Offline recovery of OSX from Recovery HD partition. Disk Drill for Mac - recovery program for recovering SSD disks and partitions Mac OS X Delete the recovery hd partition
This note is intended primarily for owners MacBook Air with SSD drives. It is these users who are interested in removing everything unnecessary in order to free up disk space on their laptops as much as possible.
One of these candidates for deletion is the hidden section Recovery HD, which is created during installation OS X Lion. In principle, you can do without this section without particularly risking anything. Moreover, we already know how to create OS X Lion.
So, if you really need to get about 650 MB of additional disk space, then we do the following. Let's launch Terminal.app and enter the command:
In the resulting result we find the section identifier Recovery HD:
In my case (and most likely in yours), this is /dev/disk0s3 . And the previous section /dev/disk0s2 actually contains OS X Lion. We will also need his identifier.
Clearing the partition Recovery HD from all content:
sudo diskutil eraseVolume HFS+ Blank /dev/disk0s3
And then we merge the cleared partition with the partition OS X Lion. In other words, we merge /dev/disk0s3 with /dev/disk0s2:
sudo diskutil mergePartitions HFS+ "HD" /dev/disk0s2 /dev/disk0s3
Warning!
In this command the first section is with OS X Lion(/dev/disk0s2), and the second is the one we cleaned Recovery HD(/dev/disk0s3). If you swap them in this command, you will get a combined partition, but cleared of all data!
Excerpt from man diskutil on this matter:
Merge two or more partitions on a disk. All data on merged partitions other than the first will be lost.
Don't get confused! Be careful!
That's all. 🙂
It refused to boot. CMD+R Does not help. What should I do?
The start of the working day did not foretell anything bad. A cup of coffee, a good mood, the Power key and the MacBook displays the following sad picture:
A restless thought immediately flashed through my head about the safety of the data, the current version of the backup copy TimeMachine(which was not at hand) and possible loss of information.
Attempt No. 1. Booting into recovery mode
Being an interested user and an avid Mac user, I immediately tried to start the MacBook in recovery mode by holding down the keys CMD+R. Instead of the usual disk utility, the system greeted me with a window with an attempt network recovery.
Having chosen my home Wi-Fi network, I began to wait for further developments. After a few minutes, OS X's recovery progress was interrupted error -4403F.
Attempts to start the process again led to exactly the same result. Rebooting the router confirmed that everything was fine with the network connection.
Trying to diagnose the Mac, fix possible hard drive errors, or simply reinstall the system was now out of the question. Section with Recovery HD, in which the tools for restoration are stored, ordered to live long.
Attempt No. 2. Resetting PRAM and NVRAM
Mac computers were created by highly qualified engineers, so the correct organization of the entire system and the presence of “hidden hardware reserves” allows you to avoid a number of interruptions in its operation. One of these reserves is memory sections PRAM And NVRAM. It stores settings data that is not reset even after the computer is disconnected from power. To revive the fallen system, a decision was made reset PRAM and NVRAM settings.
1. Turn on the Mac.
2. After the white screen appears, quickly press the key combination CMD + Option + P + R.
3. Hold until the Mac reboots again and the Mac greets the sound.
PRAM and NVRAM reset completed.
Although they say that hope dies last, it, lifeless and barely alive, continued to lurk in my mind. Resetting PRAM and NVRAM did not affect the error when booting the system. The MacBook continued to test my nerves.
Attempt No. 3. Reset SMS
Having become accustomed to storing all the necessary data “in the cloud” or on removable media, the simplest solution to global problems has always been to reinstall the system “from scratch.” This case was special. I needed data stored in memory and I needed a working Mac today.
In the Mac environment there is something called system management controller SMC. The stability of the entire system depends on the reliability of its operation. Resetting SMC settings can cure a number of problems like:
— constantly high rotation speed of the cooler even at minimal load;
— freezes while the system is leaving Sleep mode;
— errors related to the operation of additional peripherals or external monitors, as well as correcting system boot problems.
To reset the SMC, follow these steps:
Laptops with built-in batteries
1. Turn off your MacBook and plug in the power adapter.
2. Press and hold the keys at the same time Shit + Control + Option + Power and hold until the MagSafe adapter indicator changes color.
3. Release all keys and press the key again Power.
Laptops with removable batteries (older models)
1. Turn off your MacBook and unplug the power adapter.
2. Remove the battery from the laptop.
3. Hold down the key Power And hold for at least 5 seconds.
4. Release Power, insert the battery and connect the power adapter. Turn on your laptop.
Desktops (iMac, Mac mini, Mac Pro)
1. Completely disconnect the computer from the mains power.
2. Wait at least 30 seconds.
3. Connect the power and wait another 5-10 seconds and then turn on the computer.
The above actions can become really effective and the system will start. In my case, a miracle did not happen.
