Recovery system can't be created

I encountered same problem as described above. I tried to manually create an additional partition and named it recovery. It actually made Lion install! I was pleasantly surprised.

Note that I do not see the Recovery partition during start up and when I am trying to access my Bootcamp partition, I get a blue screen stating PROCESS1_INITIALIZATION_FAILED. So I am afraid, it makes Lion install but kills your bootcamp partition.

See http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4649?viewlocale=en_US

Yes you can delete windows partition with disk utility or boot camp assistant booth in the utilities folder in applications folder,also try create a ten gb partition and call it Recovery so may Lion can use it for recovery i know some people with your problem doing that can install Lion.

Thebestplacehere wrote:

. . .

also try create a ten gb partition and call it Recovery so may Lion can use it for recovery

That won't work. The Lion Installer will create one if it can, and hide it.

About Lion Recovery, and how to install to another drive

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

Yes, I would guess Boot Camp may have been an issue, especially if it is now gone but left partition fragments.

With Lion you can enable Disk utility to show hidden partitions, check their health, and repair if needed.

There are still problems with Windows 7 and Lion on the same disk. Not everyone runs into the same problem. And Apple always warned not to change, add or use anything other than BC Assistant, though only having two partitions seemed too limiting for many.

Goes w/o saying to make sure you are ready, have the backups needed to recover and restore. And you can use the new Recovery partition to restore the OS volume from TimeMachine so you want to leave it, you want to keep the Lion installer if it hasn't been deleted, and should be able to go back to Snow Leopard.

For me, a fresh format of a drive with Lion, a clean install, always goes smoother and better without the hiccups.

There are three good tutorials from MacFixit worth reading.

Create Lion DVD

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-20080989-263/how-to-create-an-os-x-lion-ins tallation-disc/

Resize and keep 10.6 along with Lion for dual boot

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-20081187-263/how-to-keep-snow-leopard-when- upgrading-to-lion/

Prepare for Lion

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-20076201-263/how-to-prepare-your-mac-for-os -x-10.7-lion/

http://macperformanceguide.com/blog/2011/20110721_1_OSXLions--howto.html

Agree Pondini but some people after the same error creating one get all the thing running .. Is why i just type it ..

Solved! By creating the Recovery partition the number of partitions increase and the bootcamp partition get another number. Bij manually modifying the boot.ini file (hidden file, I used TextWrangler to find and edit) in the bootcamp partition I could adjust the partition number to the new partition number (I used disk utility repair Bootcamp disk, in the output it states the number).

boot.ini file >> my partition number was set to 3 and I adjusted it to 4

[boot loader]

timeout=30

default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(4)\WINDOWS

[operating systems]

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(4)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

Hope this helps!

Oh, and the recovery partition is probably not bootable now (due to manual creation). To be sure, I created a Lion installer DVD.

I finally got Lion installed on a 4 year old Macbook Pro after having problem that started this discussion. Also had additional problems. I got here via Googling so thought I'd put my "success story" path here.

Got the "Lion can't create recovery, etc."

Got rid of my Windows Virtual machine (VMWare) - not using anyway and gave me 30 GB

Same error

Googled and got the advice above about creating a partition.

Tried to create a partition 12 gb, got the error "The partition cannot be resized, try reducing"

Tried 2 GB, same error

More Googling

Per Google results tried all the Disk Utitlity clean up's. Still can't create a partition - same error.

More Googling and started getting info that disk probably did not have large enough contiguous free space to form partion of any useful size. This would screw up Lion trying to create recovery as well as trying to create a partion directly. I'm not qualified to judge technical correctness but sounded plausible.

Solutions suggested:

1) Wipe disk and then restore from Time Machine. Fine for others, no way for me.

2) Buy iDefrag for $30 and defrag disk.

Reluctantly spent the $30.

iDefrag stopped twice with error about power outage or something else and gave file it was working on when it stopped. I trashed the two (old dmg files). Think computer may have timed out and shut down - I kept forgetting to check the power settings. You really want to do this overnight. Also suggbest you delete your browser cache's before you start - hundreds of fragments.

Finally ran to end. BTW: Disk was a mess. Again, this is a 4 year old Macbook Pro.

Initiated 4th try at Lion install and it completed. The very first boot up, Firefox woulodn't display correctly - pieces missing from screen. Rebooted and no problems since.

