OSX Lion Booting to Recovery Partition every reboot

Howdy All -
So this has been going on for about 6 months, but ive been lazy to fix it and the solution, while anoying (I dont reboot often) isn't terrible. Its time however to see if I can get to the bottom of it and or at least fix it permanently.
Issue:
Everytime I reboot, the system boots to the recovery partition. Disk Utility from within the RP finds no issues. Every subsequent reboot after below repair, goes to the RP.
Solution/Delay tactic:
Boot to my Disk Warrior cd and rebuild the boot volume, next boot, fine, boots to the os. DW always shows no errors in the volume, btw.
Next boot however, no matter the length of time in between, boots to the RP.
So I know my options are basiclly to restore\reinstall in some fashion, so some questions about that:
1. Can I just rebuild the mbr in some way? (sorry, I support M$ all day... is there even an mbr on a hfs+ disk?)
2. If I select the restore from backup option, basically, im installing a new copy of lion, then restoring timemachine on top of it with the particulars?
- does it format the drive, so to speak? TM recovers everything specific to the users after (assuming I have everything slected on the boot drive of course)?
Any ideas on what I can do to not do a restore for a permanent repair? Or how I can see more in a log somewhere about what the deal is?
Thanks in advance!
System: Orignal Mac Pro 1,1
Boot disk is a WD VRaptor 300gb <---- passes Smart tests in TechToolPro

Thanks Guys - resetting the PRAM did it. Simple and effective.... imanerd for not thinking of it
Apreciate it!
Richard

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I can't open almost any app on my iMac (OSX Lion 10.7.4). Every time I attempt to do so, the app "unexpedtely quits" and can't go further. This happens with iTunes (when I turn to the iTunes Store), MacApp Store, Software updates an many other apps...

I can't open almost any app on my iMac (OSX Lion 10.7.4). Every time I attempt to do so, the affected app "unexpedtely quits", showing a window (sort of expanded dialog box) with the log history, wich form a complete report wich is said to be sent to Apple. Despite that this window has a "restart" button, I haven't been able to go any further from this point, as it repeats the process again and again, impeding me to use the affected app.
This has get to a critical point, as it is afecting apps like iTunes (especifically when I turn to the iTunes Store from within te app), MacApp Store, Software Updates (I can't update anything, given this problem) and many other apps, including Aperture 3, Fusion 4, integrated Dictionary and Wikipedia, as I've been able to verify.
As far as I'm concerned, it hasn't affected apps like Office, Vectorworks, Pixelmator, iDraw, Quick Note...
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Thanks a lot, in advance...
Marcus

Use Lion Recovery to repair the startup disk if necessary, or reinstall the Mac OS X.

How to prevent computer from sleeping when downloading Lion from the recovery partition?

Hello,
I just got a new MacBook Pro that came with Lion. I'm reinstalling from the recovery partition and I'm on the downloading additional components stage. It has 3 hours to go and the computer keeps going to sleep. How can I prevent this? I don't want to have to babysit the computer for 3 more hours.
Thanks.

Looking for an answer to this question now. Did you find one? I'm about an hour into a 6+ hour reinstall of Mountain Lion from the Recovery partition on my MacBook Pro. So I can't change the sleep corners or caffenate it or do much of anything but wait. I want to go to bed and let it install overnight, but I assume it will go to sleep, and that will kill the download. It there any way to prevent it from sleeping now?
Even trying to think of something I can put on the trackpad to trick it into thinking I'm touching it.
Maybe ill put it under my dog, and her movements will keep it awake? Thinking outside the box here.
Any ideas would be appreciated.

Help, my computer refuses to boot the recovery partition.

My computer refuses to boot the recovery partition. I hit f12 during startup and selected "HDD recovery", however instead of loading what is suppsoed to be the toshiba recovery wizard, the text "HDD recovery" quickly flashes on the bottom of the screen and then it simply loads windows 7 normally.
I can access the hidden recovery partition from windows 7 and I can see the .wim file in there, but I don't know how to restore a computer using a system image. I've tried that option and it tells me it is unable to find system images, is there a specific place I have to put this file? Do I have to burn it to dvd?
I ran linux off the optical disk drive to see if it would boot anything other than windows 7 and surely enough linux worked.
I've also tried copying the contents of a system repair disk onto a usb and replacing the boot.wim with the .wim on the toshiba recovery partition and renaming it to boot.wim, which let me into the toshiba recovery wizard, but I was unable to continue past the first menu.
It says on the bottom of my laptop the specific model is a Toshiba Sattelite P750 -04S, if I've read it correctly.
Edit: Is there anyway to "start fresh" without using the recovery partititon or buying a new copy of windows? What I am trying to do is to revert to factory "out of the box" settings.

