Internet Recovery Download takes 13 hours to download depending on SSD partition size?

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Level 1

16 points

Internet Recovery Download takes 13 hours to download depending on SSD partition size?

I know this sounds odd, and I spoke to applecare, and they don;t seem to undertand what I am saying. I have down this 20 times and had verification each time. I have a 2012 Macbook air with the 512gb SSD. I wipred the entire SSD by going to Disk Utilities and selecting the "Apple 512 GB SSD". I then attempted to do internet recovery, and its telling me 13 hours. I remember I had this same issue, and by me changing the partition size by like a half a gb, it then said it would take 30 minutes which is normal. Anyone know what I am talking about? And if so, can they tell me what there factory "Macintosh HD" partition is on there Disk Utility? Its like 497.63 or something in that range. Please help!

MacBook Air, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.4), 2012, 2.0ghz i7, 8gb ram, 512gb SSD

Posted on Jul 30, 2013 12:41 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

LowLuster

Level 6

12,105 points

Jul 30, 2013 1:34 PM in response to drifter29

Yes I know exactly what you are talking about. There is actually an Apple KB article about it but I don't have it bookmarked and I'm not going to search for it.

It also happens on standard spinning HDD. For some reason these particular drives when partitioned and formatted as one partition the install either takes a long time to download or a long time to download and the install fails. Making a second partition of only a few hundred MB clears up the problem.

Nothing you can do about it that I know of. So just make a second partition at the end of the drive. IIRC you really don't need to actually make that second partition. All you have to do is shrink the main partition by a few 100MB.

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Answer 2

HooperJ

Level 1

4 points

Apr 9, 2017 10:20 AM in response to drifter29

Ironically I started Internet recovery with my ethernet adaptor and it was showing 7 hours+, unplugged and used WiFi and was done in 3 minutes. :) That's another issue I guess though.

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Answer 3

Jul 30, 2013 12:58 PM in response to drifter29

drop the partition size down to the make and models original partition.

download and install OSX and drivers to the wiped SSD

startup, and remove partitions as needed.

Regardless, download OSX time is only a calculation, not an accurate time.

Regardless of your SSD size, its only going to download X-Gigabytes of OSX and drivers off the Apple servers for your Airs restoration to factory defaults.

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Answer 4

drifter29 Author

Level 1

16 points

Jul 31, 2013 8:49 AM in response to LowLuster

Well I stand corrected on this one. I actually went right after my post, went to best buy, and bought the thunderbolt to gigabit adapter, went home, plugged it in with the same sized partition that would have taken 13 hours, and no joking , I timed the download with my iphone stopwatch, and it took 9 minutes and 3 seconds. Amazing. I tried different sized partitions for the heck of it and all were the same 9 minutes. I guess it was the works wifi because I found out they changed the wifi router from the original one we had to a 50mbp piece of junk. Seems to have been the issue. Hope this helped!!!

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Answer 5

drifter29 Author

Level 1

16 points

Jul 30, 2013 12:54 PM in response to drifter29

I guess a better way to explain this would be, when I had a 2012 macbook air with a 128gb SSD, I went onto OWC, and bought a 240gb SSD to replace it with. Problem was I went to do the OSX install via internet, and it told me it would take 24 hours. I read somewhere that it was basing it on the factory size of the SSD I had before (128gb). The fix for this was to change the partition size in the 240gb SSD to the same size as the factory 128gb partition size. I did this and tried again and it said it would take 21 minutes to download and not 24 hours. I am having the same issue here with my 512gb SSD. I deleted all the partitions it came with, so I feel like it thinks I have a different size SSD than what it came with which is why its telling me it will take 13 hours to download OSX. Please help as I am stuck trying to install OSX for the past 5 hours.

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Answer 6

Jul 31, 2013 10:15 AM in response to drifter29

Good, told you that would fix it 😉

Glad I could help. Yes, the thunderbolt Ethernet dongle is worth every bit of the $29

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Answer 7

Jul 30, 2013 12:52 PM in response to drifter29

its typical on initial download (you did NOT SAY what you web connection speed is) to say "10 hours remaining" etc.....

...its just an initial calculation, it will, after half an hour or so keep dropping, and if you have a 20MBpS download connection, take between 1 to 1hr 45 mins.

again, you didnt say what your connection speed is. Also, dont do it over wifi, do a direct connect if you can, it will be faster

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Answer 8

drifter29 Author

Level 1

16 points

Jul 30, 2013 12:57 PM in response to PlotinusVeritas

Well thats just it, I have down this a million timesd before over wifi and it only took maybe 30min max. I dont have an ethernet port since its thunderbolt, and I don;t have an adaptor. Just seems odd that this time its 26 times longer to download. Oh well. Ill try this at home, my wifi is 4 times faster than this wifi at work. 75mb download/35mb upload.Anyone else, think they have any ideas feel free. Thanks Plotinus.

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Answer 9

Jul 30, 2013 1:01 PM in response to drifter29

Best investment for any Air is the $29 thunderbolt to ethernet dongle. Very handy and useful. Might consider getting one.

Ohh, youre trying to reinstall your OSX thru your work wifi? Yeah,....NO......., not the best idea, who knows what kind of traffic and interference you have going on.

wifi others are using is fine, however I would NEVER recommend doing it to reinstall your OSX and drivers. Do that at home.

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Answer 10

drifter29 Author

Level 1

16 points

Jul 31, 2013 11:43 AM in response to PlotinusVeritas

Thanks! Yeah it sure is worth every penny. Now if I could just get this adapter to work on the windows side, Id be good! lol

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