KB5034441 update error 80070643 - Increasing recovery partition size in VMWare

Question

I have two VMWare workstation virtual machines where update KB5034441 update fails with error 0070643. This supposedly is a too small recovery partition. Quoting from:

KB5028997: Instructions to manually resize your partition to install the WinRE update

Microsoft has changed how it updates PCs that run the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE). WinRE will be updated using the monthly cumulative update. This change only applies to PCs that get updates from Windows Update (WU) and Windows Server Update Services (WSUS). This change starts on June 27, 2023, for the Windows 11, version 22H2 cumulative update.

Some PCs might not have a recovery partition that is large enough to complete this update. Because of this, the update for WinRE might fail. You will receive the error message, "Windows Recovery Environment servicing failed.” To help you recover from this failure, this article provides instructions to manually resize your recovery partition if you get a system ErrorPhase of 2. This requires your device to have the recovery partition after the OS partition. Use the steps below to verify this.

That same article contains the procedure for resizing the OS partition, deleting the old WinRE partition and creating a new one.

My reagentc /info output:

Windows Recovery Environment (Windows RE) and system reset configuration
Information:

Windows RE status:         Enabled
Windows RE location:       \\?\GLOBALROOT\device\harddisk0\partition1\Recovery\WindowsRE
Boot Configuration Data (BCD) identifier: 80afc8c3-bead-11ee-b2c1-000c29a0c528
Recovery image location:
Recovery image index:      0
Custom image location:
Custom image index:        0

This tells me that the WinRE partition is disk 0 partition 1.

For disk 0, diskpart lists this:

Partition ###  Type              Size     Offset
-------------  ----------------  -------  -------
Partition 1    Recovery           499 MB  1024 KB
Partition 2    System              99 MB   500 MB
Partition 3    Reserved            16 MB   599 MB
Partition 4    Primary             99 GB   615 MB

Indeed, recovery is partition 1.

Question:

This partition is 499 MB, yet the shrink operation for the System partition (to allow creation of a new recovery partition behind it) tells me that 250 should be enough (numbers are megabytes):

shrink desired=250 minimum=250

Question: If I have 499 MB for the WinRE partition, how can this be too small?
I suspect that something else may be going on, maybe because I'm running in a VM? I'm reluctant to start meddling with partitions....

Answer 1

Please be very careful. This particular update is known to brick windows installations with the fix Microsoft provided.

There are plenty of YouTube videos specifically about this KB.

The basic advise for this KB is to ignore it. The fixes it does are not worth the trouble. Just keep letting it fail to install until Microsoft stops giving you the update, or it installs succesfully by itself.

Answer 2

How are you installing this update? I have stretched the partition to 5GB and it still fails. Some advice suggests shrinking the partition to 250MB, still further advice suggests that this partition must follow the system partition (not necessarily the boot partition), but do not say if this means physically after, even directly after, or later in the enumeration. I understand it also fails if there is no recovery partition. There is no guidance as to the impact of Windows being in a primary partition and the recovery being in a secondary partition under MBR.

All in all a mess, but a stand alone install or a nuke from orbit install may get you where you need to be.

Answer 3

How 499MB can be too small? The recovery partition holds a file called Winre.wim. The size of that file will vary depending on windows version and if there are any drivers embedded in that file. I have seen sizes ranging from 430 to 590MB. Therefore a 499MB partition may not be enough. This is why Microsoft instructs to increase the recovery partition by 250MB (not to 250MB).

KB5028997 mentions: "this article provides instructions to manually resize your recovery partition if you get a system ErrorPhase of 2. This requires your device to have the recovery partition after the OS partition."

It seems your recovery partition is the first partition and so the article might not apply to you. For the use case described in the KB, the process will result in the new recovery partition to be larger by 250MB than before, rather than to be at 250MB. So if it was 500MB before, it will now be 750MB and should be enough to hold the recovery partition for the foreseeable future.

To see the wim file you can issue the command reagentc /disable which should cause the Winre.wim file to move to C:\Windows\System32\Recovery. Mind that it is a hidden and system file. If that file doesn't move there when the command is issued you can try and get a clean Wimre.wim and ReAgent.xml files from the Windows install media and try with those. Run reagentc /info to see status and reagentc /enable to re-enable the recovery environment.

Answer 4

This is what worked for me on a Windows 10 Pro 22H2 virtual machine (VMware 8) with GPT disk.

First verify with Disk Management that “Recovery” partition is located AFTER the System partition. If not, this will not work and you'll have to re-order these partitions.

Use Disk Management to shrink System partition by the amount required for Recovery partition increase. In my case, the Recovery partition was initially 512 MB. As you apparently need at least 532 MB free space, I made 512 MB available by shrinking the C: partition. Also verify the Recovery partition number - here 4 - for the 'sel part' command.

From an administrative PowerShell, run the following commands:

reagentc /disable
diskpart
sel disk 0
sel part 4
del part override
create part primary id=de94bba4-06d1-4d40-a16a-bfd50179d6ac
gpt attributes=0x8000000000000001
format quick fs=ntfs label="Windows RE tools"
list vol
exit
reagentc /enable

Now restart your computer and check for Windows Updates. The previously failed KB5034441 was successfully installed in the background along with any pending/failed latter updates.

Credit: The original command sequence is from a post by "That-Historian5746" on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/SCCM/comments/192uqku/beware_kb5034441_as_part_of_jan_2024_updates/

I simplified it a bit by using Disk Management instead of resizing the System partition with 'Diskpart'.