Satellite P750-04S (PSAY3C-04S010)
We support US computer at this website. Everything for your Canadian model is here.
You can order recovery discs by calling 800-663-0378. The discs are free, but the shipping and handling charges are probably substantial.
For instructions, see the section Restoring the pre-installed software from your created Recovery Media, which begins on p. 1-16 of the User's Manual (attached).
-Jerry
Attachments:
P750-P750D-P755-P755D_EnglishManual.pdf ‏4796 KB

Can't boot from recovery partition in Mountain Lion

I've installed Mountain Lion on two different boxes so far: a 20" iMac at home and a Mac Mini at work. Both had up to date Lion installations prior to the upgrade. After installing Mountain Lion I am not able to boot in to the recovery partition on either one. Whether I hold down Command-R to go directly to the recovery parittion, or simply hold down Option to get a choice of boot devices, I am taken directly to the login screen.
The recovery partition is there on both boxes, and I can mount it and examine it using 'diskutil' from the command line. I created a USB image of the recovery partition on the iMac, and the Startup Disk control panel allowed be to select it as a boot device, but the box (both boxes, actually; I also tried it on the Mini) booted directly to the login screen.
I honestly don't know whether I could boot to the recovery partition prior to upgrading to Mountatin Lion or not. When I first installed Lion on the iMac I did not get a recovery paritition, but Apple sent me a USB drive and after cleaning up the disk (getting rid of an unused Boot Camp partition) I was able to get a clean install with a functioning recovery paritition. However I never booted from it after confirming that it worked.
Anyone else see anything like this? Or have an idea how to fix it?
- Larry

Ok but you can get the Option key to work.
There is a utility to Rebuild the recovery HD partition.
Look here first.
Removing and rebuilding a malfunctioning Recovery HD partition « Der Flounder
Then in that article a link to download or find the Recovery HD utility on the Apple website.
But that was originally for Lion. So you may have to rebuild the Lion R-HD then Reinstall Mt Lion over the top of your current install of Mt Lion for it to make the Mt Lion R-HD.
Depending on the age of your Mac's you may also be able to use the Online (Internet) Recovery HD system. To get to that with a R-HD partition on the system, even if that R-HD partition sin't working, you hold down Command+Option+r keys when starting the system (And yes with the USB keyboard attached).

Mountain Lion installer boots into recovery partition

Strange thing: being a registered devloper I downloaded the OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2) installer and wanted to upgrade one of my Mac minis (which was running 10.7.5).
However, the aluminum mid-2010 Mac mini acts strange: I copied the installer onto a USB stick and burned it onto a DVD, too. Tried to install from both media but the Mac mini boots either into the Mountain Lion recovery partition (so that was somehow created) or the Setup assistant lacks entries in lists and always jumps to step 1 after step 3 or 4 in an endless loop.
Once -- when I wanted to select the 10.8.2 OS X as boot volume -- I got an error message that boot caches can't be created so I can't set this partition as boot partition.
I've got app. 100 GB free on the Mac minis hard disk.

I was afraid the Apple Store wasn't going to be an option.
Based on your previous post, I was under the impression you could download Mountain Lion, but when you installed it, it locked up again. Not true?
I don't know how to remove it. You can try contacting Apple support through the link below to see if they can help you get this unlocked.
Apple Support Contact
Are the kernal panics new since all this happened?
Here is some information about kernal panics.
Kernel Panics - About
Kernel Panics - Avoiding and Eliminating
Kernel Panics FAQ
Kernel Panics FAQ (2)
Kernel Panics - Understanding and Debugging
The articles discuss where kernal panic reports are filed. After you have a kernal panic, copy the report and post it here. Please copy and paste rather than using a screen shot. There are several people who can read them and they can suggest what to do next. Reading kernal panic reports isn't something I've totally figured out yet.

Mountain lion - accidentally deleted recovery partition

Hi,
I wonder if anyone can help. I have a Macbook Pro Retina, bought new in December 2012 with Mountain Lion preinstalled. It's been having a lot of sleep issues and, to try and fix these, I attempted a clean install of the OS. However, I messed up and accidentally erased the recovery partition as well as Macintosh HD (when I boot up and hold down Cmd, the recovery partition is missing).
I can reinstall the OS using internet recovery. The problem is that, when I do this, it installs Lion instead of Mountain Lion (even though the computer was bought new with Mountain Lion preinstalled). And, of course, I can't download ML (withut paying) as I have never purchased it (other than 'inherently' purchasing it with the new mac).
Can anyone help?
Many thanks in advance.

