Lost Recovery HD

Do you still have the hidden partition called Recovery HD displayed in Disk Utility?

Take a look at this link, http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4718

See OS X Lion: About Lion Recovery Disk Assistant. You can create a small partition at the end of the OS X partition into which you can install a Recovery HD. However, the LRDA program creates a Recovery HD on a USB device that has a small 1.5 GB partition into which it's installed. You can use the USB device as the Recovery HD. You can also clone it to a small partition on your hard drive.

Or, you can reinstall Lion. However you will need a Recovery HD to initiate the reinstallation.

Reinstalling Lion

Boot to the Recovery HD: Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alterhatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.

Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions: Upon startup select Disk Utility from the main menu. Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions as follows.

When the recovery menu appears select Disk Utility. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the main menu.

Reinstall Lion: Select Reinstall Lion and click on the Continue button.

Note: You can also re-download the Lion installer by opening the App Store application. Hold down the OPTION key and click on the Purchases icon in the toolbar. You should now see an active Install button to the right of your Lion purchase entry. There are situations in which this will not work. For example, if you are already booted into the Lion you originally purchased with your Apple ID or if an instance of the Lion installer is located anywhere on your computer.

Kappy

I hate to intrude into a discussion that is not mine, but I am trying to learn ...

The link you gave has a "how to download Recovery Assistant" link in it. It suggests that *any* machine with internet service can create a USB-RecoveryAssistant. Does that mean even a Windows machine (in a pinch) will create a USB flash drive with the proper format? Or how would "any available system" create this USB-RecoveryAssistsnt?

I have not seen a Windows version of the LRDA program, so I cannot answer your question.

I am trying to figure out an exit from this scenario (theorietical, extreme, but possible):

I have one and only one Mac system running Lion and only initially delivered with Lion, so the firmware does not accept even a full-retail SL.

HD dies completely, so nothing can be salvaged.

No USB-RecoveryAssistant.

In short, Mac hardware that only runs Lion but not even a way to get it to the internet for a download of anything.

And wanting to reinstate the Lion startup and the Recovery.

I am still on SL and have not seen need to upgrade, but want to know how to manage issues with Lion.

Aside from buying a Lion-USB from Apple, what are the options?

And can you CCC-copy the "Recovery Partition"?

If I sound confused and foolish, I apologize.

Well, you might look at this: Downloading Hardware Specific Lion Installers. I've done this for a new MBP, and it worked quite well. I'm not sure if this answers your question because I"m not sure if you meant that you have a problem or if you are trying to be prepared in case such a problem arises.

It does not, really, but this is not *my* post.

I will read more, and possibly start my own post in "Lion" forum.

Thanks for taking the time and effort, Kappy.

Hello guys

There are two solutions:

I had the same problem so

1/ Dont use this recovery partition and use only the wifi to download the software to use TIME MACHINE !

- If you want reinstall with time machine without this recovery HD, Boot with pressing CMD+R and download via the wifi the utility

(you need have a wifi and select your wifi name network with WPA secure else your network wont be seen by your computer)

I did that, it worked fine, but its very long more one hour !

2/ Create an USB key recovery HD lion

- if you want make an USB key, you need to download via the mac appstore : Lion

and then on the app, right click and take the file InstallESD.dmg

launch your disk utility and create your USB recovery HD.

Find the tutorial on google to do that

To boot on your USB Key after, press ALT and reboot !

You can recreate a paritition on your HD if you want, but i prefer an USB key extern !

I was stopped here:

iMac:~ root# hdiutil attach /Applications/Mac\ OS\ X\ Lion\ Installation.app/Contents/SharedSupport/InstallESD.dmg

hdiutil: attach failed - No such file or directory

what is wrong?

hdiutil attach RecoveryHDUpdate.dmg

pkgutil --expand /Volumes/Mac\ OS\ X\ Lion\ Recovery\ HD\ Update/RecoveryHDUpdate.pkg /tmp/RecoveryHDUpdate

hdiutil attach /tmp/RecoveryHDUpdate/RecoveryHDUpdate.pkg/RecoveryHDMeta.dmg

/tmp/RecoveryHDUpdate/RecoveryHDUpdate.pkg/Scripts/Tools/dmtest ensureRecoveryPartition / /Volumes/Recovery HD Update/BaseSystem.dmg 0 0 /Volumes/Recovery\ HD\ Update/BaseSystem.chunklist

then

hdiutil eject /Volumes/Recovery\ HD\ Update

hdiutil eject /Volumes/Mac\ OS\ X\ Lion\ Recovery\ HD\ Update

sudo touch /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot.plist

sudo kextcache -f -u /

look on Recovery HD lion

Thanks, but still without success. I'm not so advanced with Terminal, could you check what's wrong in my process, please?

