Unable to boot into recovery mode after erasing/reinstalling

[SubtleD]

Hi all,

I recently purchased a new MBP and am now preparing my old one for sale. I booted into recovery mode, erased the SSD and reinstalled Catalina.

The reinstall was successful, but I wanted to check something so ended up going through the new user setup process. I then tried to boot back into recovery mode to wipe/reinstall again so that the new owner could start the setup from scratch, but pressing CMD+R now takes me into Internet recovery mode instead of normal recovery mode.

Checking the output of "diskutil ap list", I see 5 APFS volumes as expected (System, Data, Preboot, Recovery, VM). Comparing the output with my new machine I see the same thing, with one difference - on the new machine, the "System" volume is disk1s1 and mounted at "/". On my old machine, disk1s1 is the "Data" volume, with the "System" volume being disk1s5 instead. Additionally, instead of being mounted at "/", it's mounted at "/Volumes/Macintosh HD" (there's nothing mounted at "/").

When erasing the disk, I chose the disk itself (APPLE SSD...") and used the following options:
Name: Macintosh HD
Format: APFS
Scheme: GUID Partition Map

Any ideas what I've done wrong?

 

[SubtleD]

After re-reading the Apple documentation I tried erasing the disk again but setting Format to MacOS Extended (Journaled) and allowing the installer to convert it to APFS, with the same results.

 

[Taz Mangus]

After re-reading the Apple documentation I tried erasing the disk again but setting Format to MacOS Extended (Journaled) and allowing the installer to convert it to APFS, with the same results.

Try running First Aid on the drive.

 

[SubtleD]

You mean after the installation? Have just tried that, no errors found and the behaviour is still the same.

 

[Taz Mangus]

In Disk Utility, select View->Show All Devices. Post a picture showing the info.

 

[SubtleD]

Pictures attached, as well as the output of "diskutil ap list".

 

[SubtleD]

I think the above might be a red herring - the diskutil output was captured when running recovery mode from a USB stick, at which point the USB is obviously mounted at "/". When booting into the OS normally, the System volume is mounted at "/" as expected.

So I'm now at a loss as to why it won't go into recovery mode from the SSD. If it makes any difference, I installed the OS from a USB stick built with the Catalina Patcher (from the dosdude1 website). I also tried installing the recovery partition patch it offered, although not entirely sure what that actually does.

As a next step, I will probably try installing Mojave and see if that helps, then upgrade to Catalina.

 

[ssls6]

Maybe worth a read

My recovery issue

 

[SubtleD]

Thanks, unfortunately I don't think that applies here. The machine in question is a 2014 model so doesn't have the T2 chip, I did also sign out of iCloud and make sure the device was no longer shown in my account before wiping.

 

[SubtleD]

New problem... been trying to create a bootable USB for Mojave using the patcher tool on my new MBP, but get the attached error each time. Any ideas? Same issue occurs with High Sierra.

 

[satcomer]

New problem... been trying to create a bootable USB for Mojave using the patcher tool on my new MBP, but get the attached error each time. Any ideas? Same issue occurs with High Sierra.

Try formatting the drive HFS+ Journaled and try again to see if that helps!

 

[SubtleD]

I formatted it as Mac OS Extended (Journaled), which I think is the same thing?

The error comes after about 10 minutes or so after it's already copied a number of files to the disk.

 

[DeltaMac]

Why do you think you need to use the dosdude patcher tool to create a bootable USB? Your MBAir doesn't need a patched installer, as it natively supports Catalina.
I only use the patcher app to download the installer app, then use the terminal to make the bootable USB installer.

 

[SubtleD]

That was the way I created the Catalina USB and it worked fine (at least it didn't report an error in the same way the Mojave/HS ones are doing), but you're right - I'll try using the method on Apple's site.

 

[Taz Mangus]

Pictures attached, as well as the output of "diskutil ap list".

A few things I saw, compared to what I saw in my diskutil ap list:

• Macintosh HD was being mounted at /Volumes/Macintosh HD, instead of being mounted at /.
• VM was not mounted at all, instead of being mounted at /private/var/vm.
• Recovery was not mounted at all, instead of being mounted at /Volumes/Recovery.

It could be that for some reason the Recovery Volume could not be mounted and that maybe why when you attempted to boot into Recovery you ended you in Internet Recovery.

 

[SubtleD]

Why do you think you need to use the dosdude patcher tool to create a bootable USB? Your MBAir doesn't need a patched installer, as it natively supports Catalina.
I only use the patcher app to download the installer app, then use the terminal to make the bootable USB installer.

We have a winner ? After building the USB using the instructions at https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201372 (using the installer downloaded via the dosdude Patcher) I can now boot into recovery mode. I'd assumed that the Patcher was also a general purpose USB creator, seems I was wrong.

Thanks everyone for your help!