No going back to previous restore points, no rolling back of last update no nothing.

So I decided to make a new bootable repair disc using Microsoft's Media Creation Tool. Bought a brand-new 64 GB flash drive, downloaded and installed MCT. First step went OK, second step, installing, got stuck at 50% and mentioned something went wrong, error code 0x800700B7 - 0xA001B.

Something was already installed on the drive, so I deleted and reformatted the drive. Then I tried again with some tricks like activating some Windows services, disabling anti-virus etc, copying the MCT onto the drive and start installation from there. Nada, nic, nothing; same problem at 50%.

So switched to a brand new (one week old) HP laptop and tried to make the repair drive there. The error message did not pop up yet, but its already half an hour stuck on the 50% mark.

So the W10 March 2023 update messed up my OS and cannot repair itself and the MCT does not work so I cannot make a repair drive to get this PC back to work.

Any suggestions?

I will try to keep the thread separate, one about the messed up MArch update and this one about the media creation tool not working.

So more details on what I did.
- bought a 64 Gb Flash drive, and try to make a bootable flash. with Media Creation Tool

First try: no success, error code 0x800700B7 - 0xA001B,
Then:
- Cleaned and reformatted the flash drive
- Activated some windows services
- paused bitdefender Internet Security
- copied the Media Creation Tool onto the flash drive
- ran the MCT.

Same error
@$#%@#!#

On a brand new laptop: still stuck at 50%.

So at this moment I do NOT have a bootable repair drive.

Megahertz, I used MCT, will try your suggestion tomorrow

I hope this is the correct thread to continue the discussion.

With help of AOMEI, I made a Windows PE bootable drive. That process wanted a more than 8 GB flash drive, but then installed only 1 GB. Whatever I tried, PC did not want to use that drive to startup. Failure.

So after several tries, I manged to get into the diagnostics and then the options for repair area again.

Results:

• on start-up, I once got the message that overclocking does not work
• on start-up, I three times got the message no keyboard found
• tried the repair with cloud download - error
• tried repair with internal files - error
• tried repair with cloud download, now using a usb ethernet connector - error
• tried start from other device - not recognized
• tried uninstalling latest quality update: error
• finally found system restore: only three points: 17 march installed Terra Copy, 14 March Windows update 14 March windows update. I selected the earliest point and tried to start: did not work
• activated Volume Shadow Copy and tried restore again, this time worked.
  Restore worked rather long, then decided: System Restore failed while restoring the registry from the restore point. An unspecified error occurred during System Restore 0x80070002
• Changed startup options and tried to enter Windows RE: gives the same options already tried
• startup change settings option: option 1 with debugging: error

I am going to sleep now, this has cost me more than 10 hours over two days, and a very bad mood. Anyway, thanks for all already given and still coming help, without you it would be even worse :)

i suggest using this application below to download a version of windows 10 that works on your computer.

found here

you could also use other tools like rufus to create a bootable usb or ventoy for multiple ISOs

In this guide, you will learn the steps to use Rufus to download the ISO file and create a bootable media to install Windows 10 from scratch.

Finally managed to make a bootable drive using MCT. Changes several services to automatic and running, added a registry key and cleaned all temp files etc. But the think that I think did it was changing all regio-settings to USA including time zones, used a VPN and connected to New York.

Read several times that changing the language to different than the actual regio is causing problems as well. So even when setting the language to English in the MCT setup, it still has problems with getting that on a CZech PC (even though the system language is English).

Anyway, it worked and the crashed PC recognizes it. However, when I see the new drive there are the options install or repair. If you choose repair, the crashed PC goes out of the MCT drive and goes back to the earlier blue screen.
So probably the only way is to do a clean install and hope some data is still saved.

Last thing, after several tries, now running on a completely new (2 weeks) laptop with new 64 GB flash drive, rufus is already on 45% of making a bootable drive ... after three hours! Beter than yesterday, I stopped the process after thou hours being on 12%.

- - - Updated - - -

OK, after 4 hours Rufus gave up on 60%: sorry, cannot continue.

Used a new SSD sata to USB connector, removed the system disk and downloaded essential data to the new laptop (about 20 GB in few minutes) and now Windows is reinstalling from the SSD drive.

- - - Updated - - -

installed, seemed OK at first, but then crashed. Reinstalled, seemed ok, again crash after being ready and I checked if it saw all the drives. Connected to internet to update the drivers, crash.

All data are saved now so I think the best to do is wipe this drive completely and start from scratch, this is taking too long.

- - - Updated - - -

OK. Disconnected all drives but the C: drive, used the install drive to make C into one large unallocated space and let windows do the rest. Again, was ready, we connected to internet and started windows update: crash :windows cannot laod properly. The error message while crashing was something with ... handler .... My nephew, ho is working with computers was looking through a phone video link and saw the message and was like "oh boy, something is really very wrong here".

Now checking the SSD for bad places. CHCKDSK F: /f and then CHCKDSK F: /r. No errors or bad clusters found.

Can an SSD get damaged by repeatedly hard reboots? Until the update and the experiments, this SSD was working smoothly.

Anybody an idea what is happening here?