Clean Install: Recovery system can't be created

I have a late 2007 white Macbook. I installed a 320 GB drive into the optical bay and my O/S drive was a 120 GB OCZ Vertex+
I had previously had a Crucial M4 as the OS drive for months. I used SuperDuper to clone it to the OCZ about a week ago and had no problems.
The system was running fine until a few days ago when it started acting weird, so I tried to reboot. I got the blinking folder with a question mark and couldn't do anything else. I was able to recover some of my data off of the SSD using my brother's MBP and DiskWarrior. I also created a 4 GB Lion bootable USB.
I erased the SSD using disk utility and then tried to run the installation, but I keep getting "Mac OS X can't be installed on the disk XXXX, because a recovery system can't be created."
Any help would be much appreciated.

Well, you cannot see the Recovery HD partition and formatting (erasing) the drive does not remove it. Only partitioning the drive will remove it. The error you are getting is the error produced when there is another partition on the drive that cannot be altered or the drive is not prepped correctly or a Recovery HD partition already exists or there is something corrupted on the drive.
I suggest that you boot from your installer flash drive and use Disk Utility to repartition the SSD:
Drive Preparation
1. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. When done quit DU and return to the main menu. Select Reinstall Lion and click on the Continue button. When prompted click on the option to See Other Disks then select the SSD as the target.

Similar Messages

I get an "install failed" message. "Recovery system can't be created-click restart to return to previous version of OS X." This doesn't work. My Mac continues to try to install Mountain Lion. What is the elegant way to get my system back?

I get an "install failed" message. "Recovery system can't be created—click restart to return to previous version of OS X." This doesn't work. My Mac continues to try to install Mountain Lion. What is the elegant way to get my system back?

The first time I attempted to install ML was on a late 2011 MBP. It ran for three minutes then gave me the error message: Could not install OSX due to an unexpected error. I was using the original ML install app, not a USB or other drive.
After a couple of restarts wiht the same result I saw a message to the effect that the install was trying to close open apps. I closed apps manually a few times to no avail. I shut down instead of restarting then booted into Safe mode (hold down the shift key when starting) and that did it. The install went smoothly after that.
I since installed ML in two iMacs using a cloned copy of the install app on a USB drive. This time I shut down the computers and booted into Safe Mode first and there were no problems.
I don't know if this issue is the one causing you these problems but it is a simple enough solution to try.
Jay

HT4929 I am unable to install OS XLion and get a message that it can't be installed on Disk Mackintosh HD because a recovery system can't be created. I am then referred to apple support but am unable to find anything which can help. Can someone help pleas

Unable to install OS X Lion as "...it can't be installed on Disk Mackintosh HD because recovery system can't be created. Visit www.apple......"
Visiting the web pages does not help me can someone please point me in the right direction ?

OK. You have a Boot Camp partition which is why the issue. See the following:
It seems the issue is that the space at the "bottom" of your available space when Lion installs it's partition is already occupied by BootCamp. The fix was to go into Disk Utility; Select your Hard Drive; Select Partition; Move the bottom of your main partition "up" a bit to create a space for Lion; close Disk Utility; Install Lion; once Lion is successfully installed, go back into Disk Partition and drag the bottom of your main partition back "down" to the bottom of the window.
In your case use Disk Utility to "shrink" your OS X partition a little more than 1 GB.
To resize the drive do the following:
1. Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
After the main menu appears select Disk Utility and click on the Continue button. Select the hard drive's main entry then click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
2. You should see the graphical sizing window showing the existing partitions. A portion may appear as a blue rectangle representing the used space on a partition.
3. In the lower right corner of the sizing rectangle for each partition is a resizing gadget. Select it with the mouse and move the bottom of the rectangle upwards until you have reduced the existing partition enough to create the desired empty space. The space below the resized partition will appear gray. Click on the Apply button and wait until the process has completed.
Remember that you only need to shrink the OS X partition a little more than 1 GB. Now, when you try the Mountain Lion installation the installer will be able to make the Recovery HD.

Mountain Lion install error: "Cannot be installed because a recovery system can't be created". What does this mean?

How can I install Mountain Lion OS... I get error message saying a Recovery System can't be created... Any help or ideas out there?

After a week of dealing with AppleCare we discovered there was a corrupted recovery disk on my hard drive when i upgraded from Snow Leopard to Lion, therefore not allowing the upgrade to Mountain Lion. So ended up backing up the computer, then formatting the computer and reloading SNOW LEOPARD then upgraded straight to Mountain Lion, then restored my user files. This has worked, and am so grateful to AppleCare for their tireless help with diagnosing and helping to sort this out! they've been fantastic!

