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gregpod9

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Apr 27, 2007
299
87
I would like to know how to remove the recovery partition from Mountain Lion via terminal?
 

Puevlo

macrumors 6502a
Oct 21, 2011
633
1
You might even be able to do it by going into Terminal and typing:

defaults write com.apple.DiskUtility DUDebugMenuEnabled 1

This will enable Debug Mode in Disk Utility. There will be an extra menu bar item that lets you see hidden partitions. Although you did say via Terminal so disregard.
 

2012Tony2012

macrumors 6502a
Dec 2, 2012
741
3
Im going back from ML to SL, do I first need to remove the ML recovery partition? Or will a brand new install of SL do that for me?
 

apunkrockmonk

macrumors 6502a
Nov 20, 2005
769
16
Rochester, NY
Having the recovery partition there honestly wouldn't hurt anything so you could leave it there.

If you were trying to reclaim that lost space I would recommend following Puevlo's advice, if I remember correctly you can do this from Snow Leopard as well as Mountain Lion.

I'm not well versed enough in terminal to recall the commands to do this.

You might even be able to do it by going into Terminal and typing:

defaults write com.apple.DiskUtility DUDebugMenuEnabled 1

This will enable Debug Mode in Disk Utility. There will be an extra menu bar item that lets you see hidden partitions. Although you did say via Terminal so disregard.

As far as installing Snow Leopard, just boot off of your install CD after making a good backup of your important files. I've never downgraded to Snow Leopard personally so I don't recall if you have the option to Archive and Install or if you must wipe the partition first.

If Archive and Install is an option that'd probably be the easiest way to go.
 

benwiggy

macrumors 68020
Jun 15, 2012
2,371
179
So what must I do to go back from Mountain Lion to Snow Leopard? What are my steps?
1. Boot into the SL installer disk.
2. Go to Disk Utility there and repartition the disk.
3. Install 10.6.

The Recovery partition is a whopping 650Mb.
 

NHProductions

macrumors newbie
Mar 26, 2013
15
0
Belgium
If your machine came with a pre-installed version of SL just remove ML and do an internet recovery (I'm not familiar if SL has this but you can give it a try).
Otherwise just delete ML and install SL using a disk and it will probably remove/replace the ML recovery partition. This is just a theory though.
 

GGJstudios

macrumors Westmere
May 16, 2008
44,539
941
If your machine came with a pre-installed version of SL just remove ML and do an internet recovery (I'm not familiar if SL has this but you can give it a try).
Internet recovery and the recovery partition were introduced in Lion, and are not available for Snow Leopard and earlier OS X versions.
 

2012Tony2012

macrumors 6502a
Dec 2, 2012
741
3

Weaselboy

Moderator
Staff member
Jan 23, 2005
34,071
15,493
California
But will ML stop working once the ML partition and recovery partition is merged?

ML will run without the recovery partition. You just lose the ability to run Filevault or any of the recovery tools on the recovery partition.

So what must I do to go back from Mountain Lion to Snow Leopard? What are my steps?

If you want to do a fresh install of SL and get rid of the ML recovery partition, boot from the SL DVD and start Disk Util then select the drive name (like Seagate 500GB) and erase the entire drive. This will erase the recovery partition as well as the previous OS install (ML). Then go ahead with the install.

By erasing at the drive level as opposed to just the Macintosh HD partition, you are also erasing the recovery partition.
 

2012Tony2012

macrumors 6502a
Dec 2, 2012
741
3
ML will run without the recovery partition. You just lose the ability to run Filevault or any of the recovery tools on the recovery partition.



If you want to do a fresh install of SL and get rid of the ML recovery partition, boot from the SL DVD and start Disk Util then select the drive name (like Seagate 500GB) and erase the entire drive. This will erase the recovery partition as well as the previous OS install (ML). Then go ahead with the install.

By erasing at the drive level as opposed to just the Macintosh HD partition, you are also erasing the recovery partition.

Thank you Weaselboy, that got rid of it. But SL froze up once as well, so I installed ML again lol :D

Maybe it needs a hard drive CLEAN lol

Since coming over from MS Windows to Mac OS, I have learned that Mac OS doesn't cope very well with extreme multitasking like running 12+ browser windows at the same time, all of them downloading a flash video at the same time! MS Windows always handled that well, but Mac OS doesn't :(
 

Weaselboy

Moderator
Staff member
Jan 23, 2005
34,071
15,493
California
Since coming over from MS Windows to Mac OS, I have learned that Mac OS doesn't cope very well with extreme multitasking like running 12+ browser windows at the same time, all of them downloading a flash video at the same time! MS Windows always handled that well, but Mac OS doesn't :(

Yeah... for some reason OS X has always seemed to work half-assed with Flash. I don't know whose fault it it or why is happens. :mad:

Maybe try using Chrome for the Flash stuff and see how that works?
 

ZeeOwl

macrumors member
May 31, 2003
87
0
Sherbrooke, QC, Canada.
You might even be able to do it by going into Terminal and typing:

defaults write com.apple.DiskUtility DUDebugMenuEnabled 1

This will enable Debug Mode in Disk Utility. There will be an extra menu bar item that lets you see hidden partitions. Although you did say via Terminal so disregard.

Thanks! Just what I was looking for. Wanted to get rid of those pesky hidden partitions to upgrade my new systems to Snow Leopard. :)
 
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