Built a self-healing WinRE manager for Windows 11 — sharing the failure modes and what I learned about the recovery partition lifecycle

OAT said:

No issue here. Recreated RE environment as expected.
No conflict with network drive.
Then went ahead and tested the batch file Remanager.cmd as non-admin, presented the menu with the options, nice to see the option to review the log as well.
All good. Thank you.

Click to expand...

ArthurDurand said:

It won't always recreate; it should be idempotent which means if you run again, it should take fast path after finding state intact...

Click to expand...

ArthurDurand said:

3. VMD storage drivers missing from WinRE. On 12th-gen Intel and later, the recovery image needs the Intel VMD driver to see the OS disk. Without it, Startup Repair and Reset this PC fail with INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE.

Click to expand...

ArthurDurand said:

Yes, obviously I certainly would recommend it! My script only does work once, then even if you run via scheduled task on a monthly basis and nothing changed, the script will take the fast exit path! The script is bound by four rules:

1. 1. Never break Windows RE.
2. 2. Never leave a machine without a working recovery route — to the extent the machine, its OS, and its storage stack allow.
3. 3. Minimize the reagentc /disable → reagentc /enable window.
4. 4. Do no work unless needed. When work is needed, prepare everything before touching anything.

Click to expand...

Scott said:

Not if the VMD controller is disabled in BIOS. That was the case for me, anyway.
I successfully did Reset this PC through WinRE on my 14th gen PC, no IRST driver required.

View attachment 185626

I then restored to my latest backup.

Click to expand...

starchase said:

Just ran your latest script. The recovery partition was at 2.266GB and it remained that size after completion. The log states:

2026-10-06 22:31:52 [WARN] Find-SuitableRecoveryPartition: preserving oversized recovery-typed candidate 3 (2320.5 MiB > 2048 MiB safety ceiling) for operator review

which I assume means it didn't see a need to make the partition smaller since 2.66GB is really way more than should be required for future proofing. Right?

And all the "stripping of OEM packages", what is that doing? Just curious. Thanks.

Click to expand...

kelper said:

I ran the command wrapper successfully - here is the log. Also a screenshot of DiskGenius showing four, empty folders under System Volume Information.

View attachment 185636

I did a dry run and is is the output
╔══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗
║ WinRE Manager Test Harness (v27) ║
║ Working directory: C:\Temp\WinRETest ║
║ Detected: OS=Win11 Vendor=AB8139 MT=Defa CPU=AMD ║
╚══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝

1 System diagnostic (read-only info gathering)
2 Driver manifest fetch
3 OEM maps fetch + resolve (Dell, HP, Lenovo)
4 GitHub base WIM - Win10 (download + extract + build check)
5 GitHub base WIM - Win11 (download + extract + build check)
6 HP WinPE pack (download + extract)
7 Dell WinPE pack (prompts for OS)
8 Lenovo WinPE pack (prompts for MT)
9 VMD drivers (per manifest, filtered for this machine)
S State file parity check (production DSI vs on-disk state file)
A All relevant for this machine
B All of the above
R Print results summary
Q Quit

Select: 1

--- System diagnostic - read-only information gathering -----------------------
Elevation: YES

Hardware
────────
Manufacturer AB8139
Model LX15PRO
Product Name LX15PRO
Product Version Default string
BaseBoard Default string EM_
OS Caption Microsoft Windows 11 Pro
OS Build 26300
Raw CPU AMD Ryzen 7 5825U with Radeon Graphics
CPU Vendor AMD
Intel Generation N/A (not Intel or unparsed)
Detected OS Win11
Detected Vendor AB8139
Detected MT Defa
Architecture x64

reagentc /info (raw output)
─────────────────────────────
Windows Recovery Environment (Windows RE) and system reset configuration
Information:

Windows RE status: Disabled
Windows RE location:
Boot Configuration Data (BCD) identifier: 5772f69b-5a06-11f1-8357-78be81c49deb
Recovery image location:
Recovery image index: 0
Custom image location:
Custom image index: 0
Windows RE Version: 0.0.0.0

REAGENTC.EXE: Operation Successful.


WinRE state (parsed)
────────────────────
Status Disabled
Location
Version 0.0.0.0
Resolved to (could not resolve location to a partition)

OS partition / OS disk
──────────────────────
OS partition Disk 0 Part 1, 231.94 GiB, letter=C
OS disk Disk 0 'G932EQM 1T' style=GPT

OS volume free space 140.86 GiB of 231.94 GiB (60.7% free)

All disks
─────────
## Name Style Size Boot Sys IsBoot
─── ────────────────────────────────── ───── ─────────── ───── ──── ──────
0 G932EQM 1T GPT 953.87 GiB Yes - Yes

All partitions
──────────────
Disk Part Size Letter Label Type Flags
──── ──── ───────────── ────── ──────────── ───────────── ────────
0 1 231.94 GiB C: Real Basic Data Boot
0 2 720.45 GiB D: Storage Basic Data -
0 3 1.17 GiB - Recovery Recovery -
0 4 16.0 MiB - - MSR -
0 5 300.0 MiB - - EFI -

