Lion recovery didn't erase harddrive

Hey
I have a MacBook Pro, it's 6 months old and has since the beginning been slow but has progressively turned slower and slower. It is necessary to restart a lot as it chrashes down and stops working. Programmes that are especially difficult to work with is Mail, iPhoto (a lot!), Microsoft word/excel and Preview (even worse!). Opening a .pdf (no matter the size) takes a long time and it is required to double-click on the icon at least 3 times, before the .pdf is shown (Preview itself is open in the bar). After a lot of frustrating I send my MacBook to service and I was told to do a Lion Recovery, seeing as the repair guy started my macbook from a harddisk with a clean installation of Lion and it seemed to fix the problems. So, I followed the steps in Apples "About Lion Recovery" (using cmd + r), expecting it to wipe out the entire harddrive and leave my MacBook untouched as if I just unpacked it from the store. At least the service-guy told me that this would happen and this was the goal, seeing as I wanted to avoid a recovery based on for example a Time Machine backup that would keep settings and files. It turned out that all my files and application were still intact after the recovery, but seeing as it seemed to have fixed the problem, I was satisfied.
This turned out not to be the case - I have now used it for around 2 weeks and it started crashing down again. Same pattern, a lot of thinking - the rainbow-wheel seems to be there all the time, and a .pdf takes forever to open. Therefore I was wondering if someone could either guide me to how to make this clean installation of Lion or if there is another solution to my problems.
The reason for not using Time Machine is because my MacBook from the beginning (and thus also the Time Machine backup) is based on my old MacBook that had Snow Leopard as OS and I would like to avoid transferring my old settings etc. seeing as they may be causing my problems.
Thank you in advance!

Install or Reinstall Lion from Scratch
If possible backup your files to an external drive or second internal drive.
Boot to the Recovery HD:
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.
Erase the hard drive:
Select Disk Utility from the main menu and click on the Continue button.
After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Erase button and wait until the process has completed.
Quit DU and return to the main menu.
Reinstall Lion: Select Reinstall Lion and click on the Install button.
Note: You can also re-download the Lion installer by opening the App Store application. Hold down the OPTION key and click on the Purchases icon in the toolbar. You should now see an active Install button to the right of your Lion purchase entry. There are situations in which this will not work. For example, if you are already booted into the Lion you originally purchased with your Apple ID or if an instance of the Lion installer is located anywhere on your computer.

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Lion Recovery Disk erased mounted volume

Has anyone had this problem: I created a Lion Recovery Disk and it erased mounted volume? Can the data be recovered?

That was my backup. I'm transfering all my files from my laptop to the iMac and other devices. It also is loaded with older photos that I don't keep on any other devise. my bad. I am begining to read the files for recovery using 'DISK DRILL" working beautifuly. no recovery yet but prospects are good!

Problem creating Mtn Lion Recovery partition on external drive.

USB external. Newly erased, three partitions: one 2GB for Recovery HD, other two backups of my old SL machine and new ML machine (Mini). Those work and their respective machines fine. Drive seems OK.
    Used Recovery Disk Asst v. 1.0 to create Recovery HD on the small partition while booted into 10.8.2 (the brand new Mini). Factory installed Mtn Lion Recovery HD exists on internal drive and it works— when starting with command-R or command-shift-R, not with Option key.     Install of Recovery HD to external seemed to go fine and doing a "diskutil list" in Terminal showed both the internal and external Recovery HD's, properly named as such.   However, when restarted with Option down the recovery partition showed up named the same as my internal— at that point "Macintosh HD" but later when I changed the internal's name, reinstalled the Recovery HD, and restarted with Option key the recovery partition now was named the same as new internal drive name.   Both times choosing the recovery partition resulted in booting into internal drive.
Was wondering if anyone had a similar problem— and found solution/reason.   Apple Tech Support particularly not helpful/knowledgeable on this subject.

