MacBook Air 2011 - no recovery partition when trying to reinstall OS

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Level 1

8 points

MacBook Air 2011 - no recovery partition when trying to reinstall OS

Hi guys,

Hoping someone cab help me in reinstalling my MacBook Air OS?

I've been trying to reinstall the OS to factory specs and have been following previous posts using the reboot holding the option button method. My problem is that a recovery partition doesn't exist. I only see the MAC OS partition and the wireless network drop down.

If I select the MAC OS partition the machine try's to boot to the OS (of course) which fails - hanging on the Apple logo screen with the rotating processing symbol

Can anyone advise how I go forward from here? Can I somehow delete the MAC OS partition and rebuild from wifi/net?

Any help would be greatly appreciated

Marty

Posted on Mar 19, 2013 1:44 AM

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Answer 1

dominic23

Level 10

83,916 points

Mar 19, 2013 3:25 AM in response to Marty99

Hold command + r keys at startup until recovery hd window appears.

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

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Answer 2

Marty99 Author

Level 1

8 points

Mar 19, 2013 3:57 AM in response to dominic23

Thanks for the reply but my machine doesn't respond to comment + r at all.............still goes to the Apple logo screen and spinning response wheel and goes no further.

:(

Marty

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Answer 3

Mar 19, 2013 4:03 AM in response to Marty99

Hold Alt key for 10 -20 seconds and see if it is there. If it is, just select it and press enter.

Or go to terminal and type diskutil list

AFter that, see if there is "Recovery HD" listed.

If not, your recovery partition does not exist, you must have formatted the hard disk or deleted it.

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Answer 4

Marty99 Author

Level 1

8 points

Mar 19, 2013 4:36 AM in response to junweixiong

Sorry what do you mean by the Alt key.........there is no Alt key on my keyboard ........

Pretty sure we've deleted nothing........this is just my wife's machine which hardly gets used, and she is no computer buff.

One thing though.......don't know if it counts for anything........she stopped using it over a year ago because it became painfully slow..........and when I mean slow, 3 mins between keystrokes!

I thought an OS reinstall would fix this but maybe it has other problems?

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Answer 5

John Galt

Level 10

141,390 points

Mar 19, 2013 5:14 AM in response to Marty99

Restart your MacBook Air while holding ⌘ option r (three fingers). Your MacBook must be within range of a wireless network.

You will see this

At the OS X Utilities screen, select Disk Utility. Repair the disk.

Quit Disk Utility. You will be returned to the OS X Utilities screen.

Reinstall OS X.

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Answer 6

Marty99 Author

Level 1

8 points

Mar 19, 2013 1:03 PM in response to John Galt

Thanks for the post but holding the three keys down on reboot didn't work. I didn't get the Starting Internet Recovery screen. My machine just tried to ( unsuccessfully boot into the OS).

Do you have any other ideas?

Cheers Martin

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Answer 7

John Galt

Level 10

141,390 points

Mar 19, 2013 1:49 PM in response to Marty99

Reset the NVRAM, though this is approaching desperate tactics. Read the following carefully and do not skip any steps:

Shut down your Mac.
Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command (⌘), Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
Turn on the computer.
Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys before the gray screen appears.
Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
Release the keys.

After resetting the NVRAM, attempt to start the MBA normally.

What do you see when you attempt to use Startup Manager? Hold an option key while starting your MBA.

This is an example of Startup Manager with an external disk and a DVD inserted - those will not appear.

Lastly attempt a "Safe Boot" according to the following: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1564

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Answer 8

John Galt

Level 10

141,390 points

Mar 19, 2013 3:39 PM in response to Marty99

If you have another Mac containing a compatible OS version on a bootable volume you can start it in FireWire or Thunderbolt Target Disk Mode and use it as a boot device for your MBA:

FireWire Target Disk Mode:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1661

Thunderbolt or FireWire Target Disk Mode:

http://support.apple.com/kb/PH3838

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Answer 9

Aug 18, 2013 9:28 PM in response to Marty99

Marty99, I am having this same issue. Were you able to resolve it?

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Answer 10

steve626

Level 6

10,073 points

Aug 18, 2013 10:00 PM in response to Marty99

Marty99 wrote:

Thanks for the post but holding the three keys down on reboot didn't work. I didn't get the Starting Internet Recovery screen. My machine just tried to ( unsuccessfully boot into the OS).

Do you have any other ideas?

Cheers Martin

Your original post indicated "Macbook Air 2011." Macbook Airs, until mid/late-2011, came with OS 10.6 and did not come with recovery partitions. Only after August 2011 did they begin to ship with Lion, which did come with a recovery partirion.

The ones that shipped with OS 10.6 came with a thumb USB drive from which one can restore the machine to its original state.

If your machine shipped in late 2011 with Lion and you have no recovery partition, then I suggest that you follow the instructions here

http://www.cultofmac.com/180925/how-to-make-a-bootable-disk-or-usb-drive-of-os-x -mountain-lion/

to make a bootable USB jump drive that has the Mountain Lion installer. Then boot from that USB jump drive and erase your internal drive and install Mountain Lion on it. This will be basically restored to factory specs except it will have a more recent OS (10.8) instead of the original earlier OS.

I have followed the above instructions for making a bootable Mountain Lion USB install jump drive and they work and are extremely easy to follow.

If your machine shipped with 10.6 but you can't find the original thumb USB drive installer that came with it, then you can simply go ahead with the 10.8 install above.

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