winre.wim file keeps disappearing even after copying it to Recovery partition or to System32/Recovery

Question

winre.wim file keeps disappearing even after copying it to Recovery partition or to System32/Recovery

Anonymous

Hi,

My PC is Windows 10 Pro 64bit with the upgrade to version 1909 recently.

To cut a long story short - refer https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/disk-partition-order-for-windows10-pro-uefi-boot/0f4eb9f4-0245-4553-85f1-e4da79e1c184

After a struggle - refer https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-update/windows-re-in-windows10-pro-pc/8fa703fe-68e4-4881-a8d6-595e6163a537?tm=1582661369926&lc=1033

I have a working WindowsRE set to C: \System32\Recovery and Enabled. Not sure how it works as I could not

find the winre.wim anywhere in my system even after looking inside hidden system files. I have all the Advanced recovery options listed under Troubleshoot, but have not tried to actually use the options except for Startup repair. So I can't really say if all the options work as designed, what with seemingly no winre.wim file present.

I had deleted the Recovery Partition earlier and due to other problems mentioned in the link above, I now created a 450 MB "Recovery Tools" partition but could not find the Winre.wim file in C: \System32\Recovery - for copying into the newly created recovery partition. So I read thru' many forums and found out how to copy it from the ISO file/Media creation tool and managed to extract it from install.esd => install.wim => winre.wim and copied the 402 MB file to the Recovery\WindowsRE folder created in the Recovery Tools partition. I set the reagentc path to this new partition and to the Winre.wim and it accepted the entry. But when I did reagentc /enable it gets enabled to the old C:\System32\Recovery\WindowsRE eventhough there was no winre.wim file in that location. Then the Winre.wim file disappears / Auto deletes or whatever, magically. I repeated the process painstakingly twice and both times the WindowsRE gets reset to C:\system32\Recovery upon enabling and the best part is the Winre.wim file vanishes.

Giving below the sequence of this dilema:

C:\Windows\system32>diskpart

Microsoft DiskPart version 10.0.18362.1

Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation.

On computer: PRATEEK-PC

DISKPART> sel dis 0

Disk 0 is now the selected disk.

DISKPART> lis par

Partition ### Type Size Offset

------------- ---------------- ------- -------

Partition 1 Primary 124 GB 101 MB

Partition 2 System 100 MB 125 GB

Partition 3 Reserved 16 MB 125 GB

Partition 4 Recovery 450 MB 125 GB

DISKPART> sel par 4

Partition 4 is now the selected partition.

DISKPART> det par

Partition 4

Type : de94bba4-06d1-4d40-a16a-bfd50179d6ac

Hidden : No

Required: Yes

Attrib : 0X8000000000000001

Offset in Bytes: 134445268992

Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info

---------- --- ----------- ----- ---------- ------- --------- --------

* Volume 8 R Recovery to NTFS Partition 450 MB Healthy Hidden

DISKPART> exit

Leaving DiskPart...

C:\Windows\system32>reagentc /disable

REAGENTC.EXE: Windows RE is already disabled.

C:\Windows\system32>Reagentc /setreimage /path R:\Recovery\WindowsRE /target C:\Windows

Directory set to: \?\GLOBALROOT\device\harddisk0\partition4\Recovery\WindowsRE

REAGENTC.EXE: Operation Successful.

C:\Windows\system32>reagentc /info

Windows Recovery Environment (Windows RE) and system reset configuration

Information:

Windows RE status: Disabled

Windows RE location:

Boot Configuration Data (BCD) identifier: 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000

Recovery image location:

Recovery image index: 0

Custom image location:

Custom image index: 0

REAGENTC.EXE: Operation Successful.

C:\Windows\system32>reagentc /enable

REAGENTC.EXE: Operation Successful.

C:\Windows\system32>reagentc /info

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: 07a55316-6270-11ea-82b0-00e04c20532f

Recovery image location:

Recovery image index: 0

Custom image location:

Custom image index: 0

REAGENTC.EXE: Operation Successful.

C:\Windows\system32>bcdedit /enum all

Firmware Boot Manager

identifier {fwbootmgr}

displayorder {bootmgr}

{890f9898-7d40-11e2-8053-9b1bda41daaa}

timeout 2

Windows Boot Manager

identifier {bootmgr}

device partition=\Device\HarddiskVolume2

path \EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi

description Windows Boot Manager

locale en-US

inherit {globalsettings}

default {current}

resumeobject {890f9899-7d40-11e2-8053-9b1bda41daaa}

displayorder {current}

toolsdisplayorder {memdiag}

timeout 0

Firmware Application (101fffff)

identifier {890f9898-7d40-11e2-8053-9b1bda41daaa}

description Windows Boot Manager

Windows Boot Loader

identifier {07a55316-6270-11ea-82b0-00e04c20532f}

device ramdisk=[C:]\Recovery\WindowsRE\Winre.wim,{07a55317-6270-11ea-82b0-00e04c20532f}

path \windows\system32\winload.efi

description Windows Recovery Environment

locale en-US

inherit {bootloadersettings}

displaymessage Recovery

osdevice ramdisk=[C:]\Recovery\WindowsRE\Winre.wim,{07a55317-6270-11ea-82b0-00e04c20532f}

