Windows update (KB5034441) Error (0x80070643)

LEWCARVER - As far as I know, Samsung Over Provisioning assists in wear leveling for extended SSD life and "garbage collection" (I'm not really sure what that means to an SSD). However, I don't have Samsung Magician set to do any RAM caching, which I think is your concern. I now have 84 GB of unallocated space beyond a 846 MB recovery Partition on my Boot Drive for over provisioning. I hid the Z phantom drive per your suggestion. At this point, I'm good to continue as is.

Thanks again for your help.

Hi Qstik. My replies are getting jammed. Sorry for a delay with response. You got impressive and curious storage setup. Over-provisioning space is why the standard Microsoft’s resize script with shrink operation did not work for you. AFAIK over-provisioning soace does not have to be specifically unpartitioned but just not in use.

I suggest to move RE into separate recovery partition as you will be able to use it even in a case of issues with C: drive. Just use option size= with create partition primary to create it because by default it will use all space unpartitioned.

And I would allocate free space to system partition as it is overkill and all modern SSDs does over-provisioning in firmware.

This finally what worked for me (I read a lot and tried a lot of methods).

Download Windows 22H2 from the Microsoft website. You can either create an ISO or a USB with the media creation tool (the next steps will be easier with a USB). If you use an ISO you will have to mount it virtually.

Find the install.ESD file (usually in the root directory of the ISO or USB). Convert it to install.WIM following these steps.

Create a directory for the install.ESD and copy the file you located above.

From that directory, enter:

Check the status of recovery

reagentc /info

Disable windows recovery

reagentc /disable

dism /Get-WimInfo /WimFile:install.esd

dism /export-image /SourceImageFile:install.esd /SourceIndex:1 /DestinationImageFile:install.wim /Compress:max /CheckIntegrity

Open the install.wim with 7zip (or peazip) and scout through the directory trees to locate folder winre.wim (including reagent.xml 
copy the contents of the folder into C:\Windows\System32\Recovery (while in 7zip or peazip)

Then resize your recovery partition using the steps outlined here:  

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/kb5028997-instructions-to-manually-resize-your-partition-to-install-the-winre-update-400faa27-9343-461c-ada9-24c8229763bf

diskpart

list disk

sel disk<OS disk index of your windows boot drive, usually it is zero>

diskpart

list part

(note from the list, information will be provided that the disk is GPT or MBR, I will address GPT)

select part*<WinRE partition index>*

shrink desired=250 minimum=250

create partition primary id=de94bba4-06d1-4d40-a16a-bfd50179d6ac

gpt attributes =0x8000000000000001

format quick fs=ntfs label=”Windows RE tools”

list vol

exit (from diskpart)

Finally, run:

reagentc /enable

run the problem update (took a long time on my computer)

A video of the partition resize procedure is here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7J_wPCampdU&t=323s

select part*<WinRE partition index>*

shrink desired=250 minimum=250

create partition primary id=de94bba4-06d1-4d40-a16a-bfd50179d6ac

gpt attributes =0x8000000000000001

format quick fs=ntfs label=”Windows RE tools”

list vol

exit (from diskpart)

You're adding confusion. Recovery partition shrunk (attempted, as it fails) 😲, nothing deleted 😲, install.esd converted when it can be opened in 7-zip 😲, partitions altered when replacing Winre.wim is enough 😲.

It actually expands the partition, did you watch the youtube video or read the microsoft workaround page? Methinks you have not.