TS1600 OS X could not be installed on your computer. OSX can't be installed on the disk Macintosh HD because a recovery system can't be created.

I just bought the new OS X 10.8 and downloaded but when I tried to install it on my computer Installation Failed and I got this message:
"OS X can't be installed on the disk Macintosh HD , because a recovery system can't be created."
I tried so many times but the same message comes out to me each time and when I restart the computer I am back to the same OS X installer and can't access my computer any more so I am really stuck I can't install the new OS X version and can't go back to the old OS X version or access my computer.
Please help
My computer is MacBook Pro 13"

OK. You have a Boot Camp partition which is why the issue. See the following:
It seems the issue is that the space at the "bottom" of your available space when Lion installs it's partition is already occupied by BootCamp. The fix was to go into Disk Utility; Select your Hard Drive; Select Partition; Move the bottom of your main partition "up" a bit to create a space for Lion; close Disk Utility; Install Lion; once Lion is successfully installed, go back into Disk Partition and drag the bottom of your main partition back "down" to the bottom of the window.
In your case use Disk Utility to "shrink" your OS X partition a little more than 1 GB.
To resize the drive do the following:
1. Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
After the main menu appears select Disk Utility and click on the Continue button. Select the hard drive's main entry then click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
2. You should see the graphical sizing window showing the existing partitions. A portion may appear as a blue rectangle representing the used space on a partition.
3. In the lower right corner of the sizing rectangle for each partition is a resizing gadget. Select it with the mouse and move the bottom of the rectangle upwards until you have reduced the existing partition enough to create the desired empty space. The space below the resized partition will appear gray. Click on the Apply button and wait until the process has completed.
Remember that you only need to shrink the OS X partition a little more than 1 GB. Now, when you try the Mountain Lion installation the installer will be able to make the Recovery HD.

Help: install failure-Lion "can't be installed because recovery system can't be created.

After selecting c:/ drive for install (GUID, Journaled, Snow Leopard 10.6.8), the install procedure runs about 2 minutes then halts with message, Lion "can't be installed because the recovery system can't be created." What is a probable cause, and what is a solution? Anyone know? Is tehre a FAQ on this? Can't find one.

I had similar issues.
The following article pointed me in a better direction:
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-20081398-263/os-x-10.7-cannot-be-installed-on-certain-drives/
I tried to go the partition route, but for some reason the operation failed.
I decided to attempt a Lion install again afterwards anyway, but once again it failed, but now my whole system was hosed and could not revert back to Snow Leopard.
I did a restore from time machine. Once that completed, I attempted to install Lion again, and ta da! it works now.
What a pain.

The Mac OS X Lion begins installing and then stops and gives the following error message: Mac OS X can't be installed on the disk Macintosh HD because a recovery system can't be created. How do I fix this problem?

OS X Lion begins installing and then error message comes up that it can't be installed on MacIntosh HD because a recovery system can't be created. What do I do to fix this problem?

What to do if the installer warns that no Recovery HD can be created
Some disk partition configurations may result in the OS X Lion installer reporting that it could not create a Recovery HD. In these situations, even if you are permitted to continue the install, you should quit the install and create an external, bootable OS X Lion hard drive with a Recovery HD, first. You will be able to return to the upgrade to OS X Lion on your computer's boot drive after creating the external Recovery HD.
Important notes
Your storage device must have at least 13 GB available (after formatting) to install Lion and an Internet Restore partition.
These steps will erase and reformat the storage device. OS X Lion: About Lion Recovery will instruct you on setting up the storage device to use the GUID partition scheme and the Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format, which are required to install Lion and an Internet Restore partition on your external storage device. You should back up any important files that are on the device to a different drive.
This procedure will install a version of the OS X Lion that is compatible with the Mac it was created with. Using this Lion system with a different kind of Mac may produce unpredictable results.
Your computer's serial number will be sent to Apple to help authenticate your request to download and install OS X Lion.

