I recently update my MBP from 10.8.2 to 10.8.3. I also use BootCamp to Windows 7. When starting the MBP with holding alt/option button, it says that the recovery partition is still in 10.8.2. How can I update the recovery to 10.8.3?
Thanks in advance.
OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.3)
To update the Recovery partition version you have to use the full 10.8.3 installer.
So, if you don't have this on a thumb drive then you need to boot into your current Recovery partition (10.8.2) and select Reinstall OS X. Assuming you purchased Mountain Lion from the App Store, it will download 10.8.3 (full install) and reinstall 10.8.3 on top of itself. This will update the version of your Recovery partition. IF your Mac came with Mountain Lion 10.8.2 preinstalled, unless you are able to get a full install of 10.8.3 for your Mac model, you will only be able to update your OS X and not your Recovery partition.
Why do you feel you need the version number of your Recovery partition to say 10.8.3?
I'm new to Mac OS. I just bought MBP a month ago. If I remember correctly, it came with 10.8. After I ran the software update, the OS was updated to 10.8.2, so does the recovery partition. When the 10.8.3 came out, I update again using the 10.8.3 Combo instead of using internet update like before.
I'm not sure why I need to see the Recovery partition to say 10.8.3. Being new to Mac OS, I thought that the Recovery partition should the same with the OS installed. So when I want to recover my MBP, I can recover to the latest OS installed on the MBP.
Anyway, what the function of the recovery partition? I know that I can restore my current setup and data using time machine. Or the time machine rely on recovery partition to restore the data?
kokeropie wrote:
Being new to Mac OS, I thought that the Recovery partition should the same with the OS installed. So when I want to recover my MBP, I can recover to the latest OS installed on the MBP.
Anyway, what the function of the recovery partition? I know that I can restore my current setup and data using time machine. Or the time machine rely on recovery partition to restore the data?
When using the Recovery partition to Reinstall OS X (for your new Mac), you will get the version of OS X that shipped with your Mac (unless Apple updates that version on their servers). So, for example, let's say your Mac shipped with 10.8.2 (Recovery partiton also that version) and you update OS X to 10.8.3 from Software Updates. When you restart into the Recovery partition using the Command+R keys and you want to Reinstall OS X, you will get what ever version is out there for your Mac model which might be 10.8.2. This means after the install completes you would need to run Software Update to update it back to 10.8.3. So, the version of the Recovery partition has no bearing on what version of OS X will download. Lion (10.7.x) was the same way until version 10.7.2. When updating Lion 10.7 or 10.7.1 to 10.7.2, there was also an update for the Recovery partition. To my knowledge there haven't been any Mountain Lion updates like that. The full installer will always write a Recovery partition and the version number will be the same as the OS X version. However, Software Update will not update the Recovery partition.
The functions of the Recovery partition are many. When you boot into it you see the OS X Utilities menu. From there you can Reinstall OS X, use Disk Utility to manage your drives, Restore from a Time Machine backup, use Terminal (from the Utilities menu bar option) to do command line commands, change your Startup Disk and other functions.
The recovery disk is updated with each new OS You can not use disk utilitys for OS X.7 on OS X.8 so when you update from OS X.7 to OS X.8 the recovery disk has to also update or it would be rendered useless. I only use the recovery disk for checking the HD and repair permissions. My issue is I have two recovery partlitions can not tell which one is which - Run the imac as a dual boot.
Thanks a lot for all replies. It makes me understand more about Mac OS 🙂
My pleasure.
One thing for you to understand. When you boot into the Recovery partition to reinstall OS X, it will always download a full installer to install from. Point being, the Recovery partition does not contain a full installer. It can only download one from Apple's servers. 🙂
Hi There,
Very valuble information. I have another question related to this topic, I am using deploy studio and it is require to have the recovery HD is updated to be able to netboot. So what should I do for lion and mountain lion OS X?
Thank you,
One reason a person would want to update their recovery partition is if you're using DeployStudio. When you create a netboot set with DeployStudio Runtime you need a recovery partition that is the same version as the OS install you're using... Otherwise I don't see the need to have a recovery partition that was shipped with the latest release of OSX 10.8.
Here's a post on what you need to do to update it (basically download the latest version of OSX 10.8 then re-install):
Link: http://www.deploystudio.com/Forums/viewtopic.php?id=5034 (see post # 4).
One of the purposes of the recovery partition is also due to the terms of the licensing (SLA) - since any OS license version purchased at the app store is not transferable and is tied to the purchaser's Apple ID forever, a seller is obligated to wipe the drive and reinstall the original OS before selling. So, if there are no install disks (as in Snow Leopard and earlier), the only way to do that is to use the internet recovery partition (Command + Option + R) to reinstall the original OS; the buyer can then purchase ML with his own Apple ID.
How to update recovery partition from 10.8.2 to 10.8.3
