Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

adam9c1

macrumors 68000
Original poster
May 2, 2012
1,885
312
Chicagoland
I'm running 10.14.2 on a cMP 5,1
M.2 nvme drive

I'm looking to create a recovery partition.

How can I do it post install?
 

Mike Boreham

macrumors 68040
Aug 10, 2006
3,904
1,894
UK
Are you sure you don't already have it?

How did you install 10.14.2?

The only two ways I know of checking are:
1. Reboot holding cmd+R keys should boot to Recovery
2. type diskutil list into a Terminal window to see the screenshot attached.

If you really haven't got it this long running thread has all the answers...there are a few options. IMO the easiest is to run the full installer again on top of existing. Won't lose and data or apps or settings.

Screenshot 2018-12-20 at 08.39.58.png
 

adam9c1

macrumors 68000
Original poster
May 2, 2012
1,885
312
Chicagoland
Installed High Sierra on a 2.5" SSD, upgraded that to Mojave.
Booted from that and installed Mojave onto M.2
 

Fishrrman

macrumors Penryn
Feb 20, 2009
29,175
13,223
I don't know if this advice will help, but I'll offer it anyway.

CarbonCopyCloner (free to download and use for 30 days) can create a recovery partition during the cloning process (at least it can for cloning HFS+ to HFS+).

I'm wondering if you could do the following:
WARNING: DO THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK
1. Boot from the SSD
2. Have m.2 connected
3. Open CCC
4. DE-SELECT EVERYTHING from the regular partition (you might leave at least one or two files selected so the "clone" can proceed)
5. CCC should note the absence of the recovery partition and offer to create/clone it for you
6. Let the (one file) "clone" proceed and the recovery partition may get created/updated as well.

Again, I cannot promise this will work.
I would advise you to visit the CCC website and check their documentation:
https://bombich.com

Again, CCC is FREE to download and use for 30 days (fully functional).
 
  • Like
Reactions: madrich

DeltaMac

macrumors G5
Jul 30, 2003
13,749
4,572
Delaware
If you did a standard clean install of Mojave, particularly from a bootable USB that you may have created, then you will have a recovery system partition.
That recovery partition will not be visible as a bootable choice, even in the boot-picker (Option-boot) screen.
It should show up as an item when you try the terminal command "diskutil list", as suggested in post #2 by Mike Boreham.
It WILL boot to that recovery system if you restart while holding Command-R
 

Mike Boreham

macrumors 68040
Aug 10, 2006
3,904
1,894
UK
I don't know if this advice will help, but I'll offer it anyway.

CarbonCopyCloner (free to download and use for 30 days) can create a recovery partition during the cloning process (at least it can for cloning HFS+ to HFS+).

With APFS to APFS CCC copies the Recovery (and Preboot) partitions across at the same time as cloning the main volume. You don't have to do the separate Create Partition stuff that was needed with HFS.
[doublepost=1545326030][/doublepost]
Installed High Sierra on a 2.5" SSD, upgraded that to Mojave.
Booted from that and installed Mojave onto M.2

What happens if you reboot holding cmd+R keys?
What does diskutil list show you in Terminal?
 

DeltaMac

macrumors G5
Jul 30, 2003
13,749
4,572
Delaware
There is a terminal script for that task - https://gist.github.com/jonathantneal/f20e6f3e03d5637f983f8543df70cef5

I suspect that you may need to disable SIP to allow that task to successfully complete on a Mojave system.
But then, you should be able to get that recovery partition by booting to your Mojave bootable installer, and simply reinstalling the system. That should also result in adding the recovery partition as part of the install process.
(However, whatever PCIe card that you have added to you rMP that provides the slot for the NVMe SSD might also be interfering with the process (?) )
 

Mike Boreham

macrumors 68040
Aug 10, 2006
3,904
1,894
UK
I'll give it a shot.

I was doing a CCC clone and it told me there was no recovery.

Sounds like you are using HFS+ then. Still very surprising that CCC would say that from what you have done. If you install with an Apple installer there will be a Recovery partition. The way it is easy to lose the Recovery Partition is by cloning the main partition only on an HFS formatted drive. But even then CCC prompts to ask if you want to create a Recovery Partition.
 

tywebb13

macrumors 68040
Apr 21, 2012
3,074
1,738
There is a terminal script for that task - https://gist.github.com/jonathantneal/f20e6f3e03d5637f983f8543df70cef5

I suspect that you may need to disable SIP to allow that task to successfully complete on a Mojave system.
But then, you should be able to get that recovery partition by booting to your Mojave bootable installer, and simply reinstalling the system. That should also result in adding the recovery partition as part of the install process.
(However, whatever PCIe card that you have added to you rMP that provides the slot for the NVMe SSD might also be interfering with the process (?) )

That script is for a high sierra recovery partition, not a mojave one.