Hi Baltwo
   Really appreciate the help.   Many thanks.     Finally seems to be working.     Not sure exactly what worked but in case you're interested I'll give you a, hopefully, short summary:
Using DU (after copy/paste of the command you wrote above into Terminal) I cloned the working internal drives RDH to the partition for it on the ext.   Failed— still seemed to work as almost an alias pointing at the boot volume on the internal.
So, erased the external again; didn't partition, did a reinstall of ML from DU while booted into RDH of internal. Then started from that new ML partition on external and let Setup Asst migrate everything over from the internal to keep Users/Permissions from being a problem.
    When that finished I tried to restart w option key.   Got a recovery HD that was called exactly that but, again, booted into internal boot drive.   Booted into internals RHD just to make sure it was OK and it was.
   For whatever reason again restarted w option key.   This time I got four choices: the boot volume of internal and external, an ext volume called Recovery HD (the trickster), and another volume called Recovery 10.8.3.   Something new— and, as Bill Murray said in Ground Hog Day, "anything new is good."   So I tried booting into that new RHD 10.8.3. (Note, I'm still running 10.8.2 on boot volumes.)
And that worked— booted into Recovery HD but no way that I could figure to see for sure that it was the Recovery HD on ext vs. on internal.   I think I need to activate the Debug menu on the RHD DU so I can choose the 10.8.3 recovery and see if I have the option of Repairing the disk or it's greyed out. If greyed, then proves I'm booted into it.   Might be a more elegant way to see that but it's the one I know.    Still, I assume I was in the RHD on the external.
Then made a second partition for the old mac's backup and that initially resulted in the boot volume of the internal backup not be mountable but after a restart or two testing the two RHD's, the mini decided to see all the volumes and things are, for the moment, copacetic.
Hope that wasn't too long and boring.    From my experience and reading on the 'net, my general sense is that there are a bunch of variables that all have to be right for this process to work. Probably less is more and just installing ML on a disk by itself will be the most reliable method, if most wasteful of data storage.
Regardless, couldn't have done it without you, baltwo.   I don't use this forum enough to know what the etiquette and protocols are but I marked all of your posts as useful, which they were, and, finally, as solving my issue, which they did.
Thanks again

HELP!! Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Recovery problem

Please help me to solve the problem.....
I recent encountered several problems with my MBP (Early 2011) so I decided to have a go into reinstalling OS X Lion. My computer had been formatted into 2 partitions inside the internal SSD. I boot into the Recovery HD, then erased both my Lion partition and the other volume. When I tried to restore the 2 volumes into 1 single volume using the disk utility, it encountered the "Disk cannot be unmounted (-69888)" error. I gave a go to install Lion in my larger volume, but the installer didn't detect the partition.
I'm now stuck in the Recovery HD, and my computer does not have an operating system at all.....
Can someone plzzzz solve my problem. A MILLION Thanks!!

Yeah, submitted last night.
I have a funny feeling they'll reply stating it's a Adobe problem :\

Lion Recovery from a Remote Time Machine Disk

I maintain the time machine backup for my MBP on a large USB drive hanging off of my Mac Mini. Yesterday I decided to upgrade the internal hard drive on my system to a faster, higher-capacity disk.   I assumed that this would be very straightfoward given I had a complete time machine backup. Time machine has saved my bacon many times. It was slightly trickier than I expected so I am publishing this recipe in the hope that it helps someone else trying to accomplish the same thing.
The instructions below are in the context of a hard drive replacement.   Skip to step 5 if you are just looking for the recovery instructions.
One last caveat, I have not tried this procedure over WIFI. I did my successful restore over a GigE hard line.   It may or may not work over Wifi and I would bet WIFI greatly increases the odds that something unexpected might go wrong and it will probably take many times longer as well.
YMMV. RTFM.   Good Luck.
Before you start you need the following things:
     A USB Drive that you don't mind erasing.
     A tiny phillips screwdriver
     A T4 torx driver
Step 0: Run Lion Recovery Disk Assistant
     * download this from apple support http://support.apple.com/kb/dl1433
     * this creates a USB stick that boots up the recover tools.
Step 1: Make sure time machine backup is up to date
Step 2: [paranoid] turn off time machine
Step 3: Cleanly shut down laptop
Step 4: Follow instructions in user manual to replace hard drive
     * you can download your laptop user manual here - http://support.apple.com/manuals/#macbookpro
     * this required a very tiny phillips head screwdriver and also a T4 torx screwdriver/bit
Step 4a: Be prudent: carefully save your old hard drive in case something goes wrong.
Step 5: Make sure laptop is on wall power
Step 6: Boot to recovery USB stick
     * insert the stick, hold down option while booting
Step 7: Select "Restore From Time Machine Backup"
     * When you get to the "Select a Backup Source" dialog you don't see your time machine share or any way to connect to a remote drive.
Step 8: Mount your remote backup
    Open Terminal ( Utilities | Terminal... )
    Run these commands:
        mkdir /Volumes/tm
        mount_afp afp://[username]:[password]@[name of host system].local/[name of remote disk] /Volumes/tm
        you need to supply all of the arguments in brackets above
             eg. mount_afp afp://fred:[email protected]/TimeMachine /Volumes/tm
        You can test if this succeeded by running
               ls /Volumes/tm
        If you see the files you expect, then you successfully mounted your remote disk.
        Now attach the sparsebundle that contains your remote system backup.
            hdiutil attach /Volumes/tm/[MyMachine].sparsebundle
        If this works when run "ls /Volumes" you should see a directory called "Time Machine Backups" in the list. Once that is done quit
        the terminal application. When you do this you should see "Time Machine Backups" listed in the "Select a Backup Source" dialog.
Step 9: Select "Time Machine Backups" from menu
Step 10: Select the backup in time ( probably the most recent one from 10 minutes ago! )
Step 11: Select destination disk
Step 12: If your destination disk does not appear, format it with disk utility
     Utilities | Disk Utility...
     Select your new unformatted drive
     Give your new drive a super duper clever name and then click Erase
     Quit Disk Utility
      Select your newly formatted and cleverly named root drive
Step 13: Go have some fun away from your computer., my system took about 4 hours to restore ~300GB.
Some number of hours later your system will reboot itself to the login screen and you will be good to go. Obviously don't do anything silly in the intervening time like
       * Unplugging your laptop
       * Turning off the system that hosts your time machine backup
       * Resetting your network router