All volumes
───────────
Letter FS Free Total Used Label Type Health
────── ───── ───────────── ───────────── ───── ──────────── ──────── ────────
- FAT32 207.4 MiB 297.7 MiB 30% - Fixed Healthy
- NTFS 340.3 MiB 1.17 GiB 72% Recovery Fixed Healthy
C: NTFS 140.86 GiB 231.94 GiB 39% Real Fixed Healthy
D: NTFS 345.11 GiB 720.45 GiB 52% Storage Fixed Healthy

Recovery partitions (per Get-RecoveryPartitions)
────────────────────────────────────────────────
Disk Part Size isTyped isLabel onOsDisk
──── ──── ───────────── ──────── ──────── ─────────
0 3 1.17 GiB True True True

Plan adjacency preview
──────────────────────
Production's plan would not reject this layout on the checks that can
be evaluated read-only, and it would accept it via intervening-anchor
handling. Anchor (the resize target): disk 0 part 2, 737738 MiB, label='Storage', type=Basic Data
The anchor will be shrunk from the right and the recovery partition
will be created in the freed space immediately after it.
The full plan performs additional checks not evaluated here (its
anchor-second-walk scan for stray recovery-typed partitions beyond
the reclaimable cluster, plus bucket-size and planned-extent sizing).

OS partition supported sizes
────────────────────────────
Current 231.94 GiB
SizeMin 231.91 GiB
SizeMax 231.94 GiB
Shrinkable 26.2 MiB
Extendable 0 B
At SizeMin False

Bucket sizing preview (WIM + 250 + 30, round up to 100, min 1000)
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
(could not read active WIM at the reagentc-registered location)

Build numbers
─────────────
Registered WinRE 0.0.0.0
Active WIM build unknown (active WIM not locatable)
Backup WIM build 26100 C:\Recovery\WindowsRE\winre.wim

Windows Setup state
───────────────────
ImageState IMAGE_STATE_COMPLETE

BitLocker on C:
───────────────
ProtectionStatus Off
VolumeStatus FullyDecrypted
EncryptionMethod None
EncryptionPct 0%

Target recovery partition state
────────────────────────────────
WinRE is not registered to a partition (Disabled, or unresolved).
If the plan is OS-fallback, production checks C: directly.

VMD hardware presence (per driver manifest)
─────────────────────────────────────────────
Manifest VMD device IDs PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_9A0B, PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_9A0C, PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_7A0B
Matching PnP devices 0 of 3 pattern(s)
VMD hardware present False

Parser self-test (production dependency verification)
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────
[OK] reagentc status regex '(Enabled|Disabled)' matched 'Disabled'
[SKIP] reagentc location line not present (WinRE status=Disabled)
[OK] reagentc version regex matched '0.0.0.0'

manage-bde -status C: raw output
─────────────────────────────────
BitLocker Drive Encryption: Configuration Tool version 10.0.26100
Copyright (C) 2013 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Volume C: [Real]
[OS Volume]

Size: 231.94 GB
BitLocker Version: None
Conversion Status: Fully Decrypted
Percentage Encrypted: 0.0%
Encryption Method: None
Protection Status: Protection Off
Lock Status: Unlocked
Identification Field: None
Key Protectors: None Found

[OK] manage-bde protection regex matched 'Protection Off'
[OK] manage-bde conversion status regex matched
[OK] Get-BitLockerVolume: ProtectionStatus and VolumeStatus present
[OK] OS resolution: Disk 0, partition 1
[OK] Get-Partition exposes all expected properties
[SKIP] WinRE location is empty
[OK] Get-RecoveryPartitions: found 1 partition(s)
[OK] Get-PartitionSupportedSize: SizeMin=237481M SizeMax=237507M
[OK] DISM cmdlets: all 6 present (Mount/Dismount/Get-WindowsImage, Add/Get/Remove-WindowsDriver)
[OK] Get-Disk exposes all expected properties
[OK] Get-Volume exposes all expected properties
[OK] CPU generation parser: 14 regression cases matched
[OK] DesiredStateId: 64-hex, deterministic, VMD-sensitive, ScriptVersion-sensitive

[OK] Compare-WimServicingMetadata: 8 regression cases matched
Diagnostic complete. Parser self-test results are in the summary.

Press Enter to return to menu:

I never disabled WinRE???

Hope this is useful.

Click to expand...

kelper said:

I've just completed another run. The screen shows clearly what is happening - I like that. It pauses for a long time after component store cleanup - I wonder if this message came at the beginning of component store cleanup, not on completion?

Here's the log. And before and after screenshots from DiskGenius. It's a keeper!

View attachment 185640

View attachment 185641

Click to expand...

ArthurDurand said:

If you run the repair once more without changing anything via DiskGenius, you'll see the script will detect everything is still fine and nothing has changed and exit via fastpath!

Click to expand...

kelper said:

I did that and it quickly returned to the menu. How about a message saying, 'nothing to fix'?

Click to expand...

kelper said:

I can't understand the log. I can't see where it tells be it found nothing to fix. Many users will figure it out, but some won't.

Anyway, I am providing feedback, you don't have to use it.

Click to expand...

ArthurDurand said:

Wtf happened to Banjoman301? I would've loved his feedback regarding the new WinRE-Manager.cmd wrapper!

I can't DM him either, not sure if he blocked me or am I too new to this space!? LMFAO!

Click to expand...

trevo said:

Have some decorum, if he wants to engage or otherwise, his decision.

Click to expand...