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No Recovery Partition on the new 2012 iMac 27

Latino4Me said:
I am even more confused. I was able to use the recovery assistant to create Recovery USB stick, but when I boot and hold option key, it DOES NOT show up just like my "built in" recovery partition does not show up. This is really curious. Just to exclude keyboard shortcut error, I connected USB drive and rebooted again. The drive shows up but neither "buiit-in" or created usb recovery partition show up :mad:
Click to expand...

I don't know if this would make a difference, but do you have any other USB devices/drives connected to the computer? If so, trying unhooking all USB devices and then try Command R.

Oh, and I don't see the Recovery HD with option key either, only with Command R.
 
Latino4Me said:
I am even more confused. I was able to use the recovery assistant to create Recovery USB stick, but when I boot and hold option key, it DOES NOT show up just like my "built in" recovery partition does not show up. This is really curious. Just to exclude keyboard shortcut error, I connected USB drive and rebooted again. The drive shows up but neither "buiit-in" or created usb recovery partition show up :mad:
Click to expand...

Since you can boot from the USB key, just do that and reinstall the OS. It will DL from Apple and reinstall and hopefully recreate your Recovery HD for you. Backup just to be safe, but a straight reinstall like this will not erase your data.

A normal Lion/Mountain Lion install will recreate a missing Recovery HD.
 
Thanks guys!
It finally worked! I finally have a recovery option. It is internet recovery. I followed the instructions to download the special Mountain Lion build that came with my iMac, as it was suggested here:

Weaselboy said:
You can get it by following this process.
Click to expand...

Then, I created the boot USB stick with it and booted by pressing ALT/OPT. Reformatted the drive, installed the Mountain Lion and now I can get recovery boot by pressing CMD+R (option key does not work, as confirmed here below)

Lava Lamp Freak said:
Oh, and I don't see the Recovery HD with option key either, only with Command R.
Click to expand...

The recovery is the Internet recovery type. Is that what you get?
 
Latino4Me said:
Then, I created the boot USB stick with it and booted by pressing ALT/OPT. Reformatted the drive, installed the Mountain Lion and now I can get recovery boot by pressing CMD+R (option key does not work, as confirmed here below)
Click to expand...

Glad it worked out. :)

command-option-r is supposed to access Internet recovery, bypassing the Recovery HD on the drive, but form some reason it does not seem to always work.
 
I think an easier process would be to download mountain lion (if purchased) and then burn the install image file to USB (I believe it's an EMG file?), so that way you have a full USB installer where you do not have to wait on a re-download in order to install the OS.

----------
MagicThief83 said:
I think an easier process would be to download mountain lion (if purchased) and then burn the install image file to USB (I believe it's an EMG file?), so that way you have a full USB installer where you do not have to wait on a re-download in order to install the OS.
Click to expand...

Sorry it's called "installESD.dmg" and that is the file you burn to USB using disk utility. You can find the file by exploring the contents of the mountain lion install package.
 
At this time the software on a new iMac is not the same build as the one in the app store
 
Lava Lamp Freak said:
I don't know if this would make a difference, but do you have any other USB devices/drives connected to the computer? If so, trying unhooking all USB devices and then try Command R.

Oh, and I don't see the Recovery HD with option key either, only with Command R.
Click to expand...

I tested my iMac tonight and it will not show the boot menu or boot into recovery mode with an external USB drive or thumb drive connected. If I have one connected, it ignores any keys I'm holding down at startup. That includes the USB Recovery stick I made using the Apple tool.

The only way I can boot from an external drive is to select it as the Startup Disk in System Preferences.

Update: If I wait to connect a USB drive until after I get to the boot menu by holding down Option, then the external drive will show up and I can boot from it.
 
Last edited:
Ok so i have the new build Macbook Pro 2012 i7

Ok so i have the new build Macbook Pro 2012 i7 and do i guess OSX 10.8 doesn't come with Recovery Partition Just the internet recovery.

Is this right or do i need to completely wipe the drive download the current version of OSX 10.8.2 from the internet recovery. Will this put the recovery partition back on the drive like it did with Lion ??

regards

Adam
 
SimplyMac2012 said:
Ok so i have the new build Macbook Pro 2012 i7 and do i guess OSX 10.8 doesn't come with Recovery Partition Just the internet recovery.

Is this right or do i need to completely wipe the drive download the current version of OSX 10.8.2 from the internet recovery. Will this put the recovery partition back on the drive like it did with Lion ??

regards

Adam
Click to expand...

You machine will come with a Recovery HD partition. Go to Terminal and type in "diskutil list" (without the quotes) and you will see it.
 
iMac Fusion Drive

You can't reinstall the OS from any other recovery partition than the one that shipped with the fusion drive. The build for the Disk Utility etc is different for the new iMacs and older versions will not work.
 
Create a bootable cloned backup using either CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper, and you will have no real need for a "recovery partition" -- because your BACKUP will become your "recovery" partition.

The recovery partition limits you to a few procedures.
A fully-cloned backup lets you do any of those, and much more.
 
iWaiting said:
At this time the software on a new iMac is not the same build as the one in the app store
Click to expand...

Ah, this is interesting. Do you have a link to anywhere that explains this a little more? I presume you mean the build of OS X is different, right? I don't need to format my iMac as it's brand new but out of curiously, what would happen if I formatted the HD completely and reinstalled Mountain Lion from a USB installer that I created (using the latest in the Mac App Store)?
 
do you have a fusion drive? if so, there is no recovery partition on the drives. only internet recovery or the Recovery application process
 
ZMacintosh said:
but not accessible by standard methods or usable in that regard.

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht5446
Click to expand...

Yes it is. Recovery works exactly the same on a Fusion drive as it does a regular drive. The article you linked is showing how a Fusion drive will roll over to Internet recovery if the drive cannot be accessed (flashing question mark). That has nothing to do with accessing and using the normal Recovery HD partition from the drive.
 
Weaselboy said:
Yep... you new iMac uses a special build of 10.8.2. You can get it by following this process. Then use the DMG file you downloaded with this free app to make your USB installer.
Click to expand...

Great stuff. I'm going to sell my old iMac and was going to use go the recovery-HD-on-USB route to wipe and rebuild the drive. This will be better since I'll already have the installer so no need to hook up the old machine to the internet to download the installer to complete the rebuild.

For those who don't want to deal with downloading an extra app you can go the hard way and use Disk Utility to make the bootable install USB installer (it wasn't actually that difficult):
http://blogchampion.com/2011/03/12/...rive-installer-from-a-dmg-package-in-mac-os-x
http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/07/how-to-create-a-bootable-backup-mountain-lion-install-disk/
http://appducate.com/2012/12/install-os-x-mountain-lion-from-usb-flash-drive/
 
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