Attempt No. 4. Recovery using a bootable USB flash drive
An attempt to revive the system using the above actions was unsuccessful. The only option left was to reinstall OS X using a bootable USB flash drive. For this step you will need:
- another computer running the OS X operating system;
- Flash drive with a size of at least 8 GB.
Preparing a flash drive
1. You will need to download the OS X Yosemite distribution from the Mac App Store.
2. To create a bootable USB flash drive, download the DiskMaker X utility (distributed for free). You will need it to deploy the distribution.
3. Format the flash drive using Disk Utility V Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
4. After the distribution has finished downloading, cancel the proposed installation and run the utility DiskMaker X.
5. Choose a system Yosemite (10.10). The utility will detect the distribution in the folder Applications. Click Use this copy(use this copy).
6. Select the drive installed in the USB port and agree to the warning about completely deleting all data present on the flash drive.
7. The process of mounting the distribution kit with OS X Yosemite to the drive will begin.
The copying process takes about 10–20 minutes and depends on the writing speed of the USB flash drive. During mounting, dialog boxes and folders may occasionally open on the screen. Do not pay attention.
Once the OS X Yosemite image has successfully deployed, remove the drive.
System installation
1. Insert the flash drive into the USB port of the “problem Mac”, press the key Power and hold down the key Alt.
2. In the list of available download sections, select OS X Base System. Please note that there is no section Recovery.
.
3. The Mac will boot into recovery mode. After selecting the main system language, the installation menu will open. In the top menu you will find a standard list of utilities.
Use disk utility and first try to check the access rights to the partition system and correct any errors. If after rebooting the system still refuses to boot, you will need to separate a partition of at least 20 GB in size in order to install a new system. You can find detailed instructions on how to partition a disk here.
From the same menu, you can either begin the process of installing the system on a newly created partition, or restore the system using a TimeMachine backup (see Working with TimeMachine).
CAREFULLY! Be careful when choosing the installation partition. The installation must be carried out not on top of the old partition, but on a newly created one.
After the installation is complete, you will have access to all the data located on the “damaged” partition with the old version of the system.
If you cannot create an additional disk partition
If for some reason you were unable to create an additional disk partition to install a new version of OS X, and saving the data remaining on the broken partition is still a priority, there is an option to install OS X using a previously created bootable USB flash drive on an external drive.
In Disk Utility, format the partition scheme to GUID Partition (Attention! All data on the external hard drive will be erased) and select formatting type Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
Installing the system on an external drive otherwise completely duplicates the method described above. By booting from an external hard drive, you will have access to the data remaining in the old system.
Apple specialists have developed the most advanced system recovery mechanism, in which this function is practically not in demand - the iMac is well protected and runs smoothly. But even experienced users can experience glitches. There are several ways to restore your iMac.
If your iMac encounters an error, the Mac OS X Utilities menu will open automatically. You have the option to run it yourself. Before doing this, check that the Internet is working properly and that you can access the App Store. Restart your iMac and hold down the Command and R buttons at the same time. From the Mac OS X Utilities menu, open Disk Utility. Then open “First Aid” and “Fix Disk”. The program itself will find the problem and quickly fix it. If the application fails to detect and fix the error, you will have to reinstall the system completely.
To do this, download Lion Recovery Disk Assistant. Insert a blank disc and run the program. Follow further prompts. Once you create a recovery disc, your partition will no longer appear in the Mac OS X Utilities menu. To restore, you need to insert the recovery disc, restart your iMac and press the “Option” button. In the boot manager, select “Recovery HD”. The system will tell you what to do next.
Now you know that restoring your iMac is very easy. You can read more information on system recovery in the “Mac OS X Utilities” menu in the “Online Help” section.
Hi all.
We all know that if any problems arise with the system, it can be reinstalled. The Recovery section helps us with this. During a clean installation of the system, it is created automatically, but it happens that you install macOS after Windows (which is incorrect) or you accidentally/intentionally deleted the Recovery HD partition. What to do in this case, if the system is already installed, but it is not possible to tear it down and reinstall it?
Perhaps there is a similar solution floating around the Internet, but I will describe it as I did.
A little background.
I had macOS 10.13.1 developer beta installed on APFS. Since the operation of this file system did not suit me, I wanted to upgrade to HFS+ through a clean reinstallation. The trouble was that Windows was already installed, and after deleting the APFS container, the Recovery partition disappeared. For some reason, system 10.13 refused to install for me, so I restored backup 10.12.6 from Time Machine to an empty partition. After recovery, the Recovery partition did not appear. I easily updated from 10.12.6 to 10.13. There was still no recovery partition.
