# Help Needed: DVC Repository Initialization Error

**URL:** <https://discuss.dvc.org/t/help-needed-dvc-repository-initialization-error/2180>\
**Category:** General\
**Created:** [July 24, 2024, 1:26pm UTC](https://discuss.dvc.org/t/help-needed-dvc-repository-initialization-error/2180 "2024-07-24T13:26:17Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![elenarossi](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/user_avatar/discuss.dvc.org/elenarossi/32/343_2.png) [@elenarossi](https://discuss.dvc.org/u/elenarossi)\
**Post date:** [July 24, 2024, 1:26pm UTC](https://discuss.dvc.org/t/help-needed-dvc-repository-initialization-error/2180/1 "2024-07-24T13:26:17Z")

</div>

Hey everyone,

I hope you’re all doing well! I’m pretty new to DVC and have been trying to set up my first project, but I’ve hit a bit of a snag. When I try to initialize a DVC repository using `dvc init`, I keep getting the following error:

ERROR: failed to initialize dvc repo

I’ve double-checked that I’m in the correct directory and that Git is installed and configured properly. I even made sure I have the necessary permissions, but no luck so far.

Here are a few details about my setup:

- **Operating System:** Windows 10
- **DVC Version:** 2.10.0
- **Git Version:** 2.39.1

When I was searching about this I came across these resources [Troubleshooting](https://dvc.org/doc/user-guide/troubleshooting) [msbi developer career](https://www.igmguru.com/blog/start-your-career-as-msbi-developer/) [dvc init fails with ERROR: unexpected error - [WinError 2] The system cannot find the file specified: '.dvc\\.gitignore' · Issue #4683 · iterative/dvc · GitHub](https://github.com/iterative/dvc/issues/4683) based on them I’ve tried searching through the docs and forums, but haven’t found a solution that works for me yet. Has anyone else encountered this issue? Any suggestions on what I might be missing or doing wrong?

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide! Looking forward to getting this sorted out and diving deeper into DVC.

Thanks and Regards 🙂  
Elena

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![shcheklein](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/user_avatar/discuss.dvc.org/shcheklein/32/173_2.png) [@shcheklein](https://discuss.dvc.org/u/shcheklein)\
**Post date:** [August 2, 2024, 3:41am UTC](https://discuss.dvc.org/t/help-needed-dvc-repository-initialization-error/2180/2 "2024-08-02T03:41:22Z")

</div>

hi! @elenarossi - it seems your DVC version is very very old. Can you please try a newer version?