how to stop lion recovery disk assistant from downloading?

A bootable copy of your startup volume isn't going to help you. You actually want a bootable USB Installer drive with the Lion installer.

Was Lion pre-installed on your computer?

Did you download the Lion installer from the App Store and did you save the installer application?

The Recovery Disk Assistant only creates a bootable Recovery HD partition, nothing else.

If you read the Disk Recovery Assistant documentation all that it does is put a copy of the Recovery HD onto the flash drive. There is no OS on it to reinstall, hence the reason for the Internet download.

If you wish to have a true bootable installer flash drive for your system, then here's what is involved. Start by going to this link: Downloading Hardware Specific Lion Installers. Follow the instructions very, very carefully because this can be a bit tricky.

Once you have the installer application:

Make Your Own Lion Installer

1. After downloading Lion you must first save the Install Mac OS X Lion application. After Lion downloads DO NOT click on the Install button. Go to your Applications folder and make a copy of the Lion installer. Move the copy into your Downloads folder. Now you can click on the Install button. You must do this because the installer deletes itself automatically when it finishes installing Lion.

2. Get a USB flash drive that is at least 8 GBs. Prep this flash drive as follows:

1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.

3. Locate the saved Lion installer in your Downloads folder. CTRL- or RIGHT-click on the installer and select Show Package Contents from the contextual menu. Double-click on the Contents folder to open it. Double-click on the SharedSupport folder. In this folder you will see a disc image named InstallESD.dmg.

4. Plug in your freshly prepared USB flash drive. You are going to clone the InstallESD.dmg disc image to the flash drive as follows:

1. Open Disk Utility.
2. Select the USB flash drive from the left side list.
3. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
4. Check the box labeled Erase destination.
5. Select the USB flash drive volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
6. Drag the InstallESD.dmg disc image file into the Source entry field.
7. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.

When the clone is completed you have a fully bootable Lion installer that you can use without having to re-download Lion.

The Lion Recovery Disk Assistant does NOT built a Bootable copy of your Lion OS. It DOES create a copy of the Recovery HD partition that is on your internal drive so you can boot the computer and do DU actions and then download and install Lion on whatever drive you like.

What is happening it completely normal and the Recovery Disk Assistant USB thumb drive is doing exactly what it is supposed to do.

What you need to do is CREATE a Lion Install USB thumb drive. To do that you need to download Lion and SAVE the files without letting the installer REboot the system and start the install.

Look at this site for one way to do this.

10.7: How to get a full Lion install disc for a new MacBook Air or Pro - Mac OS X Hints

Than use a small program called LionDiskMaker to create either a DVD or USB thumb of the Lion install files.

http://blog.gete.net/lion-diskmaker-us/

pzi123 wrote:

I opened new case and the tech told me that there is no such thing like what you describe and I have to go to the local Apple store and pay another $70 for a Lion USB stick. I already had my shoes on when the e-mail from your post popped up.

What would we do without guys like you? ... spending more time and money :-)

appreciated!

He is LYING to you.

Follow Kappy's instructions or the instruction found in the link I posted.

I have made several of the Lion Install USB thumb drives.

Do a Google search for Make (or create) Lion install USB thumb drive. It will turn up muiltiple links to Mac magazine sites with instructions. But most of them are for making one from the Mac App Store download.