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Apple Releases Utility to Create Lion Recovery USB Key

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Apr 12, 2001
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Apple today released Lion Recovery Disk Assistant, a utility that lets users create a Lion recovery partition on an external drive or USB key. Lion Recovery lets users "repair disks or reinstall OS X Lion without the need for a physical disc."

Lion-Recovery-Disk-Assistant.jpg



To create an external Lion Recovery, download the Lion Recovery Disk Assistant application. Insert an external drive, launch the Lion Recovery Disk Assistant, select the drive where you would like to install, and follow the on screen instructions.

When the Lion Recovery Disk Assistant completes, the new partition will not be visible in the Finder or Disk Utility. To access Lion Recovery, reboot the computer while holding the Option key. Select Recovery HD from the Startup Manager.
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Lion Recovery Disk Assistant can be downloaded from Apple's support website.

Apple's knowledge base article about the utility notes that the partition it creates has all the same capabilities as the Lion Recovery that is installed during a Lion installation. However, this partition could be used in the event a user can't start their computer from the Recovery partition or if the hard drive is replaced.
[Users can] reinstall Lion, repair the disk using Disk Utility, restore from a Time Machine backup, or browse the web with Safari. This drive can be used in the event you cannot start your computer with the built-in Recovery HD, or you have replaced the hard drive with a new one that does not have Mac OS X installed.
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The document has two final notes:
- If the computer shipped with Lion, the external recovery drive can only be used with the system that created it.

- If the system was upgraded from Mac OS X v10.6 Snow Leopard to Lion, the external recovery drive can be used with other systems that were upgraded from Snow Leopard to Lion.
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We had previously reported that in order to do a clean install of Lion, Snow Leopard would need to be installed first. With this recovery partition creator, there is now an official path to perform a clean install without Snow Leopard. Also, this would seem to make the unofficial Lion boot disk creator unnecessary.

Article Link: Apple Releases Utility to Create Lion Recovery USB Key
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2011/08/08/apple-releases-utility-to-create-lion-recovery-usb-key/
I'm happy and impressed that Apple released this utility.
The utility's notes don't appear to be complete, though: if it can be used on a new hard drive, why does it matter what type of Lion install you're creating it from?

I've dropped it in my Utilities folder for good measure.
 
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Thanks Apple.

But, it would have been nice for this to have been announced prior to all the whining that occurred about the lack of physical media options.
 
justinfreid said:
Happy and impressed that Apple released this utility.
The utility's notes don't appear to be complete, though: if it can be used on a new hard drive, why does it matter what type of Lion install you're creating it from?
Click to expand...

no idea, but the interesting thing is that if you press option while starting your mac and choose recovery hd (which is built in lion, not the one you create with this tool) and then choose something like "reinstall lion" or "restore my mac" or something like that, it asks you for apple id. at least it did with GM, not sure if it does so now.
 
This is great.
At first I was really against *not* having Lion on a disk, but it appears they've hit every angle. (redownloadable Lion, new EFI feature in Macs to download Lion with HDD, Recovery tool, HDD partition, USB keys ...)
 
justinfreid said:
Happy and impressed that Apple released this utility.
The utility's notes don't appear to be complete, though: if it can be used on a new hard drive, why does it matter what type of Lion install you're creating it from?
Click to expand...

The OS install disks that came with Macs running previous versions of OS X have the same limitations as the recovery partition in Macs that come with Lion.

The OEM and retail versions of OS X are different somehow.
 
Funny, that's EXACTLY what I've been saying for months that apple should do.

Really, was that so hard? I don't get why it wasn't just ready in time for release, but announced well ahead of time.
 
wordoflife said:
This is great.
At first I was really against *not* having Lion on a disk, but it appears they've hit every angle. (redownloadable Lion, new EFI feature in Macs to download Lion with HDD, Recovery tool, HDD partition, USB keys ...)
Click to expand...