systemroot \windows

nx OptIn

bootmenupolicy Standard

winpe Yes

Windows Boot Loader

identifier {current}

device partition=C:

path \Windows\system32\winload.efi

description Windows

locale en-US

inherit {bootloadersettings}

recoverysequence {07a55316-6270-11ea-82b0-00e04c20532f}

displaymessageoverride Recovery

recoveryenabled Yes

osdevice partition=C:

systemroot \Windows

resumeobject {890f9899-7d40-11e2-8053-9b1bda41daaa}

nx OptIn

Windows Boot Loader

identifier {890f989b-7d40-11e2-8053-9b1bda41daaa}

device ramdisk=[unknown]\Recovery\890f989b-7d40-11e2-8053-9b1bda41daaa\Winre.wim,{890f989c-7d40-11e2-8053-9b1bda41daaa}

path \windows\system32\winload.efi

description Windows Recovery Environment

inherit {bootloadersettings}

osdevice ramdisk=[unknown]\Recovery\890f989b-7d40-11e2-8053-9b1bda41daaa\Winre.wim,{890f989c-7d40-11e2-8053-9b1bda41daaa}

systemroot \windows

nx OptIn

winpe Yes

Resume from Hibernate

identifier {890f9899-7d40-11e2-8053-9b1bda41daaa}

device partition=C:

path \Windows\system32\winresume.efi

description Windows Resume Application

locale en-US

inherit {resumeloadersettings}

recoverysequence {07a55316-6270-11ea-82b0-00e04c20532f}

recoveryenabled Yes

filedevice partition=C:

filepath \hiberfil.sys

debugoptionenabled No

Windows Memory Tester

identifier {memdiag}

device partition=\Device\HarddiskVolume2

path \EFI\Microsoft\Boot\memtest.efi

description Windows Memory Diagnostic

locale en-US

inherit {globalsettings}

badmemoryaccess Yes

EMS Settings

identifier {emssettings}

bootems Yes

Debugger Settings

identifier {dbgsettings}

debugtype Serial

debugport 1

baudrate 115200

RAM Defects

identifier {badmemory}

Global Settings

identifier {globalsettings}

inherit {dbgsettings}

{emssettings}

{badmemory}

Boot Loader Settings

identifier {bootloadersettings}

inherit {globalsettings}

{hypervisorsettings}

Hypervisor Settings

identifier {hypervisorsettings}

hypervisordebugtype Serial

hypervisordebugport 1

hypervisorbaudrate 115200

Resume Loader Settings

identifier {resumeloadersettings}

inherit {globalsettings}

Device options

identifier {07a55317-6270-11ea-82b0-00e04c20532f}

description Windows Recovery

ramdisksdidevice partition=C:

ramdisksdipath \Recovery\WindowsRE\boot.sdi

Device options

identifier {890f989c-7d40-11e2-8053-9b1bda41daaa}

description Ramdisk Options

ramdisksdidevice partition=C:

ramdisksdipath \Recovery\890f989b-7d40-11e2-8053-9b1bda41daaa\boot.sdi

C:\Windows\system32>

Can someone please explain - I never heard of Auto deleting files before ! No they are not hidden - they disappear or effectively hide even from windows search.

(If it seems to you that I am well versed with computers, I assure you that I am NOT - This is all just the result of plenty of searching & reading that I did because of the Slow booting time that I am stuck with due to Update KB4535996 and even KB4532693 thanks to Winver 1909 - As I did NOT get proper responses to my various different threads in this forum, I am trying my own troubleshooting the trial and error way - So all help is welcome. Uninstalling the Update somehow slows down the system - can you believe that - so I was forced to reinstall them and put up with it)

Thanks !

The Explorer Guy

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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1 answer

Answer 1

I've been fighting with re-creating the recovery partition for a few days now. I think I have it working now. Here is what I did to get things going:

Make sure to run reagentc /disable
Make sure WinRE.wim is at C:\Windows\System32\Recovery If it's not, extract it from install.esd.
Delete your existing recovery partition.
Ensure you have 530MB unallocated space. You may need to shrink your C: drive a bit.
Do the following to create a 529MB partition from diskpart with your hdd selected:

create partition primary format quick fs=ntfs

label="Recovery tools"

assign letter="R"

set id="de94bba4-06d1-4d40-a16a-bfd50179d6ac"

gpt attributes=0x8000000000000001

Copy WinRE.wim to R:\Recovery\WindowsRE

mkdir R:\Recovery\WindowsRE

xcopy /h C:\Windows\System32\Recovery\WinRE.wim R:\Recovery\WindowsRE

Enable with 'reagentc /enable'

Important notes:

WinRE.wim needs to have attributes hidden and system
Recovery partition needs to be larger than 500MB otherwise reagentc /enable will skip it. THIS IS THE IMPORTANT THING.
Helpful info: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufacture/desktop/configure-uefigpt-based-hard-drive-partitions

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winre.wim file keeps disappearing even after copying it to Recovery partition or to System32/Recovery

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