Recovery HD displayed as EFI Boot in (option) startup

Question

When I select option startup at boot, two named icons are displayed, namely:(1) Andromeda (internal startup disk) and (2) EFI Boot.When I select EFI Boot the system boots into recovery mode.The command "Diskutil list" in Terminal displays the following result:/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *121.3 GB   disk0   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1   2:                  Apple_HFS Andromeda               120.5 GB   disk0s2   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3Is there a method of renaming &#x27;EFI Boot&#x27; in the option startup list as "Recovery HD"?Thank you for your feedback.

theratter · Answer

No, that is the commonly assigned name when, for whatever reason, Recovery HD did not work. Of course, you could repartition the drive and start from scratch using Network Recovery.

anticoolant · Answer

I appreciate your follow-up. In this instance, my system is working well when booting from the internal drive. I only confirmed, having started up with the option key depressed, that selecting EFI Boot booted into recovery mode. I am curious how this state (name change from Recovery HD) might have transpired. I did a delta update from 10.11.3 to 10.11.4 and then updated the Recovery HD partition to 10.11.4 using the method that uses the Lion Recovery Update from https://support.apple.com/kb/dl1464?locale&#x3D;en_US.

theratter · Answer

I think that may be due to the method you used to install the Recovery HD. I would recommend using Carbon Copy Cloner to install or recover a Recovery HD. This program should name it correctly. At least it has whenever I use it.

keg55 · Answer

There are 2 ways to JUST rewrite the Recovery HD.One is to download the full OS X El Capitan installer (unless you already have it) and reinstall on top of itself. You won&#x27;t touch any apps, user accounts or data.The 2nd is to download the full installer (unless you already have it) along with this utility. The utility will ask where your full installer is and then where you want to install. In your case, Andromeda. There are two buttons to click. You will want to click the 10.9 button. The developer hasn&#x27;t updated that button to include 10.10 and 10.11. The utility works great and is faster than reinstall OS X. I&#x27;ve used this utility many times without issue.However you decide to go, make sure you do a system back up first.

anticoolant · Answer

I use Super Duper! for image backups; but first I will try the full install as suggested by keg55. Thank you for your follow-up.

anticoolant · Answer

Incremental (Time Machine) and image (Super Duper!) backup have been done as you recommended. When I performed the full installation of 10.11.4, (option) startup now displays only the internal disk (Andromeda) in the startup manager list. There now is no display of EFI Boot.  The command "Diskutil list" in Terminal now displays the following result:/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):   #:                                   TYPE NAME                        SIZE          IDENTIFIER   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                                  *121.3 GB   disk0   1:                                       EFI EFI                             209.7 MB   disk0s1   2:             Apple_CoreStorage Andromeda                120.5 GB   disk0s2   3:                          Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3/dev/disk1 (internal, virtual):   #:                                    TYPE NAME                        SIZE          IDENTIFIER   0:                           Apple_HFS Andromeda              +120.1 GB   disk1                                                     Logical Volume on disk0s2                                                     8C3ED87A-E0CC-4A72-99A5-5033CBFC94BD                                                     UnencryptedThe full installation (re)setup CoreStorage for the disk system. The CoreStorage setup must hide Recovery HD in the startup manager list displayed at (option) startup. I found some related commentary linked at the following article: https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/180043/recovery-hd-is-not-showing-up-i s-it-because-of-filevault

theratter · Answer

The Recovery HD is now invisible in the Boot Menu screen. You are only supposed to use the shortcut keys to boot from the Recovery HD. The "diskutil list" command shows the Recovery HD as /dev/disk0s3. This is all normal on an unencrypted volume. Same as on an encrypted one.You are A-OK. 🙂

keg55 · Answer

Yes, CoreStorage volumes hide the Recovery HD in the Startup Manager (Alt/Option). You have to use Command+R with CoreSorage volumes.If you want to revert your CoreStorage back to the native file type, open Terminal and type diskutil cs list. At the bottom of the list you should see a line that says Revertible:    Yes (or it may say no). If it says &#x27;yes&#x27;, then look about 3 lines up for the Disk: line. It should say disk1 to the right. Use that value with the following command: diskutil cs revert &lt;from Disk:&gt;$ diskutil cs listCoreStorage logical volume groups (1 found)|+-- Logical Volume Group 38738CDE-7111-4AA6-9642-FA86171808A7    &#x3D;&#x3D;&#x3D;&#x3D;&#x3D;&#x3D;&#x3D;&#x3D;&#x3D;&#x3D;&#x3D;&#x3D;&#x3D;&#x3D;&#x3D;&#x3D;&#x3D;&#x3D;&#x3D;&#x3D;&#x3D;&#x3D;&#x3D;&#x3D;&#x3D;&#x3D;&#x3D;&#x3D;&#x3D;&#x3D;&#x3D;&#x3D;&#x3D;&#x3D;&#x3D;&#x3D;&#x3D;&#x3D;&#x3D;&#x3D;&#x3D;&#x3D;&#x3D;&#x3D;&#x3D;&#x3D;&#x3D;&#x3D;&#x3D;&#x3D;&#x3D;&#x3D;&#x3D;&#x3D;&#x3D;&#x3D;&#x3D;    Name:         Macintosh HD    Status:       Online    Size:         250140434432 B (250.1 GB)    Free Space:   18882560 B (18.9 MB)    |    +-&lt; Physical Volume FC891F08-1F83-40E3-ACBC-F2E821C52B4C    |   ----------------------------------------------------    |   Index:    0    |   Disk:     disk0s2    |   Status:   Online    |   Size:     250140434432 B (250.1 GB)    |    +-&gt; Logical Volume Family 8C585BFE-F1D5-4D33-9C9D-E1C4D2BD28E9        ----------------------------------------------------------        Encryption Type:         None        |        +-&gt; Logical Volume A23357E3-9A51-4902-A73E-6754A9EADE5B            ---------------------------------------------------            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

anticoolant · Answer

Your clarification is appreciated. Originally, after doing the delta 10.11.4 update, I had used a script to update the recovery partition to 10.11.4. The script used the dmtest application extracted from the Lion Recovery Update package. Dmtest built the recovery partition using the hidden Basesystem chunklist and dmg found in the InstallESD.dmg inside the full "Install El Capitan.app". When I did not see the Recovery HD icon displayed in the startup manager, I (mistakenly) thought that Recovery HD should not be hidden and reverted CoreStorage using the diskutil cs revert UUID command. After reverting, EFI Boot appeared as an icon in the startup manager.