Quick answers.
1. no
2. yes
3. no
Your only option is to install Lion onto the mini and then set up the other accounts.

Mountain lion install failed due to hard drive failure. It said I needed to repair the disk and I was taken to the lion recovery menu.

Unfortunately, and quite idiotically, I never made a back up of my files and the lion operating system before trying to upgrade. My main concern now is just making sure none of my files were lost because of the install failure. I don't know what to do from here because I'm afraid to make a mistake and never be able to recover them again. What can I do to restore my computer back to normal? When I look under Macintosh HD in the Disk Utility option on lion recovery, it seems as if it recognizes that all of my files are still intact, because about 200 GB out of 319 GB are used up on it. This correlates to the amount of files on my disk. Pleaseeee tell me I didn't just lose all of my files. Any help will be greatlyy appreciated!
Sincerely,
Mathew Smith

You only need the powered exernal drive, OS X reinstall is free to install on the external drive.
Hold the option key and boot from the extenral drive.
When OS X upgrades or installs (without a disk wipe first), it doesn't touch Applications and User account folders (only Apple programs) so as long as the drive and file system works, (even if OS X doesn't boot on that drive) the files can be recovered via normal drag and drop methods.
If you can't access the files normally, only then you will have to install Data Rescue on the external drive (another $100) to read the 1's and 0's of the non-encrytped files directly, bypassing the file system structure. Thus is the price for not making adequate backups.
Most commonly used backup methods
In some major cities where there is a lot of computer tech support competition, you might be better with a local PC/Mac data recovery and restore service, saving you some money. But with the extenral hard drive you can then later make that a TimeMachine or clone drive, which you need anyway regardless.

Does Lion Recovery tool to reinstall OS X delete all your files?

I don't know why Apple can't make this clear: Does the reinstalling option in Recovery simply reinstall OS X over the old OS, or does it wipe the hard drive clean, including your media, documents iLife updates, etc?
Because my login freezes with the beach ball of death nearly every time I boot up, I've been hoping a reinstall would fix it, but I saw no option or information at all for what exactly happens when you do a reinstall, and didn't want to chance losing my files and settings.

I think that the installation via the Lion Recovery HD will work like a repair install--which, in the case of Lion, requires only running the Lion installer from within Lion, itself. I have done a repair install as an experiment, and, yes, there were no noticaeable changes in the original installation. Of course, if there had been an installation-related problem to fix, then the problem likely would have been fixed via the repair install.
I mentioned above that I am going to do an experimental Lion re-install. I will be using the Lion Recovery Disc Assistant. I started the process, at my first opportunity a short while ago, but canceled the installation because the predicted installation time was over 5 hours--using gigabit ethernet. I plan to start again at bedtime tonight.
FYI, the system I will be installing from is as follows. I created an ultra clean install of Lion on my internal drive using the Lion installer from an external drive. Thereafter, I installed all else "by hand." This process created a Lion Recovery HD on my internal. Then, I created a Lion Recovery Disk Assistant.
I will never use Time Machine. I think tha app can be too big a PIA especially with a laptop. In general, I don't like to lose as much control as Time Machine requires IMO. My general back up/recovery process/medium is cloning to and from a bootable external created with SuperDuper--which I update pretty frequently, in general, and backup with respect to data very frequently.
So, after creating the ultra clean install noted above and creating the Lion Recovery Disk Assistant, I cloned to my external to make make sure everything would likely reamain AOK with the Lion Recovery HD/Lion Recovery Disc Assistant over time, Then, I made sure that the Recovery Disk Assistant still apparently functioned properly after a cloning to my internal by starting up to it, etc.
And, that is the point from which I began the aborted reinstall of Lion using the Lion Recovery Disk Assistant mentioned above. And, of course, this is the system I intend to reinstall Lion on at bedtime.
Time will tell. If anyone wants to beat me to the punch, please feel free to jump right in. Hopefully, if you do so, then you will let me know what happens so I can cancel my experiment.

