A while ago I was testing out Linux Mint on a live version that I put on a usb flash drive and made it bootable using Universal USB Installer.
A month after testing it I then wanted to use that usb flash drive for something else. I wanted to make a backup of Windows 10 using the media creation tool (MCT). After formatting the drive and attempting to use the MCT I would get the error 0x80042405 - 0xA001A saying it was unable to use the program on this computer.
What was more odd is when I stopped the MCT I clicked on the drive letter in windows explorer and it immediately wanted me to reformat the drive. So I knew something was wrong with the usb flash drive. This was a new 32GB flash drive that I'd only bought it originally to test linux mint on, so I knew it couldnt be over usage.
I figured it was the boot sector on the usb flash drive that for some reason wasn't being cleared when I had selected format using Windows.
This is how I managed to fix it.
1. Plugin the flash drive in to the computer.
2. Download a program called ImageUSB at
https://www.osforensics.com/tools/write-usb-images.html3. Either create a folder and put the zip file in, or just right click and extract the files.
4. Double click on the imageUSB.exe file.
5. Select the usb flash drive.
6. Select zero usb drive option.
7. Select boot sectors only option.
8. Press the button Zero.
9. Select yes in the confirmation box.
This info is credited to Compton over at: http://www.briteccomputers.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?tid=707
Before using that program I had tried many times to get the usb flash drive to work but it wouldn't. I think this advice needs to be more widely circulated as more and more people these days are creating bootable flash drives, and they will run in to this kind of issue at some point.