iMac:~ tomomi$ diskutil list

/dev/disk0

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *500.1 GB disk0

1: EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1

2: Apple_HFS Macintosh HD 498.5 GB disk0s2

iMac:~ tomomi$ hdiutil attach RecoveryHDUpdate.dmg

expected CRC32 $3436F997

/dev/disk1 Apple_partition_scheme

/dev/disk1s1 Apple_partition_map

/dev/disk1s2 Apple_Driver_ATAPI

/dev/disk1s3 Apple_HFS /Volumes/Mac OS X Lion Recovery HD Update

iMac:~ tomomi$ pwd

/Users/tomomi

iMac:~ tomomi$ pkgutil --expand /Volumes/Mac\ OS\ X\ Lion\ Recovery\ HD\ Update/RecoveryHDUpdate.pkg /tmp/RecoveryHDUpdate

iMac:~ tomomi$ hdiutil attach /tmp/RecoveryHDUpdate/RecoveryHDUpdate.pkg/RecoveryHDMeta.dmg

Checksumming Driver Descriptor Map (DDM : 0)…

Driver Descriptor Map (DDM : 0): verified CRC32 $264CB364

Checksumming (Apple_Free : 1)…

(Apple_Free : 1): verified CRC32 $00000000

Checksumming Apple (Apple_partition_map : 2)…

Apple (Apple_partition_map : 2): verified CRC32 $2D79E5C0

Checksumming Macintosh (Apple_Driver_ATAPI : 3)…

Macintosh (Apple_Driver_ATAPI : 3): verified CRC32 $F1E8BA9E

Checksumming (Apple_Free : 4)…

(Apple_Free : 4): verified CRC32 $00000000

Checksumming disk image (Apple_HFS : 5)…

................................................................................ ................................................................................ ......

disk image (Apple_HFS : 5): verified CRC32 $E25EAD8E

Checksumming (Apple_Free : 6)…

(Apple_Free : 6): verified CRC32 $00000000

verified CRC32 $6499E274

/dev/disk2 Apple_partition_scheme

/dev/disk2s1 Apple_partition_map

/dev/disk2s2 Apple_Driver_ATAPI

/dev/disk2s3 Apple_HFS /Volumes/Recovery HD Update

iMac:~ tomomi$ /tmp/RecoveryHDUpdate/RecoveryHDUpdate.pkg/Scripts/Tools/dmtest ensureRecoveryPartition / /Volumes/Recovery HD Update/BaseSystem.dmg 0 0 /Volumes/Recovery\ HD\ Update/BaseSystem.chunklist

dmtest - DiskManagement tester and Apple-internal utilities

Usage: dmtest ensureRecoveryPartition <DiskSlice> <PathToDMG> <0|1> <0|1> <pathToChunkList>

This command shrinks the given volume-bearing slice and creates a new partition

and volume in the freed space. It them copies files to make that new partition

an ImageBoot-bootable Mac OS X system.

The given disk must be a volume-bearing slice-disk; the path must be to a

bootable Mac OS X disk image (.dmg) file; the last two parameters are boolean

for VerifyDiskImage and RepairNotJustVerifyBeforeShrinking, respectively.

for pathToChunkList, provide a path to a BaseSystem.chunklist file

iMac:~ tomomi$ hdiutil eject /Volumes/Recovery\ HD\ Update

"disk2" unmounted.

"disk2" ejected.

iMac:~ tomomi$ hdiutil eject /Volumes/Mac\ OS\ X\ Lion\ Recovery\ HD\ Update

"disk1" unmounted.

"disk1" ejected.

iMac:~ tomomi$ sudo touch /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot.plist

Password:

Sorry, try again.

Password:

iMac:~ tomomi$ sudo kextcache -f -u /

iMac:~ tomomi$

Last login: Fri Nov 18 08:31:01 on console

iMac:~ tomomi$ diskutil list/dev/disk0

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *500.1 GB disk0

1: EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1

2: Apple_HFS Macintosh HD 498.5 GB disk0s2

iMac:~ tomomi$

But you need before Download the Lion Recovery Update http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1464

and before type this, go to the good folder when you download this.

i forget an "\" in the code:

hdiutil attach RecoveryHDUpdate.dmg

pkgutil --expand /Volumes/Mac\ OS\ X\ Lion\ Recovery\ HD\ Update/RecoveryHDUpdate.pkg /tmp/RecoveryHDUpdate

hdiutil attach /tmp/RecoveryHDUpdate/RecoveryHDUpdate.pkg/RecoveryHDMeta.dmg

/tmp/RecoveryHDUpdate/RecoveryHDUpdate.pkg/Scripts/Tools/dmtest ensureRecoveryPartition / /Volumes/Recovery\ HD\ Update/BaseSystem.dmg 0 0 /Volumes/Recovery\ HD\ Update/BaseSystem.chunklist

then

hdiutil eject /Volumes/Recovery\ HD\ Update

hdiutil eject /Volumes/Mac\ OS\ X\ Lion\ Recovery\ HD\ Update

sudo touch /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot.plist

sudo kextcache -f -u /