"Recovery system can't be created" error when reinstalling Lion from recovery system

I get the infamous OS installation error "Install failed... because a recovery system can't be created" – but in fact, the recovery system already exists, since I'm installing from it, and incidentally, I've previously already used it for an Internet reinstallation. I've tried about a half dozen iterations now.
Here's the exact sequence of events:
Reboot on recovery drive.
Select option to reinstall the OS from the network.
License agreement, etc; then select drive -> install -> sign into Apple store.
"Downloading additional components" message. 1st attempt consistently fails at this stage, need to restart at step 2.
Download for roughly 20 minutes, then automatic reboot -> "Installing Mac OS X".
After about 10 minutes: "Install failed. Mac OS X could not be installed on your computer. Mac OS X can't be installed on the disk ..., because a recovery system can't be created. Visit www.apple.com/support/no-recovery to learn more."
I've pawed through innumerable posts of people who have gotten the same error message, but haven't found one that reproduces my circumstances. I've reviewed the KB articles "OS X: About OS X Recovery" and "OS X Lion: Installer reports This disk cannot be used to start up your computer", with no luck. Based on a suggestion in the second KB article, I've reduced the primary partition size by roughly a GB and retried - no luck.
See this thread if you want to know why I'm reinstalling the OS, even though it's (more or less) functioning and I have Time Machine backups. It would also make me feel a lot better to know that the reinstallation would work in case of real need. Thanks in advance for any help.
-- Phil

Philip Keller wrote:
John,
I think I'm "reinstalling OS X by booting OS X Recovery": I reboot with command-R depressed, or I reboot with Alt depressed and choose the recovery parition, and then I start the installation process from the list of things I can do. Are we talking about the same thing?
Yes, exactly.
I think that OS X Internet Recovery would be necessary only if you were to attempt a Lion installation with a completely empty HD, implying that even a Recovery partition has not been created. Your USB flash drive is the way to cope in that circumstance. If you can install Lion by booting the recovery partition as you described, it seems to me that it is all that is necessary and there is nothing to fix, despite the error message you see.
I'm surprised that Internet Recovery works at all, given that your Mac is not one of those allegedly eligible to use it.
Without a similar 2006 iMac to test, I can only speculate that the "abysmal distribution system" as baltwo describes it just doesn't work well with earlier Macs, and that Apple may not have tested it extensively with them. If I were you I would rely upon that USB installer much more than OS X Recovery or OS X Internet Recovery. I prefer not to rely upon any installation method that can possibly result in "the server is not available at this time" or such nonsense, but that is the direction in which Apple has been going for a long time.
An OS X installation log exists at /var/log/ that you can examine using Console, probably named "install.log". Deciphering it is another challenge.

Trying to reinstall Lion, but "a recovery system can't be created"?

Hi guys
So, the over the last couple of months, my Macbook Pro from late-2011 started acting a bit slow, so the other day I figured it might be time to reformat and get a fresh start. At the time I had Mavericks installed and a Windows 7 Boot Camp partition. I erased the whole hard drive from Internet Recovery's Disk Utility and let it download and reinstall Lion on my newly created Mac OS Extended (Journaled) partition. Only it won't install. I get met with the error, that: Mac OS X cannot be installed, because a recovery disc can't be created.
I've searched a lot for what could cause this, but frankly I'm stumped, as all of the fixes list wiping the hard drive and reinstalling from scratch.
Thanks

Installer reports "This disk cannot be used to start up your computer"

Trying to install Mountian Lion onto Macbook Pro and Install failed because a recovery system can't be created What do I do?

My Macbook Pro is set up to run Windows via bootcamp and I am trying to install Mountain Lion.
I cant install and has come up with an error message telling me Install Failed because it cant create a recovery system. I am not very technical and can just about spell 'Mac' so I need help
Thanks

Installer reports "This disk cannot be used to start up your computer"

Can't install Lion get the message "recovery system can't be created" -see picture of my screen

So I have been trying to install Lion for 2 days. The screen below is what I keep getting. Here's what I have done so far...
1.) Delete files (I have now have about 50GB free)
2.) Complete all updates (running 10.6.8)
2.) Disk Utility repair with Snow Leopard CD
3.) Remove Lion and re-download
4.) Went to the www.apple.com/support/norecovery page, but the solutions didn't seem to help or really apply to my problem
No matter what I do, the following occurs:
1.) Starts installing (says it has 33 minutes to go)
2.) Gets to about 29 minutes and I get the screen below!
I even went to the Apple store today and tried some of this with a One to One assistant, he couldn't resolve it either and hadn't seen this message before with anyone else. When he asked a "Genius" he told me to delete more files. But that didn't help either!!
HELP!!!!

