A suggestion from a recent posting was for the poster to "restart the Mavericks Mac into the Recovery HD (Command+R) and Reinstall OS X from there". What does this mean? I've been using OS 10.6.8 for many years and I've been using Mavericks now for about 2 months, so I'm not familiar with this feature.
MacBook Pro (13-inch Mid 2009), OS X Mavericks (10.9.4), Cinema Display
Shorter answer -
The recovery partition is the replacement for the "startup DVD" we used to have. It is a hidden partition on your hard drive. When you start using those procedures, you have the same type of utilities available as we used to with the install DVD. For example, this is helpful when you want to repair your hard drive using DIsk Utility, because you must be booted from "some other partition" to be able to completely repair a Mac hard drive partition.
Thanks to both Neil and Greg for your informative responses.
I've looked over the material suggested by Neil and I'm still a little confused. The computer that I'm running under Mavericks was purchased used from Amazon. It came with OS 10.9.2 installed. It is a MacBookPro9,2 for 13-in, mid 2012 computer. I do not know if it originally shipped with Mavericks installed. I never purchased Mavericks from the App Store, I just kept updating the OS when notified by Apple.
How can I find out what OS was on it when it shipped from Apple? If it was a previous version of the Mac OS, will cmd-R reinstall that OS or was that hidden partition also updated when the OS was upgraded?
1. It shipped with Mac OS X 10.7.3.
2. The Command and R shortcut will load the recovery partition for the computer’s current OS. Adding Option to it will access Apple’s Internet Recovery system and the computer’s original OS.
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On a slightly older model mac, there is a second hidden recovery mode: internet recovery which is Command + Option + R. If you boot into that and then use that Disk Utility to erase your drive, it should install the original OS version (if Lion or later); if it was Snow Leopard or earlier, then that method is not completely reliable: in my testing it sometimes installed Lion and sometimes the current OS as it can't install SL because that is not available on the servers.
That would be one way to determine which OS came with it originally; another is to find yours here and then call Apple and ask which build number it came with:
If I use command-R to invoke the recovery HD, will it only restore the files related to the OS that is currently on the computer (i.e., OS 10.9.5) and will it leave my data files alone, or will it erase the entire internal HD (except for the recovery HD partition) and then re-install the OS?
My issues with this computer started when I tried to create a bootable system backup on an external HD but ran into a permissions problem created by Keychain, so right at this moment I do not have a useable backup of my data files. In trying to repair the Keychain issue the OS itself now appears to be unstable with finder windows and items on the desktop appearing and disappearing sporadically on the Cinema display (where my dock and menubar are located). Sometimes the menubar also disappears then reappears.
It’ll do what you tell it to do; the reinstallation won’t erase your data files unless a further problem occurs.
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Well it seems that even Command-R does not reinstall Mavericks. I just tried to use that method to re-install OS 10.9 onto a mid 2012 13" McBkPro that was running OS 10.9.5. A window titled "OS X Utilities" opened giving me 4 options: restore from time machine backup, reinstall OS X, get help online (at the Apple support website -- I guess that means, right here), and Disk Utility where I could repair or erase the disk.
I picked "Reinstall OS X" and after selecting Mavericks and logging in to the App Store was told, "This item is temporarily unavailable. Try again later." I was then left with no option except to either shut down or to restart from the original HD (not the Cmd-R hidden partition).
EtraCheck tells me that the Recovery HD (disk0s3) has 650 MB. Must be just enough to run the "OS X Utilities". Not quite a replacement for the "startup DVD" we used to have.
Since this machine came with OS 10.7.3, I don't really want to try the cmd-opt-R variant since I understand that would connect to the Apple servers and reinstall OS 10.7.3, not 10.9.
I wonder if this is more of Apple trying to drive us to install Yosemite?
Try going to the App Store Purchases tab and see if you can download Mavericks there. You can make a bootable USB stick to install using this free program and try installing from there.
Sorry, that option doesn't seem to work anymore. See my reply to myself at https:/discussions.apple.comthread/6738728
I spoke to someone from Apple Support and they told me that Mavericks is not available at the App Store at all.
I spoke to someone from Apple Support and they told me that Mavericks is not available at the App Store at all.
That may or may not be correct - it depends:
If you had it downloaded previously, it should show up in your (previous) Purchases section at the app store (and/or, possibly, also in the Updates section). If you have never downloaded it, then no, it is no longer available. They do keep available your previously downloaded OS versions though (they have to do that as that is your only means of reinstalling an OS if/when necessary).
I guess what the Apple Support person should have said was that Mavericks was not available to me since I didn't do the upgrade from 10.7.3 to 10.9.5. I did use the App Store to upgrade from 10.9.2 to 10.9.5, but that apparently doesn't count and there is no trace of my incremental Mavericks upgrades attached to my Apple account.
Your post is a bit confusing: you said that you didn't go from 10.7.3 to 10.9.5, but then you said:
I did use the App Store to upgrade from 10.9.2 to 10.9.5
If you updated from 10.9.2 to 10.9.5, then you had download/purchased 10.9.x at some point.
From Judy’s second post in this thread:
The computer that I'm running under Mavericks was purchased used from Amazon. It came with OS 10.9.2 installed.
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what is the recovery HD under Mavericks?
