Windows update (KB5034441) Error (0x80070643)

When there is no recovery partition, the installation succeeds because Windows RE is enabled on a partition that is large enough aka drive C.

Yes, you are right, the Winre.wim file can (and does) move when reagentc is either enabled or disabled. It seems like magic, but it is by design. Makes sense to move from the Windows OS system file location to the Recovery Partition location if there is some problem or corruption. This process can get interrupted with installing a new OS Drive (like a SSD) so the file is missing. That is when there is trouble. Some machines will need to have a complete ESD Recovery or borrow this special file from someone - search online you can also build this file. I believe this whole process is called the "Companion Operating System". Good luck.

Move Windows RE from there to the recovery partition by running

reagentc /disable

reagentc /enable

Thank you for this. Seem to recall this in the detailed instructions from MS, but then if the enlarged partition wasn't marked as a recovery partition, I guess reagentc /enable created the recovery image on C:

Having now followed your /disable /enable advice, I see the properly typed partition has 534MB of 1000MB used, 465MB free, so things seem to have worked. The size of 534MB also explains why an initial size of 500MB (or less) would result in a failure. So thank you 🙂 (the partition is still labelled and visible in Explorer, hence I can see the bytes consumed)

Turning now to my regular use laptop (so quite different machine ... as you seemed to have cured the other one 🙂), this is SSD, not rotating media, and I see warnings of disabling write caching before making any of these partition changes on SSD-based storage media. Correct?

Also, this machine has 3 recovery partitions!

Confirmed in DISKPART

That 12.6GB of recovery partition, and partitions 5 and 6 seem to provide way more space than required, yet KB5034441 continues to fail. This partition layout is as the machine came supplied from Dell.

Do I need delete partitions 4, 5 and 6, enlarge 3 ad add back a recovery partition of 1GB at the end of the disk? Any ideas on why 3??

Many thanks @Volume Z 🙂

Only partition 4 is the one that holds Windows RE. If you stick to the letters of KB5028997, everything should go well this time. The one that needs shrinking is drive C which can be done in disk management.

Run

reagentc /info

to ensure KB5034441 fails for lack of space and not for Windows RE being currently disabled.

Only partition 4 is the one that holds Windows RE. If you stick to the letters of KB5028997, everything should go well this time. The one that needs shrinking is drive C which can be done in disk management.

Run

reagentc /info

to ensure KB5034441 fails for lack of space and not for Windows RE being currently disabled.

1. reagentc /info confirms Win RE is enabled:

2. KB5034441 failed with 0x80070643 - ERROR_INSTALL_FAILURE. Doesn't explicitly say size, just install falure 3. How do you know only partition 4 is used for Win RE? What are you seeing that tells you that? Simply that it's the first recovery partition? 4. Partition 4 is already 812MB and so above the limit MS seem to imply. You think it needs to be 1GB? Why can KB5034441 not complete with 813MB already? 5. What's the need to shrink C:? There's a further 11.7GB sat in recovery partitions 5 and 6. Why not delete them and use that space? 6. Do you understand the 3x recovery partitions and the HUGE size of partition 5 (10.65GB). Why 3? What are they each used for? 7. Can partitions 4, 5 and 6 all be deleted, reclaiming 12GB, extend partition 3 (C:) by 10 or even 11GB, and create a new 2 or 1GB recovery partition on the end of the disk and then rebuild using reagentc /enable