A couple of days ago I decided to upgrade from 10.13 to 10.13.1, and what was my surprise that the installation of the system at the final third stage simply did not reach the end and threw it on the desktop with an error.
After thinking briefly, I immediately realized that the error was the absence of a Recovery HD partition. Accordingly, I started googling how to restore it. There were many methods, they were all written during the reign of Tsar Pea, and they were not suitable.
I decided to do something simple: what if I cut off the partition from the system manually, get files from the Recovery partition from the system backup, and assign the partition type to Apple_Boot? This is what I will describe in the next steps.
Creating a Recovery partition.
1. Separate a new section.
This is what my disk layout looked like using the “diskutil list” command.
â•â”€[email protected]~ ╰─➤ diskutil list /dev/disk0 (internal, physical): #: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER 0: GUID_partition_scheme *120.0 GB disk0 1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1 2: Apple_HFS Macintosh HD 78.9 GB disk0s2 3: Microsoft Reserved 134.2 MB disk0s3 4: Microsoft Basic Data Windows 40.0 GB disk0s4 /dev/disk1 (internal, physical): #: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER 0: GUID_partition_scheme *500.1 GB disk1 1: Microsoft Basic Data Files 151.3 GB disk1s1 2: Apple_HFS Time Capsule 348.7 GB disk1s2
As we can clearly see, there is no Recovery HD partition after Macintosh HD.
In Disk Utility, I separated the 650MB partition from the main one.
After that, the markup looked like this:
â•â”€[email protected]~ ╰─➤ diskutil list /dev/disk0 (internal, physical): #: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER 0: GUID_partition_scheme *120.0 GB disk0 1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1 2: Apple_HFS Macintosh HD 78.9 GB disk0s2 3: Apple_HFS Recovery HD 650.0 MB disk0s3 4: Microsoft Reserved 134.2 MB disk0s4 5: Microsoft Basic Data Windows 40.0 GB disk0s5 /dev/disk1 (internal, physical): #: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER 0: GUID_partition_scheme *500.1 GB disk1 1: Microsoft Basic Data Files 151.3 GB disk1s1 2: Apple_HFS Time Capsule 348.7 GB disk1s2
2. Change the partition type.
Everything seems to be correct, but there is one thing. The Recovery partition type must be Apple_Boot, not Apple_HFS. Well, let's change it. Open a terminal and enter the commands:
Diskutil unmount /dev/disk0s3 sudo asr adjust --target /dev/disk0s3 --settype "Apple_Boot"
Attention:/dev/disk0s3 numbers may differ for you!
Check the output of the diskutil list command. Let's make sure everything is correct.
â•â”€[email protected]~ ╰─➤ diskutil list /dev/disk0 (internal, physical): #: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER 0: GUID_partition_scheme *120.0 GB disk0 1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1 2: Apple_HFS Macintosh HD 78.9 GB disk0s2 3: Apple_Boot Recovery HD 650.0 MB disk0s3 4: Microsoft Reserved 134.2 MB disk0s4 5: Microsoft Basic Data Windows 40.0 GB disk0s5 /dev/disk1 (internal, physical): #: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER 0: GUID_partition_scheme *500.1 GB disk1 1: Microsoft Basic Data Files 151.3 GB disk1s1 2: Apple_HFS Time Capsule 348.7 GB disk1s2
3. Transfer the contents.
Now all we have to do is dump the files of the Recovery partition from the backup.
I’m sharing my backup with you., it is from the system 10.13.1, I have not checked the performance with 10.12.6.
You need to put the com.apple.recovery.boot folder in the root of the Recovery HD partition, before that you need to mount it with the command:
Diskutil mount /dev/disk0s3
This is what the contents of the Recovery partition will look like:
It refused to boot. CMD+R Does not help. What should I do?
The start of the working day did not foretell anything bad. A cup of coffee, a good mood, the Power key and the MacBook displays the following sad picture:
A restless thought immediately flashed through my head about the safety of the data, the current version of the backup copy TimeMachine(which was not at hand) and possible loss of information.
Attempt No. 1. Booting into recovery mode
Being an interested user and an avid Mac user, I immediately tried to start the MacBook in recovery mode by holding down the keys CMD+R. Instead of the usual disk utility, the system greeted me with a window with an attempt network recovery.
Having chosen my home Wi-Fi network, I began to wait for further developments. After a few minutes, OS X's recovery progress was interrupted error -4403F.