Hi!
I Have a macbook pro 13' core 2 duo 2.53Ghz and am getting the exact same reaction!
it's been a few hours since i've been trying to install lion. Download took about 2hrs and everything fine until, each time i've tried, announcing exactly "33 minutes" and popping up that screen a few minutes after a stuck "29 minutes"
Anyone has ideas?
I've seen a lot of threads and thought it might be because of that Paralell windows 7 i never use. But I even tried deleting it all and the problem persists. I'll be at the apple store tomorow and try to figure something out.
this is just not fair...
my screen:
Yet... I'm still really excited about Lion! I'm pretty sure this nightmare will be worthy after all! Thanks for helping out!

OS X installation failed because a recovery system can't be created

Hi everyone,
I am running Mac OS X 10.7.4. My macbook is 2.7Ghz Intel Core i7 and has 4GB 1333 Mhz DDR3. I recently bought Mountain Lion from mac appstore and I just cant seem to install it. Everytime I run the installer, it takes 3 minutes and then restarts the macbook and then the installation process starts. When the time remaining reaches about 30 minutes, the following error shows up. I have tried installing it atleast 5-6 times and it doesnt work. Also, i dont have a recovery partition, I dont know why its not there. Pls find the screenshot of my disk utility as well.
I have tried following methods and it still doesnt work:-
Created a 10GB partion and tried running the installer again. Didnt work. Deleted this partition and tried again, didnt work.
Created a 5GB partion. Error still comes.Didnt work. Deleted it. Didnt work.
Created a 2GB partion. Error still comes.Didnt work. Deleted it and still didnt work.
Created a 2GB partion and a 5GB partion and named the 5GB one 'Recovery'. Tried again. Didnt work. Deleted the 2GB one and tried again. Didnot work. Then deleted 5GB one and still didnt work.
I thought ill just install a fresh copy, and put in Mac OX 10.5.6 install CD in it (the one it came with) and tried to install the OSX again. After restart a gray windows comes up with some error stuff written on it and it wouldnt let me install this. It says press power button to restart. So, this didnt work either. (I can give you the screenshot, if you need it)
While rebooting, I pressed Command + R, and went on to internet recovery mode. It took about 4 hours and then it started installing mountain lion onto my sytem and again it failed. Same error as in picture 1.
I have tried everything and it just doesnt work. I am really fedup. Please tell me how can I resolve this issue.

Finally, I found the solution.
I used the default installtion DVD that came with the macbook and booted it. From there, I went to the disk partition and formated the entire partition. Just to be extra safe, I zeroed out all the data (but you dont have to do this). After that, I installed the OS X that was on the setup CD i.e. Snow Leopard. After installing snow leapord, I updated and ran the mountain lion installer again. This time, it worked fine. Also, a recovery partition also got created automatically. So, if youve tried everything and failed, reformat everything and install it again. Works for sure.

Recovery system can't be created

I get this message while trying to install Mountain Lion. Is there a workaround to this problem? I didn't get this message when installing my previous upgrades, and I don't want to have to wipe the disk and reformat my iMac in order to upgrade.

Hey, Denis D,
I'm having the same issue and here is my disk setup:
/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:           GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk0
   1:                                      EFI                         209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            999.3 GB   disk0s2
   3:                  Apple_Boot                                 650.0 MB   disk0s3
I don't do a lot of Terminal level work, so what should this command look like for my setup above to delete the Recovery HD?
diskutil eraseVolume HFS+ Blank /dev/disk0s4
I think I can do the drive partitioning part after that.
Appreciate any help you can give.
Thanks.

Can't install the OS--Recovery system could not be created.

So I wiped the hard drive of my macbook, and bought OS X 10.8. I made the little recovery USB thingy, and tried desperately to get it to install the new system. However, it keeps telling me that OSX could not be installed on your computer because a recovery system can't be created. It asks me to restart over and over again, but so far, no dice. HELLLP!

Same problem here. This is my configuration:
- SSD drive with 2 partitions: 1 for the OS and the applications and 1 for BootCamp
- regular HD for data
- 2nd regular HD for TimeMachine
I've tried almost any solution suggested in different discussions (increasing the partition manually...) except of erasing disk and doing a clean install because I'm afraid of losing data of the Windows partition which is not backed up by TimeMachine. I'm not sure how to copy this partition.
Since this problem has been described for more than 6 months one could think there should be a solution available by Apple ?!?

Question!hi!i try to install mac os x lion from 10.6.8. the system apprear the error message, the recover system can not be created . how should I do?

question!hi！i try to install mac os x lion from 10.6.8. the system apprear the error message, the recover system can not be created . how should I do?

Peruse the hits from a google search for recovery system can't be created site:apple.com

Clean Install: Recovery system can't be created

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