Cannot Upgrade Windows 10 1607 to 1703

[Mannie]

First let me say that without this program I would never have been able to upgrade to Windows 10 Pro from Windows 7 Pro. But that was a long time ago. Notwithstanding passing all the preliminary steps I have one PC (out of 4 PCs) that fails to upgrade from Windows 10 (64 bit) 1607 to 1703. I have tried multiple times. I have had Microsoft Support on line for half a day without success. I can send you the log files to analyze if you tell me what log files to send but I realize this may be too much to ask.
Another alternative I am contemplating is disconnecting all unnecessary hardware (including a second hard disk) except my SSD system disk but I am not sure if this is will cause serious problems if the upgrade is successful. I have a second hard disk on which some programs are installed & I don't know if I will be able to run these programs after the upgrade when I reconnect the hard disk. Any advice will be greatly appreciated?

[Boggin]

When running the upgrade you should have all external peripherals disconnected and sometimes you will need to disable a 3rd party antivirus program.

It's also best to ensure that all of your drivers are up to date.

You can do that to a degree by going into Device Manager/View/Show hidden devices then expand all sections and right click on all devices including those in System Devices and selecting Update Driver.

Use the default Search online option and while most will probably return that you already have the latest driver, some may get an update.

There are two ways to manually update and they are using the Update now button in https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/windows10 or using the same web site to create Win 10 install media after reading the instructions in how to create that media.

To manually update with install media, from within Windows open Windows Explorer - This PC - insert the media then double click on the drive.

If you are using a DVD that will start the process but if using an USB, that will open the files where you can right click on setup Application and select Run as administrator.

What did the MS techs try/do ?

[Mannie]

Hi Boggin,
Thanks for getting back with really useful advice. I did find some driver updates & did install all of them. I disabled Avast virus scanner & Malware bytes & disconnected USB connected devices (as I have done during previous attempts). I then ran the Win10 Upgrade assistant & after first reboot I get the following screen:
Working on updates xx%
Don't turn off your PC. This will take a while
Your PC will restart several times.
Unfortunately the PC hangs when xx reaches 21. This consistently happens every time I try to upgrade.
I can't remember what MS Support did last April. They left me loading an image onto a USB drive to try to install from that. It also failed.

I am about to create an ISO using the media creation tool, burn to a DVD & try from that. But failing that, as asked in my early post, is it safe to try to upgrade to 1703 with my Hard Disk disconnected?

[Boggin]

I can see where you are coming from regarding your programs on a second HDD and whether they are compatible with 1703 but any programs that won't run, a reinstall is usually all that is needed when they were okay in 1607, so I'd disconnect any other HDDs except the drive where the OS is installed and you still have 10 days to roll back if you have any serious problems after an otherwise successful update to 1703.

As a belt 'n braces though, I'd create a full system image onto external media before proceeding with the update.

[Mannie]

I have had success! I created the ISO using the media creation tool on my SSD. I then proceeded mount & launch the installation off the ISO. I got the following message after a failed attempt: 0xC1900101 - 0x20004.
This led me to the following link: https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/help/10587/windows-10-get-help-with-upgrade-installation-errors
From there I did a clean restart into Windows. (There was link that explained how to perform a clean boot in Windows.)
I tried to upgrade again from the ISO. Failed again. I continued to remove hardware from the PC (first my sound card, then my DVD drives). But the PC continued to hang at about the same point. All I could do after each failure was hard reboot the PC & it would restore back to previous version (1607).
I finally removed my network (Ethernet) connection. Then everything worked.

Thanks for your help. I don't know how many days over the past 6 months I have spent trying to get this upgrade to work.

[Boggin]

I have seen where changing the method to connect to the Internet has resolved update problems such as changing from wired to wireless or vice versa, but if you were originally using wireless then your Ethernet wouldn't have been active - or were you using a wired connection ?

How did you remove your Ethernet connection and can you reinstate it ?

[Mannie]

It was a desktop with no wireless. I simply disconnected the Ethernet cable from the PC.

[Mannie]

I reconnected the Ethernet cable after the upgrade & all was fine.

[Boggin]

It seems strange that should have been the cause but perhaps ties in with swapping to wireless as in other cases I've seen.