Stuck at Copying Windows Files on Boot Camp

AnishSR19 said:

Ditto. These thirty minutes are going to be a long haul. By the way, is their a shortcut for screenshots, or do you have to run the app?

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Same! Thanks!

BTW, I'm doing this on a late 2012 iMac 21.5"



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Aesthetickz said:

One tip for you guys. If you wanna know if you're stuck or not. Open the WININSTALL usb drive in your finder and go to SOURCES. Then right click INSTALL.WIM and click View Info, then check it's file size and remember it. This is the biggest file bootcamp has to copy to your usb and this takes long. If you check the file size of the USB drive itself, it won't update the used space because the file copy is not finished yet. If you check INSTALL.WIM a few minutes later, the file size should be bigger, it think the total size is a few gigs. If INSTALL.WIM isn't getting bigger, maybe reopen finder, but if it still doesn't get bigger bootcamp assistent might have a problem.

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Thanks, that made me feel better that it's working! Actually mine hasn't even got to sources yet but I saw files being added. Nice to know. Damn, why is it taking so damned long though?

Is anyone getting "Your bootable USB drive could not be created"

LycanNyc said:

Is anyone getting "Your bootable USB drive could not be created"

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Have you tried searching for that error message?
Google has a bunch of responses - https://www.google.com/search?clien...+drive+could+not+be+created&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

I just had this issue (have used bootcamp on this same computer without issue before) and just restarted my computer, and instead of having the thumb drive in a usb hub, I put it directly into the computer. Not sure which of the two solutions fixed my problem, but it's working now.

I was just having the same issue as it took a bit longer than I expected. Then I had an idea to check the actual progress by opening "Get Info" window for the flash drive. Right-click on your drive in Finder and select Get Info. Or simply select the drive in Finder and press Command + I. Screenshot attached.

You should see the available capacity getting smaller and that is when you know Bootcamp is actually copying the files. This the way you find out whether it's just taking long or if it's stuck for some reason. In my case I saw the capacity getting smaller, so thankfully it was just taking unusually long.

Good luck.

Johnny McCash said:

By golly, you're right.

Apple must be using the stupidest copying method of all time. They know they're copying to a USB stick, yet this insanely slow copy operation (here it's 1 hour plus and I'm at 40-ish percent) can only be explained by very small writes (e.g. the default 512-byte block size of olden times) with an immediate sync operation. Anyone even remotely knowledgeable about USB sticks (and other flash storage) will know that you need to update an entire physical storage block no matter the size of the write. And that block is at least 1 MB. Which means we might just be writing a 1 MB block 2000 times for each actual MB written. This is not just extremely slow, it's also really bad news for your USB stick.

Hopefully this crappy **** will finish before I go to bed and/or before my USB stick dies.

EDIT: For you folks with bearable or good copy times, you're just lucky that you got a stick with some sort of internal caching.

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I can confirm that you're indeed correct. I gave up on the flash drive (USB stick) after reading this and tried again with an external HDD. The transfer was done in <5 minutes instead of forever as in the case of the flash drive.

Solution: use magnetic storage

PS: The installation occupies approximately 4.8GB, so you'll need a 8GB drive at least (assuming storage steps are in binary).

Still hanging

I let mine run all night. Started it at 10 p.m. last night, checked it at 3 in the afternoon today, same issue.

jypatl said:

Nevermind I was just impatient. It took about 30 minutes, but it's downloading the update software now.

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Boot Camp stuck copying files.

We have a few hundred MacBooks where I work. Boot Camp is getting progressively harder to work with. I have a new MacBook Pro right out of the box today and a few others up to 1 year old and I can't get any of them to download the Support drivers using Boot Camp Assistant. I'm not getting any "good" help from Apple. Also, I get, "Windows Setup could not configure Windows to run on this computer's hardware" and "Windows could not complete the installation. To install Windows on this computer, restart the installation" messages consistantly. It's Windows 8.1. I've gotten it work without problems in the past. It was getting worse around the end of 2014 and now doesn't seem to work at all in 2015.

Any ideas? Is Apple dropping the ball on Boot Camp? Are they going to support it?

Thanks

Yeah, I had the same problem, I just let it run over night and I woke up with it done

Information about FAT32 format...

