Windows Update Error 0x80070643

For some time now, our systems have been encountering the error 0x80070643 with update KB5034441. After extensive searching online, I have found a solution.

Important! There’s a risk of causing damage, so I recommend either creating a data backup beforehand or having an experienced admin handle the matter.

What’s the problem? It seems that Microsoft creates a Recovery Partition during the Windows installation. This partition allows you to restore Windows to a certain state. For certain versions, this partition is quite small, and that’s where our update comes into play. This update wants to update the content on this partition, but unfortunately, there isn’t enough space, resulting in an error.

The following steps will help ensure that this update runs smoothly:

  1. Press the Windows key and type diskmgmt.msc
  2. Right-click on the entry and select “Run as administrator”
  3. You should now see a list of all the drives on your computer, and on the one where Windows is installed, there should be a partition marked as a recovery partition with about 500 MB at the end (see images).
  4. Right-click on the partition before this 500 MB partition and select “Shrink Volume”; we need to make room for the recovery partition.
  5. The dialog box may take a while to open; enter 500 under “Enter the amount of space to shrink in MB” and click “Shrink”.
  6. Shrinking will take a while, and afterward, there should be unallocated space between the two partitions.
  7. We now need to extend the last partition into this free space. To do this, we download an additional tool, AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard. Any other partitioning tool will work as well (such as Diskpart, which is included with Windows).
  8. Install and then start this tool.
  9. In AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard, select the last partition and click on “Resize Partition”.
  10. Drag the slider to the left and add the 500 MB to the partition.
  11. Confirm with OK and then click “Apply” at the top to adjust the partition size.
  12. Restart the computer.
  13. Run Windows Update.
  14. Be happy!

I hope this helps someone out there. If there are any questions, just comment.

Regards

M.