OS X 10.8 Recovery Partition

[ethan1878]

I have recently discovered that my MacBook Pro (mid 2012) does not have a recovery partition for mountain lion. I've been trying to reinstall OS X for some time now and can't seem to find a way around it. I have tried searching Google and i have also tried Apple Web Recovery (Cmd+Opt+R at startup) but that doesn't seem to work either.

Also, I have tried downloading RecoveryDiskAssistant and making a recovery disk out of a USB Flash Drive but with no recovery partition, this won't work either.

Any help is greatly appreciated, thanks in advance,
Ethan.

 

[Weaselboy]

Why do you think you don't have a recovery partition? Open Terminal and enter "diskutil list" (without the quotes) and see if it is listed there.

Can you hold command-r at boot to go to recovery?

A standard install would have made a recovery partition, so unless you did something to manually remove it, it should be there.

Did your machine come with Mountain Lion, or did you get it from the App store. If you got it from the App store you can justr DL and reinstall and that will make a recovery partition.

 

[ethan1878]

I think I am to blame. I installed windows via bootcamp and used diskmgmt.msc to try to expand my windows disk space, in doing this, i suspect i have unknowingly deleted the recovery partition.

My Mac came with mountain lion pre-installed. However, I wasnt awake of this and requested a free update from Apple, they agreed that I was eligble for the up-to-date programme and povided me with a redeem code for mountain lion from the app store. so, because i already had mountain lion installed, i cant download it from the mac app store.

Terminal does not list a recovery partiton on my drive, only "Macintosh HD" and "BOOTCAMP"

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If I hold command-r at startup, I get directed straight to Internet Recovery Service (which hangs at about 10% and did for about 4-5 hours earlier today)

 

[Weaselboy]

I think I am to blame. I installed windows via bootcamp and used diskmgmt.msc to try to expand my windows disk space, in doing this, i suspect i have unknowingly deleted the recovery partition.

Ackkk... That would do it.

My Mac came with mountain lion pre-installed. However, I wasnt awake of this and requested a free update from Apple, they agreed that I was eligble for the up-to-date programme and povided me with a redeem code for mountain lion from the app store. so, because i already had mountain lion installed, i cant download it from the mac app store.

Did you redeem the code in the App Store? I think if you do, that would list ML in your purchases and let you DL it.

If I hold command-r at startup, I get directed straight to Internet Recovery Service (which hangs at about 10% and did for about 4-5 hours earlier today)

Hmm... is your Internet connection working okay? When you do command-r and no recovery partition is present, it goes to Internet recovery like you are seeing. That should be working.

Does it connect and start, then just stall? If it won't connect you need to make sure your wifi is WPA and NOT WEP encrypted as the older WEP won't work.

 

[ethan1878]

When I try to download ML on the mac app store, i get an error saying that i already have it installed on my computer. That might be a one-off error though and i will try again later. Yes, my internet connection is working okay (i'm using it now to post this) and it is using WPA (i know this because i cant connect to my home router from my Nintendo DSi as it only supports WEP).

When I get into Internet Recovery, it asks for the password to my network, when i type it in, the mac connects to my network. so, I continue to the next step where the progress bar comes up, it gets to about 10% then hangs, the ETA reads 1:17 at this point.

 

[Weaselboy]

When I try to download ML on the mac app store, i get an error saying that i already have it installed on my computer. That might be a one-off error though and i will try again later. Yes, my internet connection is working okay (i'm using it now to post this) and it is using WPA (i know this because i cant connect to my home router from my Nintendo DSi as it only supports WEP).

When I get into Internet Recovery, it asks for the password to my network, when i type it in, the mac connects to my network. so, I continue to the next step where the progress bar comes up, it gets to about 10% then hangs, the ETA reads 1:17 at this point.

It sounds like you are on the right path. The ML DL is 4.7GB, so it does take a while. Maybe have a beer or something while you wait?

 

[ethan1878]

Thanks for your help so far, I will try to DL ML again later as I keep getting the same error Hopefully, it will download (eventually) and i will be reinstalled. If i can't i will post any further hurdles in this thread.

Thanks again.