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Need help restalling Recovery after cloning new SSD.

jamesryanbell

jamesryanbell

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Mar 17, 2009
2,171
93
Well, I'm stuck...but someone's gotta know how to fix this.

I have an 11" 2010 MBA with the 128GB SSD in it (running Lion obviously). I bought a OWC 240GB SSD recently, along with an enclosure for it in order to clone the old drive to the new one. I used Carbon Copy Cloner to clone the 128GB drive over to the new 240GB drive. Everything works fine, except for the fact that someone said that CCC DOESN'T copy the Lion Recovery portion (it's hidden or something). I restarted this morning to check that out, and held CMD-R when booting. Not only did Lion Recovery not show up, my desktop showed up (with everything along the top looking normal) and no icon bar at the bottom. Couldn't click anything. Just totally locked.

I downloaded Lion from the App Store, so I don't have an external USB key or anything else to boot from. I did leave the old 128GB stock SSD though exactly how it was (I didn't erase it after cloning). Is there something I can do with that to copy it over (I know I'm grasping at straws here, but I'm just not sure what to do)?

How do I get the Lion recovery portion of the disk installed to the new drive? I can't do a CMD-R on boot, so that won't work.
 
jamesryanbell said:
Well, I'm stuck...but someone's gotta know how to fix this.

I have an 11" 2010 MBA with the 128GB SSD in it (running Lion obviously). I bought a OWC 240GB SSD recently, along with an enclosure for it in order to clone the old drive to the new one. I used Carbon Copy Cloner to clone the 128GB drive over to the new 240GB drive. Everything works fine, except for the fact that someone said that CCC DOESN'T copy the Lion Recovery portion (it's hidden or something). I restarted this morning to check that out, and held CMD-R when booting. Not only did Lion Recovery not show up, my desktop showed up (with everything along the top looking normal) and no icon bar at the bottom. Couldn't click anything. Just totally locked.

I downloaded Lion from the App Store, so I don't have an external USB key or anything else to boot from. I did leave the old 128GB stock SSD though exactly how it was (I didn't erase it after cloning). Is there something I can do with that to copy it over (I know I'm grasping at straws here, but I'm just not sure what to do)?

How do I get the Lion recovery portion of the disk installed to the new drive? I can't do a CMD-R on boot, so that won't work.
Click to expand...

There is an app out called CopycatX cost's $49 for the downloaded version this will copy all hidden partitions out there and is lion ready..it actually shows all the different partitions on the drive and I have used it and it works flawlessly even for Apple TV drives :)
here is Url> http://www.subrosasoft.com/OSXSoftw...s_id=7&zenid=3b10da502f736f1e938a2be9b59ebd89
 
Last edited:
jamesryanbell said:
Well, I'm stuck...but someone's gotta know how to fix this.

I have an 11" 2010 MBA with the 128GB SSD in it (running Lion obviously). I bought a OWC 240GB SSD recently, along with an enclosure for it in order to clone the old drive to the new one. I used Carbon Copy Cloner to clone the 128GB drive over to the new 240GB drive. Everything works fine, except for the fact that someone said that CCC DOESN'T copy the Lion Recovery portion (it's hidden or something). I restarted this morning to check that out, and held CMD-R when booting. Not only did Lion Recovery not show up, my desktop showed up (with everything along the top looking normal) and no icon bar at the bottom. Couldn't click anything. Just totally locked.

I downloaded Lion from the App Store, so I don't have an external USB key or anything else to boot from. I did leave the old 128GB stock SSD though exactly how it was (I didn't erase it after cloning). Is there something I can do with that to copy it over (I know I'm grasping at straws here, but I'm just not sure what to do)?

How do I get the Lion recovery portion of the disk installed to the new drive? I can't do a CMD-R on boot, so that won't work.
Click to expand...

I think these steps should work for you:

1) use the Lion recovery disk assistant and create a bootable usb flash drive.

2) put your old SSD drive into the enclosure.

3) boot up your system ( hold opt key ) and point to the usb flash drive.

4) re-install Lion via internet recovery onto the new SSD.

When you re-install it completely it will create the recovery partition onto the new SSD along with the usual Lion partition.

Create some kind of dummy account ( throwaway name ) when you do the install ... not the same name and not tied to your apple id of your old SSD.

5) after the Lion install completes then do all the updates if any on your system.

6) use the migration assistant application to migrate your stuff ( good account ) from the SSD in the enclosure.

7) Make sure the migrated account is also an admin account ( it should be ).

8) reboot eventually and now choose your old account

Everything should be back.
 
The dummy account thing seems like a chore, but I do agree that it sounds like it should work. Thanks so much for taking the time to post that.

Still open to other ideas just to learn. :)
 
jamesryanbell said:
The dummy account thing seems like a chore, but I do agree that it sounds like it should work. Thanks so much for taking the time to post that.
Click to expand...

It seems a little weird that one way of re-installing will recreate a new recovery partition and another way does not.

It sure seems like the other way should pop up a message box and ask "hey do you also want me to create a recovery partition on this disk cuz otherwise you will not end up with one?".

Seems like apple QA process should have caught that in testing.
 
Wouldnt it be easier to keep/carry a USB Drive with Lion on it rather than waste the space on a recovery partition?
 
jamesryanbell said:
Well, I'm stuck...but someone's gotta know how to fix this.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure of a more elegant solution but if you want to fix it right, you'll have to put your original SSD in a USB case. Since you've had your new SSD in your computer for a while, I'd suggest cloning it to the original SSD. Then install Lion on the new SSD and at the end of the installation, it will ask if you want to migrate your data from another disk. Choose your newly cloned USB SSD and all will be good.

You'll have a fresh installation of Lion with your recovery disk and all your applications, settings, user account information and documents intact.

It may take longer than you'd like but it's the right way to do it. Using the two SSD's will be pretty fast though.

Then install TRIM enabler.
 
egarc said:
You'll have a fresh installation of Lion with your recovery disk and all your applications, settings, user account information and documents intact.
Click to expand...

If I migrate what I need to my fresh instalation of Lion will all my program settings and licences/activation_codes/projects/events/etc remain the same? Or will it be like installing the app all ovr again?

Cheers
 
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