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I was getting an error on Windows update (security update KB5034441 was failing with Retry...retry...retry...) and that led me to forum postings on the internet where people were saying it was because the recovery partition was too small and it needed to be made larger so that it would have 250MB free space.

So I bought some partitioning software, shrank the main O/S partition by 300MB, and then, using the software's drag/drop GUI features, I repositioned the recovery partition leftward so it abutted the main O/S partition and then I pulled the recovery partition rectangle's right side over to the right, thereby enlarging it by 300MB to a total size of 826MB. Now, in the Windows 10 disk management utility, it says the recovery partition is "healthy" and shows that it is 826MB in size.

But I've since seen other postings that say that Windows 10 recovery made a note of where the original recovery partition started on the disk, and that it has a different starting offset now. Am I no longer able to recover the O/S if that should ever be needed?

P.S. Download error is still happening on the security update after partition resize, reboot, update troubleshooter run with fixes, and reboot.

healthy recovery partition

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  • Note: There is very good free partitioning software to be found.
    – harrymc
    Commented Mar 30 at 12:01
  • The one I bought was said to be free (in multiple forum postings) but turned out not to be so. I had to register it to save my changes, and there was no free version option available.
    – Tim
    Commented Mar 30 at 12:03
  • For the next time, use a live Linux like Ubuntu or Linux Mint. There is GParted on board, a very easy to use partitioning tool, that can handle almost everything.
    – JJandke
    Commented Apr 3 at 9:10

2 Answers 2

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You likely need to delete and recreate the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) partition. Microsoft has an article on how to do this.

The process involves using native command-line utilities so there is no need to install any third party software. However, admin privilege is required so run Command Prompt as administrator. These instructions also assume that the WinRE partition is located after the OS partition, as is the case in this question.

Resize OS and WinRE partitions

  • Check the WinRE status with the command reagentc /info. Note the harddisk and partition numbers in the Windows RE location
  • Disable the WinRE with the command reagentc /disable

Shrink the OS partition (if required).

  • Run diskpart to start the interactive diskpart utility
  • List the disks with the diskpart command list disk
  • Select the OS disk, with the diskpart command sel disk <OS disk index> where <OS disk index> is the harddisk from the Windows RE Location you got from the previous reagentc command
  • List the partitions on the disk with the list part diskpart command
  • Select the OS partition with the sel part <OS partition index> diskpart command where <OS partition index> is the OS partition you got from list part diskpart command in the previous step
  • Shrink the OS partition with the diskpart command shrink desired=250 minimum=250

Delete and recreate the WinRE partition

  • Select the WinRE partition with the sel part <WinRE partition index> diskpart command. Where <WinRE partition index> is the partition you got from both the reagentc command and the list part command in diskpart
  • Delete the WinRE partition with the diskpart command delete partition override

Create a new recovery partition.

  • Check if the disk partition style is a GUID Partition Table (GPT) or a Master Boot Record (MBR). To do that, run list disk. Check if there is an asterisk character (*) in the “Gpt” column. If there is, then the drive is GPT. Otherwise, the drive is MBR
    • If your disk is GPT, run the diskpart command create partition primary id=de94bba4-06d1-4d40-a16a-bfd50179d6ac followed by gpt attributes =0x8000000000000001
    • If your disk is MBR, run create partition primary id=27 instead
  • Format the partition with format quick fs=ntfs label=”Windows RE tools”
  • Confirm that the WinRE partition is created with list vol
  • Exit from diskpart with exit
  • Re-enable WinRE with the command reagentc /enable
  • Confirm where WinRE is installed reagentc /info

On one of my Win 10 machines, I ended up with a recovery partition that was 781MB in size and this was sufficient to allow the successful installation of the Windows Update KB5034441.

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  • If anyone else is getting a DiskPart error "Invalid access to memory location" when you attempt to shrink the system partition, for me it was solved by disabling system protection and then reenabling it, for whatever reason this allowed the shrink command to work.
    – Ramhound
    Commented May 6 at 3:48
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Windows 10 recovery made a note of where the original recovery partition started on the disk

I wonder where you found such text.

The recovery partition is identified by its partition-id. Whenever the need arises to do the recovery, it will be located by this id. Byte offsets to point to partitions is a thing of the past.

Assuming that your partitioning software did its task correctly, you have nothing to worry about, especially if the Windows update was successfully installed.

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  • Thanks. Windows update error still happening, unfortunately.
    – Tim
    Commented Mar 30 at 12:36
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    In that case, the recovery partition wasn't correctly enlarged. See this Microsoft article and follow the instructions as much as required (for example you already did step 4).
    – harrymc
    Commented Mar 30 at 13:42

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