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Scott-he-him Author

Level 5

4,476 points

Can/should I use Disk Utility to mount a System Volume or Recovery Volume?

Deep diving into APFS tonight made me realize I have an unmounted storage volume. I also do not see a Recovery Volume anywhere. Could this be the Recovery Volume? Also, since I cannot access that volume would Disk Utility First Aid even help?

I do not have a formal Time Machine backup of this MacBook. Would that affect whither or not a Recovery Volume exists?

I am aware that starting with Big Sur the System Volume actually runs from a "snapshot" but have no idea what that actually means. "In macOS 11, the system volume is captured in a snapshot. The operating system boots from a snapshot of the system volume, not just from a read-only mount of the mutable system volume."

I see that the snapshot is mounted, encrypted, not writable, etc. but it looks like it is inside of the unmounted original System Volume. Is this how it should look and, again, would First Aid help at all if not?

MacBook Pro 13″, 11.2

Posted on Apr 24, 2021 10:38 PM

Top-ranking reply

Jack-19

Level 8

46,020 points

Posted on Apr 24, 2021 11:06 PM

Hi berryso,

"1 not mounted" is the Recovery Volume.
Do not mount "Macintosh HD". Let the Mac manage all of this.
A System Snapshot is a Sealed System Volume (SSV). This ensures no malicious software can write to the system, since it is "sealed" and read-only.

Also, it is not a good idea to operate a Mac without a backup.

Cheers,

Jack

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Can/should I use Disk Utility to mount a System Volume or Recovery Volume?

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