Windows 10 failed to install an update - Error 0x80070643

I'm wondering if it was the KB5034441 update which has run into free space issues for lots of installs. Microsoft has instructions and also a script to do the resize which might help:


I have the same issue, but haven't tried to resize the partition since I'm not using Bitlocker.

dangle said:

I have the same issue, but haven't tried to resize the partition since I'm not using Bitlocker.

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Same here. That update has been failing every month since January on my win 10 box. Also not using bitlocker, so... not going to get too upset over it.

However, I'm seeing a healthy recovery partition in disk management.

The "recovery image location" is normally blank and the index is 0 because you're using the standard recovery image built into Windows. This is not the recovery ENVIRONMENT's location. The RE is just the thing that runs "automatic repair" or lets you run System Restore or bring up a command prompt to perform repairs when Windows won't boot. If an OEM or you had created a non-default Windows image to use to reset the PC to factory default, it could be registered and would be shown in the "recovery image location". (No idea why there is a separate entry for "custom".)

The partition numbers are correct. You'll notice in Disk Management that your EFI partition is listed as number 2, even though it seems to be the first partition. This is because DM doesn't display the "reserved" partition. This is an empty, unformatted partition created during a clean install that Microsoft added but has never actually used for anything (and which Windows works fine without). If you use another partition manager like AOMEI Partition Assistant, you can see it. I suppose they anticipated this being such an important volume that they didn't want DM to even show it existed, similar to how DM doesn't allow you to do certain things which you need to do with diskpart.

Resizing doesn't seem to be the real fix for this. My partition is 1.95GB, and I recreated it when the issue first came up (it was actually broken) even though I don't use Bitlocker just because I don't want an error coming up every time updates run. It continues to throw this error on updates for KB5034441. I think the developers don't actually have any idea why it happens, and threw out the partition size bullshit to blame the customers and their machines and gain time to figure it out, but it's been months. They've needed to resize that partition during updates in the past and it worked fine, which is why I moved my recovery partition in front of the C drive and made it very large, because I got tired of them resizing my partitions without asking and making them odd sizes. It's ridiculous that they just decided to say they can't fix it themselves and tossed it back onto customers to resolve with such complicated and dangerous tools, with instructions that depend on you having a completely default configuration. So it's possible that resizing won't even fix the issue for you.

It's possible that the recovery partition ID has been lost on yours and that's why it doesn't show in DM with the right label. It probably still WORKS just fine (and you can test it with the Advanced Startup feature). But since you want to try resizing I'd just say wipe it and recreate it from scratch. Just delete the partition, shrink the C drive a bit, then recreate the partition with all the free space.

(highest scored answer here) https://superuser.com/questions/1667319/how-to-restore-the-recovery-partition-in-windows-10

I think most of us have expanded the partition and continue to have the issue. And since it's a something i don't use. I also gave up and just ignore the update problem. You probably already have something to your partitions considering your First section is 260MB. That used to only be 100MB when Windows 7 first came out.

I'm betting you could do a fresh install from the latest media creation tool and it will take care of it. I would hope so anyway. I think that is what I would do in your situation, backup everything, fresh install and restore programs and files. Couple hours of work to avoid an apparently ongoing annoyance, plus you avoid the 'maybe, maybe not' fixes that might take a good bit of time anyway.

I know of fresh installs that still have the issue. Doesn't always fix it.

Wheels Of Confusion said:

So 1) it's not just me, and 2) following the steps probably won't stop it, and 3) are all of us having the problem because we don't use Bitlocker?

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The fault is not related to whether you do or don't use BitLocker. It's just that the update is only really necessary if you DO use BitLocker, as it fixes a vulnerability involving BitLocker. There seems to be nothing that anyone can identify that will tell you if it's going to work properly on any particular machine, but the only people for whom it is a critical fix are the ones that use BitLocker (and really only the ones whose environment exposes the machine to the vulnerability, so it's a tiny fraction of people using Windows overall).

The update patches code in the recovery environment; it's basically a new version. It's possible to install the updated recovery environment code manually (I forget exactly how; I think there's a manual KB install), so that you are protected from the vulnerability if you enable BitLocker, however Windows still won't recognize this patch via Windows Update as being installed and will continue showing an error until Microsoft actually fixes whatever the issue is.

Kaiser Sosei said:

I know of fresh installs that still have the issue. Doesn't always fix it.

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I would hope that the latest media creation build should have it already built in. Hopefully. If not, I would just leave it alone for now until Microsoft fixes the update.

Not my system but a friends. He did a fresh install last week and noted that he was getting the error. All my window's 10 systems have the issue, but like you said if it's not hurting anything , I'm just letting it be for now.

Lord Evermore said:

There seems to be nothing that anyone can identify that will tell you if it's going to work properly on any particular machine, but the only people for whom it is a critical fix are the ones that use BitLocker

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I see numerous errors a day from several machines, complaining about retrim failures, on machines that don't have an SSD. Appears to be a years-old issue Microsoft just hasn't bothered to fix, because the error boils down to "this machine has spinning rust" and doesn't affect anything else. Par for the course, then.

And FWIW, if I understand correctly, Microsoft has no intentions of 'rolling out' a fix for this.

CalJake said:

And FWIW, if I understand correctly, Microsoft has no intentions of 'rolling out' a fix for this.

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I can't really believe they'll simply never do anything about a problem that apparently randomly affects even brand-new installs and OEM systems and result in an error message that never goes away. They have to still be working on it, and just gave the line that it's not something they can fix as a way to gain time and let them respond and not having to spend time pretending to troubleshoot, or trying to walk users through the process of trying to fix it with the size increase. Most users WON'T be attempting that so they won't be coming back to say it didn't work.

Wheels Of Confusion said:

They haven't so far, and W10 mainstream support ends next year.

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Well, I suppose there is that, although that would be fully a year and a half of letting it sit which I think is still unlikely.

I have such problem on my old Asus Laptop. I have 3.1GB on Recovery for Win RE. Problem still exist. I will be follow for this topic