Lion Recovery 'Partition'

[LastLine]

Hey everyone,

Apple were very keen on the recovery partition on the main hard drive. I've updated from Snow Leopard - does the recovery partition get created automatically and come into play at the appropriate time, or do I have to do something?

 

[mrapplegate]

Hey everyone,

Apple were very keen on the recovery partition on the main hard drive. I've updated from Snow Leopard - does the recovery partition get created automatically and come into play at the appropriate time, or do I have to do something?

You only boot into it when needed. Command-R at startup.

 

[cool11]

If I make the install from a dvd, will it create a recovery partition too?

If no, it is ok for me and I'll do it with a dvd to avoid this partition creation.

If yes, will this partition be visible through finder and filesystem? Is it something for the system and I cannot touch it? Lets say delete it or alter it in any way.

 

[LastLine]

You only boot into it when needed. Command-R at startup.

Oh yeah, I appreciate that bit. I suppose I was checking that it's created automatically by installing Lion - I don't need to run any utility to make one for future use?

 

[talisto]

open up a terminal window and run this:

diskutil list

You should see a line that says "Apple_Boot Recovery HD", that's the recovery partition, so you'll know you have it. It won't show up in Disk Utility.

 

[xraydoc]

The recovery partition is created automatically. It's only 650MB, so it likely won't adversely affect your free space at all.

 

[ZacNicholson]

can you delete it

 

[Dalton63841]

can you delete it

Only with some good Terminal Ninja skills.

 

[ZacNicholson]

Only with some good Terminal Ninja skills.

do u have these skills

 

[Dalton63841]

do u have these skills

Well so far "diskutil eraseVolume" is a no-go, as well as "newfs_hfs". To be completely fair they blank that partition, but don't give you the ability to reclaim that space. At the moment I am working with some good old "dd is=/dev/zero of=/dev/disk0s3" magic. I'll get back to ya.

Looks like it is actually pretty simple...

diskutil list
sudo diskutil mergePartitions JHFS+ Macintosh\ HD disk0s2 disk0s3

This code will erase the Recovery partition, and merge the space back into the first partition. Note that if you have other partitions on the drive this will have to be changed to fit accordingly.

Diskutil list will tell you what the disk numbers are. This command assumes that you have ONLY disk0s1 as EFI, disk0s2 as the root, and disk0s3 as Recovery.

1. "JHFS+" is the format of the partition immediately preceding the Recovery partition, as in Journaled HFS+.
2. "Macintosh\ HD" is the name of the Mac partition. Any space in the name needs the "\" so Terminal can escape the space.
3. "disk0s2" is the disk number of the partition immediately preceding the Recovery partition.
4. "disk0s3" is the disk number of the Recovery partition.

Change these 4 variables to fit your setup.

 

[ZacNicholson]

Well so far "diskutil eraseVolume" is a no-go, as well as "newfs_hfs". To be completely fair they blank that partition, but don't give you the ability to reclaim that space. At the moment I am working with some good old "dd is=/dev/zero of=/dev/disk0s3" magic. I'll get back to ya.

i have no clue what this mean but keep me up to date lol

 

[Dalton63841]

i have no clue what this mean but keep me up to date lol

Hehe...I editted the previous post. I tried to explain it pretty well.

 

[ZacNicholson]

Hehe...I editted the previous post. I tried to explain it pretty well.

okay this is what i have.. so i just type what u have typed in and it'll be gone?

 

[ZacNicholson]

so i typed what you posed and got this.. is this okay?

 

[stewacide]

The installer never created a recovery partition on my MBR formatted system.

 

[cool11]

I don't want any partition in my hard disk.
Can I avoid it while installing lion?
Accept the partition or no way out?

 

[Dalton63841]

so i typed what you posed and got this.. is this okay?

Yea it is just asking for your user password. Standard procedure on a Unix based OS for something like this.

In fact you have the same drive/parttition setup I have currently. Just enter what I listed earlier, enter your password when it wants, and enjoy.

 

[ZacNicholson]

thx