Error code 50 popped up in HP ThinUpdate with the message Failed to create the USB Drive. I was trying to create a bootable USB stick with the latest LTSB version for Windows 10 (2016). The USB stick was 64GB and was not formatted before. I was using the option “Create a Windows bootable USB drive”.
I thought it would help to first complete the action “Restore and format USB drive” (that’s sounded logical to me), but that didn’t help. Error code 50 was still there when I tried to apply the .IBR image.
Great product …
So, I did some investigation and wrote all necessary steps down to make it myself and you easier. No more hassle next time.
Fix error code 50 Failed to create the USB Drive
To get your USB drive ready for HP ThinUpdate and apply the Windows boot image, follow these steps.
Format the USB stick with Diskpart
- Open a command prompt with admin rights
- Type diskpart and hit ENTER
- Type list disk and hit ENTER
- Identify the USB drive you want to format
- Type select disk X (where X is the disk number, i.e. select disk 1) and hit ENTER
- Type clean to wipe the USB drive and hit ENTER
- Type list disk again and hit ENTER. Make sure there’s an asterisk next to the drive in question. If not, use select disk X once again to select the USB drive
- Type create partition primary and hit ENTER
- Type select partition 1 and hit ENTER
- Type active and hit ENTER
- Type format FS=FAT32 label=itexperience quick and hit
- Type assign letter=Z Replace Z with any letter of your choosing. and hit ENTER.
Create a bootable USB-stick with HP ThinUpdate
- Start HP ThinUpdate. It will require admin rights again.
- If you didn’t download the image before, select “Download a thin client recovery image to local storage or a USB drive” and download the file to your hard drive
- Next, select “Copy thin client images between local storage and USB drive, or restore and format a USB drive”
- In this Window,
- Select your USB drive
- Select “Manage Windows images (*.ibr) on a USB stick
- Click + to select the IBR file
- Make sure the IBR is now shown in the list
- Click Apply to create the USB stick
I’ve tried this method several times with multiple USB-sticks and it never resulted in Error code 50 Failed to create the USB Drive.
On a USB3 port with a USB3-drive, it will take about 5 minutes to create. Eventually, there will be 2 partitions on your USB-stick:
Thinstate: containing the boot-file and technology to apply the image
HPIBR: the image itself
If this article did not help you solve your Error Code 50 problem, please leave a comment! This website is visited thousands of times a day. There is a good chance that I or someone else has an answer to your question.
Hi Chris, I’m sorry but i have not encountered error 1.
I believe you really should see the “Manage Windows images (*.ibr) on a USB stick” option.
I’ll try to simulate your issue later this week
Hi, thanks for your response. I must be going blind because I don’t see that option on your screenshot above. Is it just another way to say Select ‘Create a Windows bootable USB drive’ because I do see that option?
The above steps worked for me, but only with a slight modification of converting to MBR. Full diskpart commands: Open a command prompt with admin rights Type diskpart and hit ENTER Type list disk and hit ENTER Identify the USB drive you want to format Type select disk X (where X is the disk number, i.e. select disk 1) and hit ENTER Type clean to wipe the USB drive and hit ENTER Type convert mbr and hit ENTER Type list disk again and hit ENTER. Make sure there’s an asterisk next to the drive in question. If not, use select disk X once again to select the USB drive Type create partition primary and hit ENTER Type select partition 1 and hit ENTER Type active and hit ENTER… Read more »
Thnx for your helpful reply, Kevin!
Thank you so much for this article. I was really looking for a solution like this. Can’t believe HP hasn’t fixed this issue yet. To all people saying that are still getting FAT32 format error, it might be because windows is not able to format in FAT32 devices bigger than 32gb. Just download a fat32 formatter program and go with it as I did, will be fine.
I know is a bit out of topic but I’d like to ask.. do you think will be possible to use a thin client second hand (T520) as a small home server with HP Write Filter disabled in windows 8 embedded? Is it really a problem for my oem 16gb flash memory? Can’t see why so many warnings if i disable it when many many desktops have ssds these days. Thank you so much again for what you do. I’m not at all an it expert, just fixing some random stuff.
Disk need to be in MBR layout, GPT will cause this error