HUGE Recovery HD partition

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Level 1

14 points

HUGE Recovery HD partition

Hi,

I hope you guys can help.

I used to have a windows partition that I have manually erased, not sure if that helps with the issue here however.

i see a large “Recovery HD” that’s about 80GB and I’m trying to reclaim that space. I have time machine backups and I’ve restored an extremely old one, and downgraded to Mountain Lion while doing so, yet as you can see, I still have the recovery HD showing. I had high sierra before the restore and when I noticed this problem.

Posted on Jun 12, 2018 1:28 PM

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Answer 1

Zpaul Author

Level 1

14 points

Jun 12, 2018 9:28 PM in response to Zpaul

It was this but it has since become disk01 to 2, 3 is gone, but it’s a ghost space still... I can’t make the Mac HD larger.

Also to note, when I had disk03 there and fooled around, I could’ve seen it had 200+MB being used and 78+GB being available.

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Answer 2

Zpaul Author

Level 1

14 points

Jun 12, 2018 9:49 PM in response to Zpaul

We’re getting somewhere buddy, thanks for your persistence and patience, I’m seeing my full space again. Gonna do a base install now... I’m afraid to time machine again, I guess I’ll keep my files remote.

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Answer 3

Loner T

Level 9

59,471 points

Jun 12, 2018 10:46 PM in response to Zpaul

Backup the current state of macOS, so you can get the latest files. Once you have, then erase your whole internal disk and use How to use Time Machine to back up or restore your Mac - Apple Support to restore your latest backup.

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Answer 4

Zpaul Author

Level 1

14 points

Jun 12, 2018 4:22 PM in response to Loner T

I’m not sure if time machine could backup can backup the OS itself separately, but if you’re asking if my Time Machine Backups contain entire versions of my system and restore the OS at any given time then yes, I have those.

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Answer 5

Zpaul Author

Level 1

14 points

Jun 12, 2018 4:52 PM in response to Loner T

I’ve already tried that step of restoring a time machine backup. My OS was on Sierra yesterday with the problem, I’ve time machined my system to resolve the problem but I’m currently where we are, with the 80GB of space.

So are you saying I should restore my time machine again? I’d be doing so in a loop, but if I should please double confirm.

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Answer 6

Loner T

Level 9

59,471 points

Jun 12, 2018 4:56 PM in response to Zpaul

Zpaul wrote:

I’ve already tried that step of restoring a time machine backup. My OS was on Sierra yesterday with the problem, I’ve time machined my system to resolve the problem but I’m currently where we are, with the 80GB of space.

Did you erase the whole internal disk before the restore?

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Answer 7

Zpaul Author

Level 1

14 points

Jun 12, 2018 9:23 PM in response to Loner T

Since my last reply I’ve been fooling around with it, basically disks03 has now disappeared but the space is still there... to summarize. What I did was wiped it using

diskutil eraseVolume JHFS+ Blank disk0s3

Bootcamp has been of no help. This is so stressful 😩

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Answer 8

Loner T

Level 9

59,471 points

Jun 13, 2018 5:20 AM in response to Zpaul

Zpaul wrote:

Since my last reply I’ve been fooling around with it, basically disks03 has now disappeared but the space is still there... to summarize. What I did was wiped it using
diskutil eraseVolume JHFS+ Blank disk0s3
Bootcamp has been of no help. This is so stressful 😩

This should be

diskutil eraseDisk jhfs+ BLANK disk0

Just erasing disk0s3 does not clean up your whole disk correctly. 😉

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