Attempts to start the process again led to exactly the same result. Rebooting the router confirmed that everything was fine with the network connection.
Trying to diagnose the Mac, fix possible hard drive errors, or simply reinstall the system was now out of the question. Section with Recovery HD, in which the tools for restoration are stored, ordered to live long.
Attempt No. 2. Resetting PRAM and NVRAM
Mac computers were created by highly qualified engineers, so the correct organization of the entire system and the presence of “hidden hardware reserves” allows you to avoid a number of interruptions in its operation. One of these reserves is memory sections PRAM And NVRAM. It stores settings data that is not reset even after the computer is disconnected from power. To revive the fallen system, a decision was made reset PRAM and NVRAM settings.
1. Turn on the Mac.
2. After the white screen appears, quickly press the key combination CMD + Option + P + R.
3. Hold until the Mac reboots again and the Mac greets the sound.
PRAM and NVRAM reset completed.
Although they say that hope dies last, it, lifeless and barely alive, continued to lurk in my mind. Resetting PRAM and NVRAM did not affect the error when booting the system. The MacBook continued to test my nerves.
Attempt No. 3. Reset SMS
Having become accustomed to storing all the necessary data “in the cloud” or on removable media, the simplest solution to global problems has always been to reinstall the system “from scratch.” This case was special. I needed data stored in memory and I needed a working Mac today.
In the Mac environment there is something called system management controller SMC. The stability of the entire system depends on the reliability of its operation. Resetting SMC settings can cure a number of problems like:
- – constantly high rotation speed of the cooler even at minimal load;
– freezes while the system is leaving Sleep mode;
– errors related to the operation of additional peripherals or external monitors, as well as correcting system boot problems.
To reset the SMC, follow these steps:
- Laptops with built-in batteries
1. Turn off your MacBook and plug in the power adapter.
2. Press and hold the keys at the same time Shit + Control + Option + Power and hold until the MagSafe adapter indicator changes color.
3. Release all keys and press the key again Power.
- Laptops with removable batteries (older models)
1. Turn off your MacBook and unplug the power adapter.
2. Remove the battery from the laptop.
3. Hold down the key Power And hold for at least 5 seconds.
4. Release Power, insert the battery and connect the power adapter. Turn on your laptop.
- Desktops (iMac, Mac mini, Mac Pro)
1. Completely disconnect the computer from the mains power.
2. Wait at least 30 seconds.
3. Connect the power and wait another 5-10 seconds and then turn on the computer.
The above actions can become really effective and the system will start. In my case, a miracle did not happen.
Attempt No. 4. Recovery using a bootable USB flash drive
An attempt to revive the system using the above actions was unsuccessful. The only option left was to reinstall OS X using a bootable USB flash drive. For this step you will need:
- another computer running the OS X operating system;
- Flash drive with a size of at least 8 GB.
Preparing a flash drive
1. You will need to download the OS X Yosemite distribution from the Mac App Store.
2. To create a bootable USB flash drive, download the DiskMaker X utility (distributed for free). You will need it to deploy the distribution.
3. Format the flash drive using Disk Utility V Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
4. After the distribution has finished downloading, cancel the proposed installation and run the utility DiskMaker X.
5. Choose a system Yosemite (10.10). The utility will detect the distribution in the folder Applications. Click Use this copy(use this copy).
6. Select the drive installed in the USB port and agree to the warning about completely deleting all data present on the flash drive.
7. The process of mounting the distribution kit with OS X Yosemite to the drive will begin.
The copying process takes about 10-20 minutes and depends on the writing speed of the USB flash drive. During mounting, dialog boxes and folders may occasionally open on the screen. Do not pay attention.
Once the OS X Yosemite image has successfully deployed, remove the drive.
System installation
1. Insert the flash drive into the USB port of the “problem Mac”, press the key Power and hold down the key Alt.
2. In the list of available download sections, select OS X Base System. Please note that there is no section Recovery.
.
3. The Mac will boot into recovery mode. After selecting the main system language, the installation menu will open. In the top menu you will find a standard list of utilities.
Use disk utility and first try to check the access rights to the system partition and correct any errors. If after rebooting the system still refuses to boot, you will need to separate a partition of at least 20 GB in size in order to install a new system. You will find detailed instructions on how to partition a disk.
From the same menu, you can either begin the process of installing the system on a newly created partition, or restore the system using a TimeMachine backup (see).
CAREFULLY! Be careful when choosing the installation partition. The installation must be carried out not on top of the old partition, but on a newly created one.
After the installation is complete, you will have access to all the data located on the “damaged” partition with the old version of the system.
