[Fix] Media Creation Tool Error 0x80042405 – 0xA001A

Microsoft’s Media Creation Tool (MCT) is used to download Windows 10 ISO or create a bootable Windows 10 installation USB drive. MCT is one of the most useful tools by Microsoft, but at the same time, it’s one of the buggiest utilities out there which throws some obscure errors like 0x80042405.

In this post, we’ll be talking about Media Creation Tool Error 0x80042405 - 0xA001A in Windows 10, and how to workaround or fix the problem.

Workaround for Media Creation Tool Error 0x80042405 – 0xA001A

If the Media Creation Tool throws the error 0x80042405 - 0xA001A when creating a bootable USB setup media, then you can opt to download the Windows 10 ISO to your hard disk. You can download the Windows 10 ISO using the Media Creation Tool or through direct download method. For more information, check out article Get Windows 10 ISO Images Using MCT or Direct Download.

Once you download the ISO, create Bootable USB Flash Drive from ISO Using Windows USB/DVD Download Tool or the excellent Rufus utility (3rd party). Instructions are available in the article Create Bootable USB Flash Drive from ISO Using Windows USB/DVD Download Tool or Rufus.

Using the Windows USB/DVD Download Tool, Rufus or any ISO to USB tool is only a workaround. If you don’t want to try the ISO to USB method, and insist on creating a bootable media directly using Media Creation Tool, one (or a combination) of the following ‘fixes’ can help you.

Possible Solutions for Media Creation Tool Error 0x80042405 – 0xA001A

Here are the possible solutions for the Media Creation Tool error 0x80042405 - 0xA001A in Windows 10.

Note that the following ‘fixes’ are NOT a series of steps, but a collection of workarounds put together in no particular order. Feel free to try whichever method suits you. But, make sure to try especially the 1st suggestion listed below. It ought to fix the problem in most cases.

Copy MCT to USB flash disk and run it from there

Copy the Media Creation Tool executable to the USB drive and run it from the USB drive instead of from your hard drive. To put it more clearly, download or copy the tool into the same USB drive you choose to use as an installation media. If you already downloaded the MCT on your computer’s hard disk, copy it into your USB.

(Although the above point makes very little sense, this procedure did the trick for a vast majority of users.)

Use a different USB port

Sometimes the front USB ports on your computer may be the problem. Move the USB disk to another USB port, preferably the port(s) at the back I/O panel, keep the Media Creation Tool executable in it, and run it off the USB drive. Using the USB 3.0 port helped some users.

Re-format the USB drive as NTFS

Format your USB drive (size must be at least 8GB to create a Windows 10 boot media) as NTFS. Do a Full format instead of a Quick format. See if that fixes the problem.

Disable your anti-virus program

Disable your anti-virus program and its real-time scanning option temporarily, and then re-run the MCT. Some users reported that this step worked.

Here is a case where the user had to disable F-Secure SENSE to get the MCT functioning.

Hi I noticed I had to turn off SENSE to be able to run the Windows 10 installation media tool without it failing (0x80042405 – 0xA001A). When I turned off SENSE the Media creation tool ran without problem.

Ref: Create Windows 10 installation media fails – F-Secure Community

The same goes for McAfee, BitDefender or any other third-party security software. Disable them temporarily.

Delete the USB drive partition(s), reformat and run MCT again

Erase your USB drive partitions (if any) using Disk Management or Diskpart command-line. Once the disk is thoroughly cleaned (partitions wiped out), create a ‘New Simple Volume,’ reformat the drive as NTFS and try rerunning MCT.

For detailed instructions on how to clear USB drive partitions and format the drive, check out the article Media Creation Tool Error 0x80004005 – 0xA001A

Close all other programs

Some of the programs may be interfering or eating the RAM or CPU time. So, close all other programs and stop user activities in the system. Then try re-running the Media Creation Tool.

Disable USB Selective Suspend Setting in Power Options

1. Go to Start, Run, Control Panel, and select Power Options.
2. Click “Change When The Computer Sleeps.”
3. Click on the “Change Advanced Power Settings”
4. Expand “USB Settings” and “USB Selective Suspend Setting”
5. Select “Disabled” for both “Plugged In” and “On Battery” (for notebooks) options.
   
6. Click OK to close the Power Options dialog.

The above steps would prevent your USB drive from going into suspend mode while the Media Creation Tool is making the Windows 10 installation media.

Hope one of the above fixes helped you resolve the error 0x80042405 - 0xA001A when creating a bootable USB installation disk using the Media Creation Tool. As said earlier, you can always download the Windows 10 ISO and create a USB setup disk using Microsoft USB/DVD tool or Rufus to circumvent the problem, as explained in the Workaround section in this article.

Related articles

• Media Creation Tool Error 0x80004005 – 0xA001A
• Media Creation Tool Error 0x80072f76 – 0x20017
• Get Windows 10 ISO Images Using MCT or Direct Download
• Create Bootable USB Flash Drive from ISO Using Windows USB/DVD Download Tool