When I start up holding down the command-r keys, I don't get the disc utility, but just
a regular start up onto my home page. I thought holding command-r was the same
as putting in a start up disc.
What happens if you hold the 'option' key on boot?
If you're unable to get the Recovery HD from Tony T1's question, then your Lion Recovery HD is gone. Why is it gone? I don't know. Maybe the Lion partition was resized or some other disk action.
If the Recovery HD is missing you can get it back by reinstalling OS X Lion. And if it's the 10.7 version, you will want to reapply the 10.7.1 update.
On holding the option key on boot, only my internal HD icon shows up, same as holding down the command-r keys.
Reinstall Lion and reapply the 10.7.1 update. Reinstalling Lion is the only way to get the Recovery HD back. Just reinstall it on top of itself. No need to format and reinstall. Be sure to do a backup prior to the reinstall.
I just attached an external drive with a clone of OS 7.1. When I restarted holding "option". three icons appeared:
The internal disc, the external disc and "recovery disc" which upon clicking took me to the Disc Utility.
Does this change anything, as far as your re-installing suggestion?
I'm not sure. To my knowledge, clones don't include the Recovery HD. If you don't see the Recovery HD in your list with just your hard drive and holding Option; then the Recovery HD is not on your hard drive. I have no explanation for why you see one when you attach an external drive.
Try this with just your hard drive and no external drive plugged in. Open Utilities and then Terminal. Type diskutil list and tell me if you see something like below.
/dev/disk0
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *320.1 GB disk0
1: EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1
2: Apple_HFS Macintosh HD 248.7 GB disk0s2
3: Apple_Boot Recovery HD 650.0 MB disk0s3
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *320.1 GB disk0
1: EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1
2: Apple_HFS Macintosh HD 319.7 GB disk0s2
/dev/disk1
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *320.1 GB disk1
1: EFI 209.7 MB disk1s1
2: Apple_HFS OWC 319.2 GB disk1s2
3: Apple_Boot Recovery HD 650.0 MB disk1s3
[JohnVitale:~] johnvita%
This is what I got. I forgot to detach the external, but it looks like the Apple recovery boot is on the external clone, but
not on the internal HD. Is that correct?
So /dev/disk0 is your current hard drive that you boot from?
If so and it has Lion installed on the Apple_HFS Macintosh HD, then you can see it does not contain the Recovery HD. Otherwise, you would have a disk0s3 underneath like your external drive shows (/dev/disk1). The only way to get it back on your /dev/disk0 is to reinstall Lion. Since you already have Lion installed there; then installing it on top of itself is the easiest way.
EDIT: And I'm assuming you installed Lion on your external drive rather than use a 3rd party software like Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper! to create your 'clone'. Those two softwares will not backup/clone/image the Recovery HD.
Nope, I installed Lion directly onto my internal HD, and then used Super Duper to clone the internal to the external. I went to App store, they won't let me download a fresh copy because Lion is already installed! Which it is, but with no recovery drive. Ugh. And I can't do it using DU because the command-r won't work.
To re-download from the Apple Store:
Login to the App Store.
Hold down the Option key and click on Purchases at the top of the screen.
Look for OS X Lion and you should see to the right the Install (instead of Installed) button ungreyed.
Click it to start the download again and install.
keg55: Thank you thank you thank you. I got it reinstalled successfully with the recovery partition attached!
While I was at it, I also downloaded the recovery disk assistant to a thumb drive as back up. In addition, I found out why Super Duper can't make bootable clones of Lion, which was also part of my frustration.
Thanks for getting me started; I learned a lot about Lion whilst solving my original problem.
Nice.
Be sure you understand the Lion Recovery Assistant is a tool to create the Recovery HD on a thumb drive. It's not a Recovery HD.
If you really want to thank keg55, click 'right answer' on one of his posts, which gives him 10 points. 🙂
lol.. thanks softwater... very nice of you. Honestly, it's completely fine with me to help someone enjoy a product and receive a simple 'thank you' like cydcharisse provided. 🙂
softwater wrote:
If you really want to thank keg55, click 'right answer' on one of his posts, which gives him 10 points. 🙂
As you no doubt know, any mention - however oblique - of the point system (including asking for someone else) is highly frowned upon here and, if caught, will get your post removed including the obligatory email from Apple. Please read the ToU if you're not familiar with it.
Why does holding the command-r keys get me just a regular start?