What is Apple using to hide Lion Recovery, how can I duplicate it?

After installing Lion, it includes a recovery partition (Recovery HD). This partition is visible in the startup disk screen in the EFI (booting using option), however, it doesn't show up in finder, nor does it show up in Disk Utility (unless you have the debug menu, and enable show all partitions). Obviously it doesn't automount, that's one thing, but Apple is doing something to keep it from even showing up in disk utility.
Recently I upgraded my HDD in my Macbook Pro, I cloned it and so I lost the Lion Recovery utility. I've since added it back manually, and I'd like to place it in the same condition as it is when installed along side Lion (without having to go through migration on a fresh install, etc).
Does anyone know how to duplicate this state that the Lion Recovery HD is in?
I'm not really looking for alternatives - like reinstalling, etc, etc.. I'm also interested in the mechanism being used here.
Can anyone shed light?
Thanks!

I just found this outside thread:
Missing Recovery Partition After Cloning hard drive
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1153706
From post #7 there:
You can set it to Apple_Boot using gpt and this is indeed what hides it from GUI apps like disk utility. Apple_Boot is just a hidden version of Apple_HFS; the recovery partition is just an ordinary journaled HFS+ volume that can be manually mounted with diskutil mount disk0s3 (or whatever slice the recovery partition happens to be).
To change a GUID partition type to Apple_Boot one needs to know the UUID -- which for reference is 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC -- and remove the partition using gpt then re-add it with the desired type. This won't destroy the data of course, but one needs to make a note of the start and size values of the partition (as shown by gpt show) before the remove and then use them when re-adding. See the manual page for gpt.
From post #12 there:
Through some accidental research (don't ask…), I found that Lion's version of Disk Utility will also restore the Recovery HD partition when using DU's Restore to image a Lion Partition. I verified this several times. If there is no Recovery HD, it will recreate an existing one from the source HD to the destination, and will be positioned immediately following the Lion partition.
If no Recovery HD exists in the source, but does in the destination, it will leave the destination alone. For instance, if you have an image of a Lion partition, but for some reason, no Recovery partition, you can do a clean install of Lion on the destination - creating a Recovery partition - then restore your Lion image to the destination (replacing the clean install). It will leave the recovery partition alone at the destination.
If no Recovery HD exists in either source or destination, I don't believe DU will create one - this is one scenario I didn't test.

Raid Utility not an option on Lion Recovery Disk

I am trying to delete a single RAID set that includes the startup volume. I booted up with the Lion Recovery disk but only the disk utility is available as an option to erase information and no RAID utility is there. I erased the startup volume and am re-installing. If this doesn't fix the system so that I can try recreating the RAID set, does anyone have suggestions how to get back to the original four 2TB drives?
Thanks, Alison

To refine what the Hatter is saying...
1) take an external drive. (USB is really slow, but can be used in a pinch. Firewire interface is much faster, and worth the price difference. It should be a 3.5" drive, and have its own power supply.)
2) Install Mac OS X on the External drive.
3) Boot from the External drive. Now you have the full capabilities of Mac OS X to act on everything else in your Mac.
The Hatter often proposes that:
... rather than using a Utilities/Installer DVD or Recovery_HD to Install Mac OS X on an External drive from scratch, you can do just as good a job (and get a "free" bootable backup in the process) by:
2alt) Cloning from an existing Mac OS X drive to that same External drive.
[I am not sure you have that option at the moment, but it may be available when your system is stable again.]

HT201250 I've just used an external drive to back up my Mac with Time Machine. I have Lion, but didn't click and check the "Encrypt Backup Disc". What should I do? Can I delete the external drive and start again, or can I encrypt later?

I've just used an external drive to back up my Mac with Time Machine. I have Lion, but didn't click and check the "Encrypt Backup Disc". What should I do? Can I delete the external drive and start again, or can I encrypt later?