It could however be modified to create a mojave one.
 
  • Like
Reactions: DeltaMac

tywebb13

macrumors 68040
Apr 21, 2012
3,074
1,738
I'm running 10.14.2 on a cMP 5,1
M.2 nvme drive

I'm looking to create a recovery partition.

How can I do it post install?

Actually starting from High Sierra, every point release update came with a recovery hd update too. Prior to that you could manually update the recovery partition using a method which dates back to 10.7.2 which I wrote about here: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/how-to-update-the-recovery-partition.2010607/ - but we don't really need the lion method anymore for high sierra or mojave because you can separately download the recovery partition installer for each point release for these versions.

Here is the current High Sierra one
http://swcdn.apple.com/content/down...7iygsqbl/macOSUpd10.13.6.RecoveryHDUpdate.pkg

Here is the current public release of the mojave one:

http://swcdn.apple.com/content/down...o4bta4xg/macOSUpd10.14.2.RecoveryHDUpdate.pkg

So you might want to give those a go.

Note: Both the lion method for 10.7.2 - 10.12.6 as well as these recovery hd installers for high sierra and mojave can be used to install a recovery partition when one did not previously exist - as well as updating older ones.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Rivvvers

Fishrrman

macrumors Penryn
Feb 20, 2009
29,175
13,223
tywebb --

Thanks very much for the links you provided in reply 11 above !!
 

BradMacPro

macrumors regular
Mar 30, 2005
190
81
Actually starting from High Sierra, every point release update came with a recovery hd update too. Prior to that you could manually update the recovery partition using a method which dates back to 10.7.2 which I wrote about here: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/how-to-update-the-recovery-partition.2010607/ - but we don't really need the lion method anymore for high sierra or mojave because you can separately download the recovery partition installer for each point release for these versions.

Here is the current High Sierra one
http://swcdn.apple.com/content/down...7iygsqbl/macOSUpd10.13.6.RecoveryHDUpdate.pkg

Here is the current public release of the mojave one:

http://swcdn.apple.com/content/down...o4bta4xg/macOSUpd10.14.2.RecoveryHDUpdate.pkg

So you might want to give those a go.

Note: Both the lion method for 10.7.2 - 10.12.6 as well as these recovery hd installers for high sierra and mojave can be used to install a recovery partition when one did not previously exist - as well as updating older ones.

Do you have a link to the current 10.14.4 version of RecoveryHDUpdate.pkg. ? Thanks in advance.
 

tywebb13

macrumors 68040
Apr 21, 2012
3,074
1,738
Strange! All the three links for High Sierra (above) and Mojave Recovery Partitions from http:// swcdn.apple.com... etc.... bring my browser to an empty page!
Am I doing something wrong or is my Chrome browser doing it???
Ed

It is not unusual for an old link to go dead from the swcdn server when apple remove them. However as far as I can tell all 3 are still live. I'm downloading all 3 now:

Capture.PNG
 
Last edited:

jbarley

macrumors 601
Jul 1, 2006
4,023
1,895
Vancouver Island
Strange! All the three links for High Sierra (above) and Mojave Recovery Partitions from http:// swcdn.apple.com... etc.... bring my browser to an empty page!
Am I doing something wrong or is my Chrome browser doing it???
Ed
This is what I get for all 3 links, a blank page with this download prompt.
Using FireFox browser.

Screen Shot 2019-04-08 at 5.40.41 PM.png
 

jezzastern

macrumors member
Mar 28, 2008
37
10
These links take you to the file itself - just accept “save file”, and run the package file once it has downloaded to your Downloads folder. If you are having trouble downloading these links with Chrome, and you don’t have Firefox installed, try opening these links and downloading them in Safari.
 

timelzaragozano

macrumors newbie
Jun 15, 2019
7
1
Actually starting from High Sierra, every point release update came with a recovery hd update too. Prior to that you could manually update the recovery partition using a method which dates back to 10.7.2 which I wrote about here: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/how-to-update-the-recovery-partition.2010607/ - but we don't really need the lion method anymore for high sierra or mojave because you can separately download the recovery partition installer for each point release for these versions.

