Apple Event: May 7th at 7 am PT
I want to activate Find my Mac on my MBP. The iCloud system preference says I don't have a recovery partition that's required for it. It apparently didn't install when I upgraded to Mountain Lion.
How can I retroactively create a recovery partition? There are no other partitions on the drive (other than the Macintosh HD, of course).
Thanks.
Rob
MacBook Pro (17-inch Late 2011), OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2), 8GB RAM, 750GB HD
Allan-
This doesn't help, if I'm reading it correctly. I do not have a recovery partition on my internal hard drive and that's what I want to create. Recovery Disk Assistant seems to make recovery partitions on external drives and requires that the internal recovery already exist.
Or am I missing something between the lines about Recovery Disk Assistant?
Rob
Confirm that you really do not have a recovery partition. Launch Terminal - it is in your Utilities folder.
Type the following at the prompt, followed by the Return key:
diskutil list
Copy and paste its output in a reply.
John-
Here is what that gives:
/dev/disk0
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *750.2 GB disk0
1: EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1
2: Apple_HFS Macintosh HD 749.3 GB disk0s2
My presumption is that the partition isn't there because the iCloud preference pane says "Find My Mac requires a recovery partition" in a "more" box that is there; and it won't allow me to select the service.
Rob
See if the information in the CNet article link below helps otherwise you will probably need to backup your computer, re-install the system and applications and then restore your files from the backup.
I'll give the reinstall a try. But that will take a while...
Thanks.
Rob
You have no recovery partition.
Can you boot OS X Recovery? I doubt that will do anything. If not, hold option ⌘ R (three fingers) to force OS X Internet Recovery. Reinstall Mountain Lion.
This will not destroy your user accounts or data, but be sure to back up your Mac first.
I'll give the reinstall a try.
That is the only way I know of to add a recovery HD; however, if it didn't install one on initial upgrade, the odds of it being able to do it now are not good. Looking at your disk list, I don't see a reason why it wasn't created in the first place.
I have just tested it by re-installing Mac OSx, which worked like a charm. Here are the steps
if you have existing Mac partition with data, please create a backup or image of that partition (becaue that will be erased)
1. I used a Mt Lion dvd and booted the mac from it and started the disk utility
2. I created 2 partitions -> one with 1 GB space and named "Recovery HD" and second with all the remaining space and named " Macintosh HD", applied the changes, run disk repair on both partition (to be safe)
3. then back to disk utility and re-installed OSx from DVD to Macintosh HD partition.
4. after finish and reboot with Option key, you will get your recovery partition working
5. now if you wana restore your old HD image just go to disk util and restore image
Ref: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4718
🙂
sanjay
You need to boot your computer from Internet Recovery (ALT+CMD+R). Once it's loaded, go to disk utility and select your physical drive (not Macintosh HD partition) and then slect ERASE tab, select correct format and give a name (Macintosh HD) and click "Erase...". That will prepair your disk automatically - no need to manully create 2nd partition.
This proceedure will erase your all data from the HDD so backup is crucial - run Time Machine Backup so after installation, you can run Migration Assistant to restore your data.
this script helps nicely with creating a recovery partition
enjoy
http://musings.silvertooth.us/2012/03/restoring-a-lost-recovery-partition-in-lio n/
FIRST, assuming you do not have another Mac of the same model with a working restore, I would suggest using your Lion, mountaint lion or Maverick install to create a bootable system on a flash drive. You will need a DMG image created with Disk Utility from that stick to recreate the restore partition on your mac.
Once you create the bootable USB stick, Use it to log in and follow the below process to back up the restore partition. Then, save the DMG back up anywhere and finish the walk through on your normal operating partition.
Enter the following command in terminal
diskutil list
If there is no partition for the restore drive listed, then use Disk Utility to create a GUID Partition keeping in mind the size of the original restore partition. (19 gigs for the MLTI Version of the restore drive)
Open Terminal and enter the following command
sudo asr -noverify -source (PATH FOR DMG IMAGE HERE) -target (PATH FOR RECOVERY HD PARTITION HERE) -erase -noprompt
NOTES: You must replace the () and everything in between with the respective path. You can simple drag and drop the source (your .dmg) and your target (the drive to be restored) while you are typing in terminal.
Enter admin password
In terminal Type the following command
diskutil list
note which disk and slice is the restore partition. It should be /dev/disk0s3, but it could vary a bit.
Now, run the following in terminal
sudo asr adjust --target /dev/disk0s3 --settype "Apple_Boot"
REMEMBER: you may need to replace /dev/disk0s3 with your new restore partition's designation.
Enter Admin Password when prompted
Restart.
Don't forget to enter the following terminal command into the machine you took the Recovery HD image from.
defaults write com.apple.DiskUtility DUDebugMenuEnabled -bool false
You completely blew my mind with the Debug menu in Disk Utility. I have been doing this using "dd" and "gpt" for the past year and it was a pain. Now I can use Disk Utility for the entire process. Thank you for saving me loads of time.
One thing to note, make sure you create the "Recovery HD" partition right after the "Macintosh HD". If you are using FileVault2 or "Back to my Mac", it will look for the "Recovery HD" in the next partition. Keep this in mind if you maintain separate paritions for your Users directories.
Hi John,
I am having the same issue. I just put a Time Machine backup from my former MacBook Pro onto this MacBook Pro yesterday. Find My iPhone telling me it won't work. Here is what I got when I did what you asked:
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *750.2 GB disk0
1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1
2: Apple_HFS MacOS 749.8 GB disk0s2
/dev/disk2
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *750.2 GB disk2
1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk2s1
2: Apple_HFS Time Machine 749.8 GB disk2s2
Hi,
My recoveryHD was corrupted (Macmini 2012 with Mavericks).
I just use Recovery partition creator 3.7 and it works for me
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/13872235/Musings/Recovery%20Partition%20Crea tor%203.7.zip
How can I create a recovery partition to use Find my Mac?