Have to admit that so far I'm underwhelmed. Seems that to get many of the Lion goodies you need new apps and new computer.

BTW: WHAT is the big deal with Mission Control? Has no one ever used Cmd + Tab to see open apps and then holding down the Cmd key and using Tab key to switch between them? Windoze had this (Alt + Tab) from the very first version of windows. Possibly there's a subtlety I'm missing - I do that frequently.

Brooks

I've had loads of problems with this and related issues but eventually sorted them all. Here is an account of what I did - I hope it helps someone!

Tried to install Lion – got message “recovery partition couldn’t be created”

Tried reducing size of partition on boot drive – didn’t work.

Tried deleting files on boot drive to make more space – didn’t work. Did complete Time Machine backup onto external drive.

Installed Lion on external drive – booted from that – worked fine.

Having booted from external drive, took a deep breath and partitioned boot drive (and thereby erased all data!).

Discovered I'd deleted the Lion install program (!). Tried to re-install from within Lion but wouldn’t work (despite holding Option key when clicking on the install icon).

Inserted Snow Leopard install disk; changed start-up disk to superdrive and rebooted with Snow Leopard (with install disk in the drive).

Re-downloaded Lion installer from App store.

Ran installer to install Lion onto boot drive – had to change username but worked fine.

Launched Migration Assistant and restored whole system from Time Machine backup. Left it running overnight; worked fine.

Couldn’t work out why I couldn’t see original files and applications; realised I needed to log off and log back in using new username!

Hey presto everything working fine – until I tried to run Mail. All my old messages were imported when the program launched but the program would not run.

Eventually solved by moving everything in the Library/Mail folder to another folder (could be desktop or anywhere) and relaunching Mail. Program then ran fine but no old messages there.

Old messages and mailboxes had to be imported one by one (using File/Import) from where I'd moved them. Everything fine with Mail after that.

Found I couldn’t launch iTunes (“…library was created with a newer version of iTunes”). Solved by finding Library.itl in the iTunes library folder. Renamed it to something else. Located latest iTunes library file (in Old Library folder) and renamed it Library.itl (this effectively allows you to downgrade to the previous version of iTunes you were using).

iTunes then ran fine and loaded up latest library.

Only problem now is I can't update iTunes. Not a problem for now. I gather Apple are looking at this.

Andrew

akg10tb wrote:

. . .

Ran installer to install Lion onto boot drive – had to change username but worked fine.

Not sure why you had to change the user name. Wasn't it installed on an empty volume?

Launched Migration Assistant and restored whole system from Time Machine backup. Left it running overnight; worked fine.

Using Setup Assistant when Lion first started up would have transferred your user accounts "as is."

BooksFromCambridge, thank you so much for solving my problem. On my own, I'd bought iDefrag and it kept hanging up on bad files. After deleting my third bad file, I sort of gave up hope that the long process of defragging, finding a bum file and deleting and then re-defragging would actually solve my issue.

Your post told me someone had success with this method and voila! it works. Thanks for writing such a detailed post.

If anyone has the "can't create a recovery disk" issue and wants to avoid doing something as destructive as Apple's solution to install Lion on an external, then wipe the internal, etc - the following DOES work:

1. Buy iDefrag (Great program - I don't regret spending as much on it as I did on Lion. I'm a video editor and my drive was in pretty nasty shape.)

2. Defrag using either Full Defrag or Compact. Compact works about 30 times faster and solves the Lion issue. Wish I knew this before doing 4 hour scans to find one bad block and have to start over again.

3. If you run into a Bad Block error, keep the file name on hand. Restart, find the file and delete. (Nothing that went bad was sensitive for me, luckily)

4. Re-defrag until it actually completes. Start Lion installer again and boom, problem solved.

Thanks and again and good luck to anybody stuck with this error.

I had the recovery partition could not be created error and it stopped Lion from installing. I created a 2GB partition on my main drive and then ran the installer again and it worked. The 2GB partition ended up being 25GB for some reason.

I found that if you go into Disk Utilities and created a small partition (say 5GB) then delete this parition right after creating it. Then go through the Lion install process again. Seemed to fixed this error.

After trying all of the other suggestions I just did this, created a small 5 gb partition. I didn't even take the time to delete the partition before restarting the lion download. It worked perfectly! Definitely try this first it is the quickest and easiest solution! Thanks Sunnysidesounds!