Recovery Partition

2 Oct 2018 17:07:18

Rick Churchill

I have made a bootable USB to install Mojave OS on my new internal SSD when it arrives but there is one aspect about which I have a doubt and that is the recovery partition. Is a recovery partition actually required as it is possible to use my USB drive to boot the machine and then install the OS that way? I will also have a fall-back position where I can put back the replaced SSD (which I will keep for that purpose).

I do not wish to clone the existing SSD to my new SSD (which I think will be more complicated without an enclosure in which to place it) as I want a “clean” install of the OS. If a recovery partition is useful how do I make one which presumably would be best to do before installing the OS? (I found Recovery Partition Creator 3.7 app on a website but am loathe to clutter my Mac with extra software if it isn’t needed)

Incidentally my MacBook is running High Sierra and when I click Software Update it says my Macbook is up to date! When I made the bootable USB, Mojave was the only OS available as expected. Because I downloaded it only and did not instal it, does the Mac think that my computer is somehow up to date or is there a distribution list for which my Macbook has yet to reach the top? I presumably could use the USB Bootable drive to update my present SSD to Mojave OS and not wait.

Re: Recovery Partition

3 Oct 2018 10:23:44

Mick Burrell

I think you will have a recovery partition but you can test it by plugging the bootable drive into your Mac and restarting while holding down the alt/option key to show you all bootable drives.

A recovery partition is very desirable for any trouble shooting in future - for example, booting into recovery utilities to reinstall an operating system. It's also more convenient if you need to use a Disk Utility that's not on your startup drive.

Re: Recovery Partition

3 Oct 2018 15:10:53

Rick Churchill

Thanks Mike. Yes I do have a recovery partition on my existing drive but I may have all the utilities on my Bootable USB drive. I can see that having the utilities "on board" is more useful than a USB stick at home in a drawer!

My fall back position, should my new drive fail in the future, would be to reinstall the existing drive. In this case the recovery partition would be of no use.

Am looking on the internet now to see if I can create the partition on my new SSD (now arrived but not installed) using those tools on the Bootable drive.

I may update the present SSD to Mojave before I do anything.

Re: Recovery Partition

5 Oct 2018 11:51:05

Rick Churchill

Well I now have a MacBook Pro with 1Tbyte of SSD on-board storage. Total cost: for the hardware from Megamac- £530, days off my life – several!

It was harder than expected. The actual hardware change was easy – take out the 10 screws, disconnect the battery, remove the screw holding down the SSD board, swap the board and then put it back together but the software was more problematic.

For a start my bootable USB failed after installing Mojave OS with the error message “An error occurred validating the installer data. The download is either damaged or incomplete”. So I replaced the original SSD and downloaded another file from Apple and made another bootable USB only to have the same happen again.

Next I tried doing an Internet Recovery which failed with the message: “The recovery server could not be contacted”. (I’m not sure how this method of recovery is supposed to work anyway as I cannot see how the computer, without an OS, can use the wifi connection when it has not been setup).

Lastly and successfully, I used my Time Machine backup which unfortunately may not be a “clean” install but it has given me a recovery partition. Now I can have all my pictures and music on the same machine. When I plug my iPhone in I do not get the message that it cannot find iTunes and when I try to unmount the external drive it doesn’t caution me that iTunes is still using it!

Re: Recovery Partition

5 Oct 2018 15:10:59

Trevor Hewson

Well done Rick!