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Q: Boot w Option key shows two Macintosh HD internal drives

My system is a Mid 2010 15" MBP 8GB 512GB Transcend SSD with 10.11.3.  The issue I was having was on a boot with the Option key pressed I would see two Macintosh HD drives listed.  I recently, about a month ago, imaged my old 256gb SSD to the new 512GB SSD using Disk Utility from either Recovery or a bootable USB stick I don't remember.  The system has been working fine.  So, I began troubleshooting why I was seeing two drives at boot.  The exact scenario can be seen at this thread, https://jamfnation.jamfsoftware.com/discussion.html?id=15343.  If I tried to boot from the 2nd Macintosh HD I would get the crossed out circle logo so I felt it was the Recovery HD.  I was able to Command-R and boot into Recovery so I knew it was working.  My troubleshooting steps were as follows below.

 

Disk Info:

 

zeus:~ curt$ diskutil cs list

No CoreStorage logical volume groups found

zeus:~ curt$ diskutil list

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):

   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER

   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *512.1 GB   disk0

   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1

   2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            511.3 GB   disk0s2

   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3

 

Reset PRAM - Didn't fix

 

Mounted Recovery HD:

 

diskutil mount /dev/disk0s3

 

I noticed these folders:

 

System

com.apple.boot.P

com.apple.recovery.boot

 

According to the article above I renamed the first two System and com.apple.boot.P and tried an Option boot but still saw the 2nd disk. 

 

I moved the folders System and com.apple.boot.P to my Desktop.  I did an Option boot and the 2nd drive did not show.  I did an Command-R boot and it booted into Recovery but I had a Language prompt in front of me.  Something was different.

 

I booted to an Internet Recovery boot Command+Option+R and it booted to Recovery.  I rebooted and did a Command+R into Recovery and voila no Language prompt.

 

At this point, I can boot into Recovery and an Option boot doesn't show two Macintosh HD drives.  I'm happy at this point.  For some, at an Option Boot, you should see Recovery HD, I don't.  Is that correct for 10.11.x (El Capitan)?

 

My question is what possibly happened and what are the contents of the Recovery HD for others? 

 

diskutil /dev/disk0s3

ls  /Volumes/Recovery\ HD/

 

I'd appreciate a few posting their contents and possibly reasons why my Recovery HD made it appear as if it should be bootable when in fact it was the Recovery HD.

MacBook Pro (15-inch Mid 2010), OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2), 500gb 7200 SATA, 8gb Ram

Posted on Feb 11, 2016 9:35 AM