Hello everyone,

(I'm sorry if I type any mistake, English is not my native language - French is)

I had the same issue about my Bootable USB drive that couldn't be created by BootCamp. My bar stayed stucked like everybody here, and I ended up with an error messages. Then I started to think and I made some researches... I din't found any solution yet, but I may have founded the real problem :

If you're installing any version of Windows (7/8) with an ISO file :
1) You'll note that the "install.wim" file located in "source>install.wim" (in your Window ISO file) is probably over 4 gigabytes. Ok. If it's not, don't bother reading the rest.
2) But : When creating a Bootable USB Drive with BootCamp Assistant, the software will automatically format your drive in a FAT32 format. Ok.
3) Then, I just learned that this very format, FAT32, have a file-size limit of 4 Gigabytes. Meaning it can't copy or receive any file over this limit.

As an example : After formating your (X) Gygabyte drive into a FAT32, try to paste any file superior than 4 gb in it. Even if your drive is perfectly empty and is 1TO big, you won't be able to do it. You'll be prompted "Not enough space in the disk" or something. I searched, there is no way around this limit. No-way-around. It was designed like this... And sadly, FAT32 is the only Bootable format for MAC.
More explanations here : http://www.winability.com/why-cant-i-copy-large-files-over-4gb-to-my-usb-flash-drive/

So I said to myself : "Hey, maybe that's why I'm getting this error message, because the format does simply not take this "install.wim" file, (witch is the heavier file in any ISO) - (4,56 Gygabytes in my case)"..."The bar gets stuck halfay because it's a long file to copy, and then my software figure that he won't be able to copy it because of this size limit, so BAM, error message "An error occurred while copying Windows files". Duh, Apple , Duh.

Your BootCamp Assistant works just fine, it's just the format he use that ruin the hole process. He is copying the ISO files into your USB Drive, and as it is formated in FAT32, if you happend to have a file superior than 4Gb, you'll get an error.
Still, I have no idea why it works for some and not for others.

So what do you think people ? Did I found something "pretty obvious when you see it" or completely useless ?

Information about FAT32 format... 2

If you read my previous post (you should read it if you want to understand that one), I was talking about a file-size limit involved with the FAT32 format used to create your Bootable USB Drive.

Well, I might have a "simple" solution :

Depending on the ISO you dowloaded : the Bootable USB Drive will not be created if your ISO size is over 4 Gygabytes.
More precisely, it will not be created if your "install.wim" file located in "source>install.wim" (In your Window ISO file) is over 4 Gygabytes, or if any other files in your ISO is over 4 Gygabites.

Personnally, I downloaded two ISOs in my "journey" to install Windows. The one I struggled with in vain (4,56 Gygabites), and the other one that worked (3,95 Gygabytes).
Don't ask me why those ISOs have a differents size for the same exploitation system, I won't be able to answer you.

Just try it out : If you're having the "your bootable usb drive could not be created" error message, just, simply just check your ISO file size (right click > get information).
If it's over 4 Gygabites, well, you know where it come from now (Previous Post).
So : Try to put your hands on another ISO under this size, and it might just work fine...
I know, this is a bad news, but it is probably your only solution.

To be clear and sum this thing up :

In your ISO file : "install.wim" > 4 gb = NOPE ! Won't work. FAT32 is a B. (sorry admins)
In your ISO file : "install.wim" < 4 gb = SUCCESS ! You'll thank me later.

So when I said in my previous post "Still, I have no idea why it works for some and not for others", I didn't knew the probablilty that an ISO can be heavier than another even if it is for the same goal : Installing Windows.

I won't say it's all about the size, boys, but... You'll understand the joke here.

I really hope this post will help, if you have any questions or precisions on this, just ask, i'll stick around daily here this week until this thing is solved...

Well, to finish, this solution definitely worked.
It may be hard to find another ISO image lighter than 4 gb, but it's worth it because it WORKS !
Have a nice day beautiful people, I really hope I helped .

Screw and their strange programs that won't allow themselves to work... Heh...

RobinKumbaSy said:

Well, to finish, this solution definitely worked.
It may be hard to find another ISO image lighter than 4 gb, but it's worth it because it WORKS !
...
Screw and their strange programs that won't allow themselves to work... Heh...

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Is the variation in the ISO just a random thing from Microsoft?
Why is this an Apple problem, when your "solution" involves somehow finding an ISO in the "correct" size - that Apple does not supply
Is it not Microsoft that is oddly providing various sizes of the same ISO?

That makes even less sense, don't you agree?

