Recovery Partition w/ Disk Utility Imaging Issue

[overhauls]

Hi,

Hope this is the right forum for this question. I have a bit of a problem capturing complete disk images through disk utility.

In earlier version of macOS (around Mavericks and older), I was previously able to capture the disk image of any computer that already had OS X installed along with the hidden recovery partition. This let me make a bootable image with the included recovery and push it to multiple machines (this is way quicker than running the macOS installer on every machine I come across).

Now, when I try to capture the newer versions of macOS with this same disk utility method, it doesn't contain the accompanying recovery partition. Starting around El Capitan, this disk utility method creates bootable images of OS X already installed, but the recovery HD is missing. I tried capturing the image both from the location of the physical disk and from the partition containing the macOS install.

I can create a bootable system images with the AutoDMG program that contain the recovery partition, but I need to modify system files before creating the image. This is why I liked using the disk utility method, it would let me modify files before capturing the image. Is there anyway to correctly capture the recovery HD within disk utility for newer versions of macOS?

If not, are there any alternatives for what I'm looking to do? I can probably modify the image and push it via the macOS server application, but I was hoping for an easier method.

Any help would be much appreciated!

 

[chrfr]

Hi,

Hope this is the right forum for this question. I have a bit of a problem capturing complete disk images through disk utility.

In earlier version of macOS (around Mavericks and older), I was previously able to capture the disk image of any computer that already had OS X installed along with the hidden recovery partition. This let me make a bootable image with the included recovery and push it to multiple machines (this is way quicker than running the macOS installer on every machine I come across).

Now, when I try to capture the newer versions of macOS with this same disk utility method, it doesn't contain the accompanying recovery partition. Starting around El Capitan, this disk utility method creates bootable images of OS X already installed, but the recovery HD is missing. I tried capturing the image both from the location of the physical disk and from the partition containing the macOS install.

I can create a bootable system images with the AutoDMG program that contain the recovery partition, but I need to modify system files before creating the image. This is why I liked using the disk utility method, it would let me modify files before capturing the image. Is there anyway to correctly capture the recovery HD within disk utility for newer versions of macOS?

If not, are there any alternatives for what I'm looking to do? I can probably modify the image and push it via the macOS server application, but I was hoping for an easier method.

Any help would be much appreciated!

This isn't a great forum for enterprise type Mac administration.
You'd be best served to get away from imaging the way you do; AutoDMG and a tool like DeployStudio will work better and more flexibly. What system files do you need to change that prevents you from using AutoDMG?
Also, do you really need the recovery partition? For my environment, if we "reimage" a computer, it's done using DeployStudio, not Apple's recovery, and if you're customizing files on the disk, then using Apple's recovery environment negates that.