Installation of Windows on USB Drive fails

[TechnoMax]

I wanted to backup my PC Windows from a bootable Acronis drive. It failed because my PC partitions have Bitlocker encryption. I then tried to make a new pure windows install with my paid WinToUSB (Version 5.6 Release 1 Build from August 10 2020) on an external USB hard disk to install Acronis to it and open the encrypted PC partition with Bitlocker from this external Windows. But it did not work:
WinToUSB did not write any files to the USB drive only the folder and file structure. The progress indicator remained at zero all the time. I tried to install Windows from my notebook to and it was the same. One error message was that WinToUSB could not extract files from the WIM file. The source ISO was downloaded freshly from Microsoft in both cases.
I used two versions of Windows-ISO, two hard drive enclosures, two 250GB hard drives, two differrent computers both only running Windows Defender as antivirus software (I had to kill Acronis Protection).

But when I ran WinToUSB from my WtU-copy of my main system (on an external SSD) suddenly I could write an windows installation on to a external USB hard drive, including a working percentage info. (Unfortunately my first attempt for this windows pure thing did not boot properly and crashed while still in boot.)

What went wrong?

[admin]

Regarding the problem of not being able to create portable Windows, please send the user.log file to us (via e-mail at: [email protected]), it is located in the bin folder under the installation directory of WinToUSB. And this issue is usually caused by an anti-virus software or a MBR protection software (such as Acronis Active Protection), so please temporarily deactivate your anti-virus software or add our WinToUSB to the list of allowed applications (may be called Trusted Applications/Whitelisted applications) of your anti-virus software and try again. For Acronis Active Protection, you may need to remove it before you can successfully create portable Windows.

Regarding the issue you mentioned that Windows failed to boot from USB for the first time, whether subsequent attempts can successfully boot from the USB.

[TechnoMax]

Yes, the culprit was Acronis Active Protection (installed on both PCs, which I normally do not do, I rather use AOMEI or Macrium Reflect and have never had problems with both). After deactivating my external harddisk could be used for a clean Windows 10 install (but it took ages of course, not beeing a modern SSD!). Thanks!

[admin]

I'm glad to hear that. Take care and stay healthy! Thanks.