Just to clarify, I wasn't using an ISO and I had a small drive that's formatted to fat32 for the Boot Camp drivers. Boot Camp Assistant was working well for quite a while and then one day it wouldn't download drivers anymore. I had 4 Macs at my desk that failed to download drivers. I called Apple a few times and no one was able to help. After a couple of weeks, I tried again to gather some info for someone and it worked. I've been able to download drivers again. Same Macs and the same fat32 formatted hard drive slaved in a USB port. Apple had to have fixed something after numerous calls and hours of tech time.

As a side note, I also have a Boot Camp Win 8.1 image using Winclone. That seems to work great, but it's hard to find the correct video and network drivers. I have to go into the Boot Camp folder and install them all until I find the correct one. I have one Mac where the Ethernet connection has problems on the Windows side.

Thanks

I <3 Y'all.

Happened to me, and clicked the first link on my Google search, and here I am, downloading the software update after waiting for an extra 10 mins.

hunter3740 said:

or just go directly to apple:
http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1638 (bootcamp 5, what most people want: 64 bit win7 or win8)

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I recommend this. I was trying to download the file via Boot Camp Assistant and it would start off downloading slow (~200kB/s) and then it would stop downloading entirely. No actual progress bar was also pretty frustrating.
Downloaded from this link and it went a lot quicker (~2 MB/s) and it was done in 5 minutes.

But...

I don't know about you guys, but the second hour is finished and I'm still on approx 25% of the download yet. Is this normal?!
By the way, my Internet is 50M/S super fast!

That is way simple issue.
Just unplug the power source, the boot camp assistant will ask you to continue using the battery source,
Once you click that downloading related softwares starts.
That worked with my early 2015 MRA.


Hope that will work fairly with other MacBooks also.

Thank you.

jypatl said:

Hey guys,

So I'm installing Windows on my rMBP right now. I have a flash drive connected and I'm taking the ISO and putting it onto the Flash Drive through Boot Camp. I've already made a partition and just need to get this on the flash drive, it's an 8GB flash drive. The problem lays when it starts copying over. It gets to around 50% of "Copying Windows files..." and then doesn't go any further. I still have the option to cancel and everything. Here's a picture I took of it.

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Should I make my format for my flash drive exFAT? It's FAT32 right now.

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You have to wait Thirty to ONE HOUR. Plz be patient.
[doublepost=1484439614][/doublepost]

itismelee said:

But...

I don't know about you guys, but the second hour is finished and I'm still on approx 25% of the download yet. Is this normal?!
By the way, my Internet is 50M/S super fast!

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No this is not normal. You may have to restart the process.

jypatl said:

Nevermind I was just impatient. It took about 30 minutes, but it's downloading the update software now.

Click to expand...

Yeah thanks I didn't want to waste time and see if other people had a short hiccup at this point too

Looks like this thread is still going. I thought I would post since it seems to appear high in "BootCamp" search results.

I just setup my first ever Windows-10 Pro 64bit BootCamp on my older Mac-Mini. My notes say it took about 3 hours. It worked fine, but you can't be impatient.

This was on a real ethernet wire and 75/5 Time Warner Cable broadband.

jypatl said:

Hey guys,

So I'm installing Windows on my rMBP right now. I have a flash drive connected and I'm taking the ISO and putting it onto the Flash Drive through Boot Camp. I've already made a partition and just need to get this on the flash drive, it's an 8GB flash drive. The problem lays when it starts copying over. It gets to around 50% of "Copying Windows files..." and then doesn't go any further. I still have the option to cancel and everything. Here's a picture I took of it.

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Should I make my format for my flash drive exFAT? It's FAT32 right now.

Click to expand...

Actually, it's being downloaded the supported files. You can check this by right click on USB->getinfo and note down used file size and repeat.

I did this Friday night and this download only took like 10 minutes.

The download depends, of course, on your internet connection.
The long wait time can be copying the files to your flash drive, both for the Win ISO and the boot camp support files.
I just set up a Win10 install flash drive, including the boot camp support files. Took all of about 40 minutes total to complete the creation of the installer volume.
The Win install then took about another hour before it was complete, to an SSD boot drive. Windows updates added another 30 minutes or so to that, so 2 to 3 hours is pretty normal (after doing maybe 5 setups and Win installs during the last few months) If you already have a Win 10 installer ready-to-use, then all you have is Windows install time.

I'm bumping this thread.
btw,
Have you ever copy the video files or pictures to discs for preservation? There is more or less quality loss when you convert video to DVD or BD, especially the burn high definition one. But you could reduce the quality loss to a minimum.