Morgan R
Level 2 (220 points)

Q: Internet Recovery instead of Recovery Partition

Hello,

 

I've noticed on a few of my Macs, holding down Command-R at startup will boot them into Internet Recovery mode instead of the normal Lion Recovery mode.

 

Is there a way of reverting this change?

 

Morgan

recovery_mode osx_lion

Posted on Sep 3, 2012 7:16 AM

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Morgan R

Q: Internet Recovery instead of Recovery Partition

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  • Helpful answers

  • by Shootist007,

    Shootist007 Shootist007 Sep 3, 2012 7:23 AM in response to Morgan R
    Level 6 (16,660 points)
    Sep 3, 2012 7:23 AM in response to Morgan R

    Hold down Command+Option+r at startup until you see a spinning globe in the center of the screen.

    Have the system Wired to your router.

  • by Morgan R,

    Morgan R Morgan R Sep 3, 2012 7:27 AM in response to Shootist007
    Level 2 (220 points)
    Sep 3, 2012 7:27 AM in response to Shootist007

    Sorry, I probably wasn't clear in my question.

     

    When I boot whilst holding Command-R I get the spining globe. I don't want the spinning globe, I'd like the normal Lion Recovery screen with Disk Utility.

  • by Shootist007,Helpful

    Shootist007 Shootist007 Sep 3, 2012 7:35 AM in response to Morgan R
    Level 6 (16,660 points)
    Sep 3, 2012 7:35 AM in response to Morgan R

    The only time you get the Spinning globe from the Command+r keys is when there is NO built in recovery HD partition on a drive connected, internally or externally, to the system.

     

    So it would seem you do not have a recovery HD partition on your internal drive.

     

    You can use this to rebuild it but then that only get you the Lion Recovery HD.

  • by Morgan R,

    Morgan R Morgan R Sep 3, 2012 7:37 AM in response to Shootist007
    Level 2 (220 points)
    Sep 3, 2012 7:37 AM in response to Shootist007

    I see. Thank you, I'll take a look at the article.

  • by Shootist007,

    Shootist007 Shootist007 Sep 3, 2012 7:43 AM in response to Morgan R
    Level 6 (16,660 points)
    Sep 3, 2012 7:43 AM in response to Morgan R

    To check the partition on your internal drive open Terminal and type "diskutil list" (or listdisk. I foget which) then the enter key and you should have 3 partitions.

     

    EFI

    Recovery

    and Boot

     

    Not specifically in that order.

  • by Morgan R,

    Morgan R Morgan R Sep 3, 2012 7:46 AM in response to Shootist007
    Level 2 (220 points)
    Sep 3, 2012 7:46 AM in response to Shootist007

    I have 3 partitions. GUID_partition_scheme, EFI and Apple_HFS. I guess the GUID partition should be the recovery one?

  • by babowa,Helpful

    babowa babowa Sep 3, 2012 7:57 AM in response to Morgan R
    Level 7 (32,049 points)
    iPad
    Sep 3, 2012 7:57 AM in response to Morgan R

    You can also paste this command into Terminal (it will make hidden partitions visible):

     

    defaults write com.apple.diskutility DUDebugMenuEnabled 1

     

    Launch DU and to to Debug (menu bar) and select "show every partition".

     

    If you have a recovery HD, the hidden partition(s) should then show like this:

     

    Screen Shot 2012-09-03 at 7.52.17 AM.png

    If you don't have one, you can try downloading/installing the entire OS over the top of the current one; that should create a new Recovery HD. This has worked for me - however, I just tried that on a newly created clone of my MBP and it would not do it. My guess is that is has to do with the fact that this MBP came preinstalled with the OS rather than having purchased Lion or ML from MAS.

  • by Morgan R,

    Morgan R Morgan R Sep 3, 2012 8:04 AM in response to babowa
    Level 2 (220 points)
    Sep 3, 2012 8:04 AM in response to babowa

    I don't have a recovery partition on the Mac - I guess using NetInstall sometimes doesn't copy the Recovory Partition - strange.

     

    This confirms that I need to create one - thank you babowa!

  • by babowa,

    babowa babowa Sep 3, 2012 8:16 AM in response to Morgan R
    Level 7 (32,049 points)
    iPad
    Sep 3, 2012 8:16 AM in response to Morgan R

    Check these two articles:

     

    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4649

     

    I checked the above myself after the failed attempt to create a recovery HD; from what I've gathered (and I've not had the time to test this myself), I'd need to boot into my clone, from there boot into (internet) recovery and it may create a (local) recovery partition for me:

     

    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4718

     

    FWIW: my external clone was created using CarbonCopyCloner and it did successfully create a recovery on a Lion volume; however, it may not be completely compatible with ML yet because it messes up the system if you try having it create a recovery partition on an ML volume. So I chose not to have it do that and just cloned the OS - hence no recovery HD. As far as I know, there is no other software that can create/copy a hidden partition (except CCC) as of yet.

     

    The perfect solution: I want install media!

  • by Jay450,

    Jay450 Jay450 Aug 13, 2014 4:57 AM in response to Shootist007
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Aug 13, 2014 4:57 AM in response to Shootist007

    Hi There,

     

    As you said that Internet option comes only when one does not have recovery disk available. In my case, i had it available before and i successfully started mac. Than i started using iMovie and my system froze. I restarted machine and now i am not able to get recovery disk option while pressing Option key as well as Option + Command + R.  Any suggestion? Why that disk is not available now? What should i do to fix it now?