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Bootable Thumb drive from recovery partition?
- Thread starter JesterJJZ
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I assume your machine came with Mountain Lion?
You can follow this process to snag the 4.7GB installer. Then use this free app with an 8GB USB key to make your installer.
Maybe if you did a little research you would have found OS X Recovery Disk Assistant v1.0 or Lion Disk Maker (for 10.7 & 10.8).
Neither of those does anything to obtain the install image, so don't do what the OP wanted.
Lion DiskMaker ( US Or French )
Real simple...
http://liondiskmaker.com
http://liondiskmaker.com/?page_id=27
http://www.macworld.com/article/116...sier_to_create_a_bootable_lion_installer.html
Real simple...
http://liondiskmaker.com
http://liondiskmaker.com/?page_id=27
http://www.macworld.com/article/116...sier_to_create_a_bootable_lion_installer.html
You are missing my point. Lion Disk Maker (which I linked in my post) requires the 4.7GB OS X installer image to make the USB key or it does absolutely nothing. To get that installer image you need to follow this process I also linked in my post.
I think this is wrong regarding OS X Recovery Disk Assistant v1.0.
The linked page says, "the Mac must have an existing Recovery HD." Simple logic suggests that it's copying the existing Recovery HD partition to the target external disk. To me, that sounds exactly like what the OP asked for.
Since the Recovery Disk Assistant is a smaller download (~1 MB), I'd start with that, try it, and see what happens. If the resulting thumb drive is bootable as a Recovery HD, then problem solved. No point making things more complex than necessary.
Or maybe I'm misunderstanding what the OP is asking for. The Recovery HD is bootable, and from there the OS can be reinstalled using a remote download from Apple.
OP said he wants to make an "install disk." That is what I explained how to make. The fact he mentioned the lack of "physical copies" of the OS, to me reenforces that is what he is after. That is how I read it anyway.
The USB key that results from running the Recovery Disk Assistant simply replicates the functionality of the existing Recovery HD partition on the internal drive.
Thanks guys. I did the internet recovery thing and yanked out my thumbdrive upon reboot. Worked fine from there. Bit of a pain in the ass just to be able to have something that should be included with your computer to begin with.
Can you install Mountain Lion without a putting in a recovery partition?
Can you install Mountain Lion without a putting in a recovery partition?
There is no way to stop the recovery partition from being placed there during the ML install, but you can remove it afterward it you like.
Here are instructions.
I would leave it though. It only takes 650MB and can be useful for troubleshooting.
Ah ok, I thought maybe it was the entire 12GB that get's downloaded during internet recovery.
Nope... what happens is that recovery key allows you do hit the Apple servers and DL the full 4.7GB OS if you need to.
In your defense, Apple has not done a very good job explaining all this to new users. Many come from the Windows world where there often is a full Windows install on a hidden partition, and people think this is the same thing on the Mac side.
Have they explained any of it at all? I've been on 10.6.8 still and don't really care much about Lion/ML still so I haven't kept up on it. It's like they don't want you to have physical copies at all. I've never liked recovery partitions, always prefer a hard copy approach. Being able to make your own install dvd or flash drive should be one of the first things that pops up when you turn on a Mac the first time. Somewhere in the setup stage they should ask you if you want it.
What else get's downloaded during the internet recovery? The install image is just under 5GB, what's the rest? I tried running internet recovery to a 8GB flash drive first and it said I need at least 12GB free so I had to use a 16GB one. The image itself fit on the 8GB stick just fine afterwards.
http://www.apple.com/osx/recovery/
Apple has this info up that talks about Recovery, but if you look that over it does not really explain the entire OS needs to be downloaded over the Internet. So it is easy to see why many people are confused by this.
I agree it would be nice if Apple provided a simple utility to allow one to make their own installer USB key.
All that gets downloaded is the OS, but if you watch the DL folder in Finder as the DL progresses it makes a few temp files for the data as the DL progresses the pulls them together into the one DMG at the end... so I think by doing that it is using almost double the space until the point it combines the temp files.
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Nice work there.