Here is the current High Sierra one
http://swcdn.apple.com/content/down...7iygsqbl/macOSUpd10.13.6.RecoveryHDUpdate.pkg

Here is the current public release of the mojave one:

http://swcdn.apple.com/content/down...o4bta4xg/macOSUpd10.14.2.RecoveryHDUpdate.pkg

So you might want to give those a go.

Note: Both the lion method for 10.7.2 - 10.12.6 as well as these recovery hd installers for high sierra and mojave can be used to install a recovery partition when one did not previously exist - as well as updating older ones.

Hi there,

Bit late to the party here but coming up against the same issue of not having a recovery partition - checked diskutil list and there is only the internal drive, nothing synthesised. I'm on 10.14.3, and downloaded the recovery update as you suggested, unpacked and ran it, but nothing then seems to have happened bar it asking me if I now want to delete the installer. Checked Terminal again, the same, rebooted, still the same. Have I skipped a step? Apologies if this is blindingly obvious, but what am I missing?! Thanks so much for any useful input!
 

tywebb13

macrumors 68040
Apr 21, 2012
3,074
1,738
Hi there,

Bit late to the party here but coming up against the same issue of not having a recovery partition - checked diskutil list and there is only the internal drive, nothing synthesised. I'm on 10.14.3, and downloaded the recovery update as you suggested, unpacked and ran it, but nothing then seems to have happened bar it asking me if I now want to delete the installer. Checked Terminal again, the same, rebooted, still the same. Have I skipped a step? Apologies if this is blindingly obvious, but what am I missing?! Thanks so much for any useful input!

Just a few of things.

1. You have 10.14.3. The links I had before were to the 10.14.2 and 10.14.4 recovery partitions, not the 10.14.3 one.

2. Update to 10.14.5 (current version) with combo update ( https://support.apple.com/kb/DL2000?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US )

3. If you still don't have a recovery partition, you can get the 10.14.5 one here:
http://swcdn.apple.com/content/down...xqr5mbjt/macOSUpd10.14.5.RecoveryHDUpdate.pkg
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: timelzaragozano

timelzaragozano

macrumors newbie
Jun 15, 2019
7
1
Just a few of things.

1. You have 10.14.3. The link I had before was to the 10.14.2 and 10.14.4 recovery partitions, not the 10.14.3 one.

2. Update to 10.14.5 (current version) with combo update ( https://support.apple.com/kb/DL2000?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US )

3. If you still don't have a recovery partition, you can get the 10.14.5 one here:
http://swcdn.apple.com/content/down...xqr5mbjt/macOSUpd10.14.5.RecoveryHDUpdate.pkg

Thank you! I did wonder if the different version might cause an issue but had so many other processes going on yesterday I couldn’t update too! I’ll give that a go today and see how I get on. Really appreciate the input.
 

timelzaragozano

macrumors newbie
Jun 15, 2019
7
1
Just a few of things.

1. You have 10.14.3. The links I had before were to the 10.14.2 and 10.14.4 recovery partitions, not the 10.14.3 one.

2. Update to 10.14.5 (current version) with combo update ( https://support.apple.com/kb/DL2000?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US )

3. If you still don't have a recovery partition, you can get the 10.14.5 one here:
http://swcdn.apple.com/content/down...xqr5mbjt/macOSUpd10.14.5.RecoveryHDUpdate.pkg

OK, went to update to the latest version today and it wouldn't let me as the drive is formatted to HFS not APFS. Can't seem to convert to APFS as there is no recovery partition to boot from, so I'm going round in circles!

I bought this Macbook second hand, and although they claimed it was factory reset, it clearly wasn't, and looking now it seems they restored it to from a CCC backup. Had I realised when I first got hold of the thing, I would have just started again from scratch, redownloaded Mojave and been done with it, but now having transferred everything over from my old machine, downloaded the programs I need etc, I am hesitant to do anything that would cause me to lose everything and have to start again.

Any thoughts? Thanks again
 

tywebb13

macrumors 68040
Apr 21, 2012
3,074
1,738
Maybe you could try downloading the full installer for 10.14.5 at https://apps.apple.com/us/app/macos-mojave/id1398502828?mt=12

This could maybe do 3 things:

1. Update to 10.14.5

2. Create a 10.14.5 recovery partition

3. Convert to apfs.

I think that's worth a try anyway.

You could just run it over your existing system and hope for the best. All files and apps should stay there. It doesn't have to be a clean install.

On the other hand if it doesn't work, maybe then make a bootable usb installer for 10.14.5, boot up from the usb, erase the drive and reinstall the system (i.e. do a clean install). Of course if you do this you should do a backup first.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.