Yeah? All that hassle and they could have just released it on DVD in the first place (alongside the App Store) :rolleyes:
 
MacRumors said:
Also, this would seem to make the unofficial Lion boot disk creator unnecessary.
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I would tend to disagree - every time you'd need to install you'd have to redownload the almost 4 GB, correct?

It would have been much nicer if this utility would let you select either making a stand-alone USB/DVD or if you just wanted to have the recovery disk. I would love to not have to use my internet connection every time I replace the HD (had to do it last weekend for my fiance's computer, and doing it this week for my new SSD).
 
Now how do you make a Lion Install Disk (containing the full ~3.74GB of Lion)???

This is a recovery partition disk, NOT a full Lion install disk.

I get the idea that in order to perform a Lion clean install, you would need a dedicated internet connection to re-download the full 3.74GB of Lion. I would like to be able to make a DVD install or USB install of the Lion installer.
 
AWESOME!

Now if only the official Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool would work as well as this (for Boot Camp purposes). Every time I've tried to use it, the utility would give me an error saying the .iso is bad, despite having downloaded it off MSDNAA. Maybe I can finally ditch my optical drive for good.
 
WardC said:
Now how do you make a Lion Install Disk (containing the full ~3.74GB of Lion)???

This is a recovery partition disk, NOT a full Lion install disk.

I get the idea that in order to perform a Lion clean install, you would need a dedicated internet connection to re-download the full 3.74GB of Lion. I would like to be able to make a DVD install or USB install of the Lion installer.
Click to expand...

I don't think its 34 GB. I think the installer is around 4GB and the recovery installer was able to copy what it needed to copy onto a 4GB flash drive.
 
devianter said:
they did it because of all the whining i guess, lol.
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Most likely.

thetoad30 said:
I would tend to disagree - every time you'd need to install you'd have to redownload the almost 4 GB, correct?
Click to expand...

No download necessary. It uses the recovery partition to create the USB recovery image.

EDIT: Unless the recovery image is not a full installer, which is possible.
 
thetoad30 said:
It would have been much nicer if this utility would let you select either making a stand-alone USB/DVD or if you just wanted to have the recovery disk. I would love to not have to use my internet connection every time I replace the HD (had to do it last weekend for my fiance's computer, and doing it this week for my new SSD).
Click to expand...

Amen to that, this is a step in the right direction but it would still be much better to also have the option to include the install file on the recovery disk.

Can someone confirm that this is just a boot recovery and it requires downloading the whole 4 gigs again?
 
WardC said:
Now how do you make a Lion Install Disk (containing the full ~3.74GB of Lion)???

This is a recovery partition disk, NOT a full Lion install disk.

I get the idea that in order to perform a Lion clean install, you would need a dedicated internet connection to re-download the full 3.74GB of Lion. I would like to be able to make a DVD install or USB install of the Lion installer.
Click to expand...

Lion is only 4 GB not 34 GB. That would be gigantic! It's been covered but here's the link to a utility that can do what you want. https://www.macrumors.com/2011/07/18/make-an-os-x-lion-boot-disc/
 
munkery said:
The OS install disks that came with Macs running previous versions of OS X have the same limitations as the recovery partition in Macs that come with Lion.

The OEM and retail versions of OS X are different somehow.
Click to expand...

There's not a lot of "somehow" here.

Recovery disks that come with Macs only have the drivers for that mac.

Retail Disks have the drivers for every mac that can upgrade to that OS as of the point release when the disk was made.

Thus, it's usually best to make a recovery drive off the retail version.

:apple:
 
munkery said:
Most likely.



No download necessary. It uses the recovery partition to create the USB recovery image.
Click to expand...

The recovery partition does the download for you. In the support article, it states that you need a minimum of 1 GB of space on the drive, indicating that it isn't a full install, same way the current recovery partition is. When you select install mac os x it goes out and grabs the file from apple's servers and then copies those onto the disk, then procedes with the install. In order for this to work you have to be hooked up to the internet.
 
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