I guess if stolen or lost it would protect my "stuff", and if I'm travelling would protect my privacy.
You must understand the purpose and implications of encryption before deciding whether to use it.
Encryption locks your data with a password. If you forget that password, the data is lost beyond any chance of recovery. Neither Apple nor anyone else will be able to help you recover that data if you don't know the password.
By the same token, the password must be strong enough to provide the security you want. For example, if you're the potential target of industrial espionage by a government or large corporation, you need the strongest possible password. To create and manage such a password safely is a task in itself, not to be undertaken lightly.
If you're only concerned about casual snooping by someone with no special skill, a weak, easily-remembered password is appropriate.
But regardless of the strength of the password, if you lose it, the data is gone forever.
Another point to remember is that if you encrypt your data on one storage device, you must also encrypt it on all other storage devices that would be accessible to the same attacker. Otherwise the data isn't protected. For example, if you keep your computer and your backup drive in the same room, and the internal drive of the computer is not encrypted, then there's no point in encrypting the backup drive.

Need to wipe hard drive, Lion Recovery not working

I've been having problems with this mac and want to completely wipe my hard drive and only put on the Lion operating system, my itunes music, iphoto folders, and a few folders that are already backed up on an external hardrive. My cd-rom drive doesn't work, so I need to use the online Lion Recovery to safely reinstall lion after I clear my hard drive. When I restart and hold down CMD-R, it doesn't bring me to the Lion Recovery/Disk Utility window. It only shuts down after a while. I've tried this many times and I'm not sure why I can't get into the partition so I can reinstall Lion without using a disk. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Also, if you could tell me exactly how to put on the select items above (not an entire system backup) that would be great. I just need a complete computer makeover because it's a 2008 macbook pro and its been slowing down a lot. Thanks!

chelseafromva wrote:
My cd-rom drive doesn't work
When I restart and hold down CMD-R, it doesn't bring me to the Lion Recovery/Disk Utility window. It only shuts down after a while.
...it's a 2008 macbook pro and its been slowing down a lot.
Well by the sounds of it you have a hardware problem of some sort, perhaps not.
Your going to need a friends Lion Mac and Admin access to do this trick to copy thier Recovery HD to a USB thumb drive
http://osxdaily.com/2011/08/08/lion-recovery-disk-assistant-tool-makes-external- lion-boot-recovery-drives/
https://support.apple.com/kb/dl1433
Once you have that you can option boot off the Recovery USB and wipe your entire drive (use the Disk Utiilty > Erase and one selection from the right to securely erase and map off failiing sectors, takes longer but better for your drive and data), then install Lion from Apple's servers with your Apple ID and password.
Setup with the same User name (different password ok) if you want to preserve your iTunes playlists, next hook up your storage drive and return files into their old Music, Pictures etc folders.
No settings will be transfered or anythng else, you set up everything fresh and new again, aka "Erase and Fresh install method" of #20 here
Step by Step to fix your Mac
Later you should be looking at making a option key bootable clone with Carbon Copy Cloner to another blank external drive, this way you can boot off of it and reverse clone in case of problems.
Most commonly used backup methods

Removed Lion Recovery Partition!

I have removed the Lion Recovery partition and shat should I do now to get that back again?

Download Carbon Copy Cloner and WinClone 3
Get two blank external drives, make sure they are formatted GUID and OS X extended journaled in Disk Utility (actually check Winclone for their external drive format requirments for Windows)
Use CCC to clone the OS X partition to one external drive.
Use Winclone to clone the Windows Boot Camp partition to the other external drive.
Disconnect all drives.
Now the problem is how to get Recovery HD back onto the machine.
If you upgraded 10.6 to 10.7/10.8, then hold option/alt and boot off the 10.6 disk, use it to erase the entire internal drive of everything, then install 10.6, upgrade to 10.6.8 and reinstall 10.7/10.8 from AppSore by option click on Purchases or whatever it uses, that will put the Recovery HD back on the machine.
If your machine came with 10.7 or 10.8, then hold the command option and r keys down and boot the machine on a fast Internet connection (Ethernet the router preferred) and this will load Internet Recovery from Apple's servers. Use Disk Utility there to erase the entire drive of everything and quit, then reinstall OS X from Apple's servers, it will recreate the Recovery HD partition that way, as it's assuming it's a new drive it's installing on.
When you have your machine in order, go to BootCamp and set up your partition again, then quit.
Hold the option/alt key down and boot off the OS X "CCC" clone you made, now use CCC to reverse clone OS X back onto the internal drive.
Connect the Winclone drive, run Winclone and clone that back onto your BootCamp partition.
When done, reboot and disconnect all drives, head to System Preferences > Startup Disk and set it to either OS X or BootCamp as the default boot. As you know if you change your mind to hold option key at boot to go to the other instead.

