Thoughts on Lion's Recovery Partition

ByMike Moffit

We’ve seen some issues with Lion installations, particularly regarding the creation of the recovery partition. If you use a non-standard disk format (such as case-sensitive HFS+), have multiple partitions, or even Boot Camp, you’ll have issues installing Lion. In most cases, you’ll have to delete the Boot Camp partition from your machine so that Lion can repartition your drive. Only then can the recovery partition be created. If you have a Boot Camp partition, odds are you’ll need to remove it in order for the Lion installer to create the recovery partition.

The recovery partition, installed with Lion, can be accessed by holding down the Option key immediately after powering on your computer. The boot manager will be visible, and you can click on the item clearly marked “Recovery Partition.” Alternatively, you can turn on your computer while holding down the Command and R keys. For more information on the recovery partition, see Apple’s documentation.

Similar Posts

  • Time Capsule Hard Drive Upgrades

    Apple’s Time Capsule was released in 2007 in 500GB and 1TB capacities which were, at the time, sufficiently capacious to accommodate backups of…

  • The Unsung Server

    If you haven’t noticed, the most recent update to the Mac mini (July 2011) was quite a huge one. It’s a great injustice…

  • iOS Update Problems

    Whenever Apple releases a new version of iOS for their iPod, iPhone, and iPad, everyone flocks to their computers to grab the latest…

  • Backing Up vs Data Recovery Costs

    One of the toughest things a technician has to do is tell customers that their hard drive has failed and recovering the data will likely cost thousands of dollars. A Small Dog customer brought in her 24-inch iMac earlier this month because it would not start up. It was on the bench and diagnosed as a failed hard drive a few hours later, and we contacted her with a few options: replace the hard drive under warranty and return the failed drive to Apple, or send the drive to DriveSavers for professional recovery.

    DriveSavers is widely acknowledged as the most capable and best-equipped data recovery firm in the world, and our customer was happy to receive an external hard drive with 100% of her data mere days after sending in the toasted one. She was not happy about the bill, though, which was more than the cost of her computer!

    We spoke at length on the phone about how all hard drives fail eventually and how she needs to have a backup system in place. She clearly understood what I was saying, and I made it clear that our conversation was not really about sales but about her protection. No backup drive was purchased.

    Three weeks later, the warranty hard drive replacement has failed again. She didn’t back it up and has lost three weeks of work and simply cannot afford the pricey recovery again.

    David Lerner, an owner of the preeminent New York City Apple Specialist and repair shop Tekserve, has in his email signature “May you have 1,000 backups and never need one.” It’s a mantra we all should take seriously.

    This is just one more sad story about 100% preventable data loss. Do yourself a favor and get a Time Capsule, an external drive, even email important documents to yourself or stash them on your iDisk. A $200 Time Capsule is much cheaper than a $2200 data recovery!

    Do yourself a favor… (be sure to click the green links on the product page to view all specials)
    Time Capsule 500GB from $199.99
    Time Capsule 1TB from $349.99