Q: Recovery partition missing on OS X El Capitan

Thanks Keg, but no, I'm not going to just re-install.

The problem needs to be fixed and an interm solution provided that allows creation of the partition without having to reinstall everything.

So, back to the original question of how to create a recovery partition?

Fine. You're better off just reinstalling the OS. But if you're going to be hard headed you can use the Install OS X El Capitan.app file with this Utility.  It works 100% of the time. BUT you can not use it with CoreStorage volumes or Fusion Drives. Good luck.

Thanks for the link.  I've already had a look at it but didn't see the note under the banner referring to El Capitan.  I take it that since it worked for the beta, it will work for the official release too.  Is that so?

By the way, not being much of a Mac user, what is meant by Core Storage Volumes?  I have a retina Macbook Pro 15" 2015 with a single SSD.  (Nevermind, I looked it up and no, I'm not using such.)

Open Terminal and type diskutli cs list. If you see output like below you have a core storage volume.

CoreStorage logical volume groups (1 found)

|

+-- Logical Volume Group 5F74311B-C542-4AAA-8699-25D5D555EAC9

    =========================================================

    Name:         Macintosh HD

    Status:       Online

    Size:         250140434432 B (250.1 GB)

    Free Space:   18882560 B (18.9 MB)

    |

    +-< Physical Volume B71D9E01-2F87-468E-BE90-B07E9DDFC776

    |   ----------------------------------------------------

    |   Index:    0

    |   Disk:     disk0s2

    |   Status:   Online

    |   Size:     250140434432 B (250.1 GB)

    |

    +-> Logical Volume Family F75A7EB5-171A-497C-8953-EEE8D0C0FAF8

        ----------------------------------------------------------

        Encryption Type:         None

        |

        +-> Logical Volume 7E3907BC-A632-409B-8CBC-6C4A2C405913

            ---------------------------------------------------

            Disk:                  disk1

            Status:                Online

            Size (Total):          249769230336 B (249.8 GB)

            Revertible:            Yes (no decryption required)

            LV Name:               Macintosh HD

            Volume Name:           Macintosh HD

            Content Hint:          Apple_HFS

Thnx.  No CoreStorate logical volume groups found. 

Now I need to find a copy of the installer.  I created a USB installer, will that do?

No.

By the way, reinstalling OS X over itself does not touch your user accounts, apps or data. It simply reinstalls the OS over itself.

Oh, that sounds like a good option then.

So I would just boot off the USB and install as I did earlier this week?

(Just realised that I don't think it will work for me as I'm using rEFInd to dual boot Ubuntu.  The reason for doing the install earlier in the week was because the installer broke my setup and I'm still FUMING about it.  SIP = break your system and disable all sorts of handy apps that make the Mac user experience bearable after having used other operating systems.)

As far as reinstalling OS X? Yes, you can reinstall from within OS X or from an external source like booting off your USB installer and selecting your internal drive to install to.

Regardless, back up your system first.

EDIT: didn't see your edit. I have no idea how to reinstall OS X or even use the utility to recreate the Recovery HD with how you are dual booting with Ubuntu. Sorry.... out of my area of expertise.

Thanks for all the info Keg, appreciate it

I used Recovery Partition Creator 3.8 and even though it complained about me having the wrong OS a few times, it did work  .

Having rEFInd installed didn't cause any problems.

bigschwabbel wrote:

 

Apple hasn't changed any of its boot-up key combos for years.

 

Internet Recovery has always been and still is CMD+OPTION+R.

Local Recovery has always been and still is OPTION+R.

Accessing the local recovery system via OPTION has always worked and still does.

 

All of the above is true for OS X up until and including 10.11.2.

 

If your system doesn't work that way you might have an underlying issue with your installation.

 

<edit> If you don't have a recovery partition on your system disk, CMD+R would start the Internet Recovery instead.</edit>

OPTION + R is not an option.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201314

Startup key combinations for Mac - Apple Support

Hi,

I am missing the Recovery Partition too. I think I can recreate it with with Recovery Partition Recreator 3.8. I chose a .pkg file of the latest 10.11.4 Beta Combo Update because there is no full installer, not even for developers. The tool did accepted the file, but after that nothing happened, no error message just nothing. Is there any way to make the Recovery Partition 10.11.4 Beta 4 instead of 10.11.3 without a .app file?

I see the Recovery partition in terminal, but when I press Command+ R it goes directly to internet recovery. So, other than seeing it in terminal there seems the recovery partition has no other function. Is that right?

I made a full disk image backup with Carbon Copy Cloner, and it alerts me that there is no recovery partition in my disk.

Reverting CoreStorage (http://awesometoast.com/yosemite-core-storage-and-partition-woes/) did the job for me. Recovery HD appeared again.

Hello,

To create a new recovery system I connected an external drive on which I installed El Capitan. Once I finished installing El capitan I booted from the internal drive, created a partition on the internal drive with a size of 650MB. I then opened a terminal and used dd to copy the blocks of the recovery partition of the external drive to the newly created partition on the internal drive. Do not forget to unmount both partitions first.