How to stop lion recovery disk assistant from downloading?

Since I planned to upgrade the stock disk on my macbook pro I created a USB stick backup of the Lion OS using Lion recovery disk assistant. It built a bootable copy of my Lion OS. I replaced the drive, booted from the USB stick Lion, formatted the new drive with disk utility with one OSX partition, and bunch of Linux partitions for the planned dual/triple/etc. boot. I then used the recovery disk menu to reinstall OSX on the new disk. It took off and started the download just like while booting with R key or from the recovery partition AGAIN!. This is a 2 hour proposition and is totally ridiculous. I need to be able to reinstall without downloading Lion every time. Any ideas on how to stop this new Apple invention from doing this download?

If you read the Disk Recovery Assistant documentation all that it does is put a copy of the Recovery HD onto the flash drive. There is no OS on it to reinstall, hence the reason for the Internet download.
If you wish to have a true bootable installer flash drive for your system, then here's what is involved. Start by going to this link: Downloading Hardware Specific Lion Installers. Follow the instructions very, very carefully because this can be a bit tricky.
Once you have the installer application:
Make Your Own Lion Installer
1. After downloading Lion you must first save the Install Mac OS X Lion application. After Lion downloads DO NOT click on the Install button. Go to your Applications folder and make a copy of the Lion installer. Move the copy into your Downloads folder. Now you can click on the Install button. You must do this because the installer deletes itself automatically when it finishes installing Lion.
2. Get a USB flash drive that is at least 8 GBs. Prep this flash drive as follows:
Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
3. Locate the saved Lion installer in your Downloads folder. CTRL- or RIGHT-click on the installer and select Show Package Contents from the contextual menu. Double-click on the Contents folder to open it. Double-click on the SharedSupport folder. In this folder you will see a disc image named InstallESD.dmg.
4. Plug in your freshly prepared USB flash drive. You are going to clone the InstallESD.dmg disc image to the flash drive as follows:
Open Disk Utility.
Select the USB flash drive from the left side list.
Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
Check the box labeled Erase destination.
Select the USB flash drive volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
Drag the InstallESD.dmg disc image file into the Source entry field.
Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
When the clone is completed you have a fully bootable Lion installer that you can use without having to re-download Lion.

How to create Lion recovery boot usb WITHOUT recovery partition?

I give up. I can't find the answer to this. So, I'll just ask and hope.
I have a mid-2011 mini that was upgraded to Lion. However, it had a Bootcamp partition running Windows 7.
Apparently, whoever upgraded my machine didn't create a recovery boot disk before upgrading.
So, I have no recovery partition and apparently no ability to create a recovery boot usb without one.
Apple's ******** support policy is to completely wipe the hard drive and reinstall everything--which is simply not going to happen.

Eric. wrote:
Have you tried this?
http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1433
I made one on a USB flash drive.
Problem with that solution is that:
Note: In order to create an external Lion Recovery using the Lion Recovery Assistant, the Mac must have an existing Recovery HD.
If you kept a copy of the installer, then open it up, and restore the InstallESD.dmg to an empty partition or flash drive. Do note that doesn't give you the Recovery HD, but you won't need one since you can reinstall w/o downloading anything but additional components from Apple's servers.

Mountain Lion Recovery Disk?

Is there a way to get a Montain Lion recovery disk?
Would reloading Mountain Lion erase any new data since I installed it?
If I use Time Machine to go back to when I first downloaded ML (and it worked well) will I lose any current settings or information?
Sorry for the inexperienced questions.... no matter how much I learn there is still more!
God bless and thanks!

You have a built-in Recovery Partition (hidden):
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4718
http://www.apple.com/osx/recovery/
Reinstalling doesn't overwrite any files in your User's home folder, including applications. Some applications that put files into system file areas may have to be reinstalled.
You can choose exactly what to restore from Time Machine. The problem, of course, is knowing what to restore.
http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/os-x-operating-system/264620-restore-specific-f iles-time-machine-backup.html
I think your approach to this is not quite right. Can you tell us exactly what is wrong - maybe we can help you troubleshoot and fix it.

Lion recovery didn't erase harddrive

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