That is incorrect. When using the online internet recovery system (booting the system from the Apple servers over the internet) the version of OS X that is available is what originally came installed from the factory on that particular Mac computer. No Apple ID is required or needed to use the online internet recovery system.
Grant Bennet-Alder wrote:
It may be that when you first fired up your computer, you used a different Apple_ID that the one you are suing regularly today..
What Mac OS X version you get when re-installing depends on the Apple_ID.

HT4718 Can't access my EXISTING OSX 10.8.1 Recovery Partition

This computer is a non-retina mid-2012 MacBook Pro.
Using DiskUtil in Terminal shows the correct disk configuration:
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0: GUID_partition_scheme                        *750.2 GB   disk0
   1:                               EFI                         209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:            Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            749.3 GB   disk0s2
   3:            Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
However, booting up with Cmd-R just goes to the Internet Recovery, and booting up with Option Key shows 2 identical Macintosh HD icons - selecting either one boots the system regularly from the Macintosh HD; no Recovery Partition shows up. I had two eligible computers and the first one was updated directly from the App Store; this one was done with a bootable USB drive.
35 years into the "microcomputer revolution" I really hope that someone can suggest a solution other than "reinstall the operating system." Not that I don't appreciate help, but this should be fixable with a less drastic solution. The parition is there, something needs to be told to recognize it. Also, I don't know that reinstalling will produce any different results, although reinstalling directly from the App Store might "turn on" whatever is "turned off."
Thank you.

This is completely normal. By booting OS X Recovery you are accessing the Recovery partition.
The Recovery partition is normally hidden, since it is intended to be for "emergency use only". As a longtime computer user, this may understandably annoy you, but there really is nothing you ought to do with it.
Reinstalling the OS won't help since it will just recreate the recovery partion, even if you reformat or completely replace the drive.
You may see suggestions from users from time to time to reinstall OS X. This scatter-shot approach is almost never justified on a Mac, since most problems are due to conflicting or poorly written third party software unrelated to the OS, and a reinstallation won't help.
Replacing a failed hard disk is one valid reason to reinstall OS X. It's difficult to come up with any others.
See the diskutil manpages to determine how to mount the recovery partition so that you may examine its contents (which are read-only). You'll then be able to get yourself into all sorts of trouble.
This excerpt from the Lion Ars Technica review may save you the time:
Doing so reveals the partition as a normal HFS+ volume. The top level contains a directory named com.apple.recovery.boot which in turn contains a few small files related to booting along with an invisible 430MB internally compressed disk image file named BaseSystem.dmg. Mount that disk image and you find a 1.52GB bootable Mac OS X volume containing Safari, most of the contents of the standard /Applications/Utilities folder (Disk Utility, Startup Disk, Terminal, etc.), plus a Mac OS X Lion installer application. In other words, it looks a lot like a standard Mac OS X installer DVD.
That was the idea - to eliminate the need for a system recovery DVD.
As you can see the recovery partition probably won't have much to interest you anyway.
To get a better impression of how all this works (N.B. the following is NOT for the faint-hearted):
Clone your system to an external volume
Boot from the external volume
Completely erase your internal HD, removing all existing partitions
Unplug your external volume and boot OS X Recovery
Reinstall OS X

TS3926 Unable to reinstall Mac OSX Lion after internet recovery

Sequence of Events on My Macbook Air
1. I saw a flashing question mark in the morning on starting my macbook air
2. I then tried the internet recovery of my Macbook air
3. The system took me to a recovery partition where my only option was reinstall the OSX lion
4. I tried following the system till the Mac OSX lion disk selection
5. I do not see any disk to select and hence cannot proceed.
Any pointers? Is my hard disk gone for good?
Please advice Urgent!!!!

It's possible that the flash storage is damaged, but first, see if it's working properly. After starting in Internet Recovery, open Disk Utility and tell me if you see Macintosh HD in the sidebar. If so, go to Macintosh HD, open Erase tab and erase the disk. Finally, close Disk Utility and reinstall OS X.
If you don't see it, see if the flash storage appears at the top of the sidebar. If so, choose it, go to Erase tab and erase it. Then, reinstall OS X.
If you don't see the flash storage in Disk Utility or your Mac is in warranty, take it to an Apple Store or reseller

Satellite L745D-S4214 Does not boot; HDD recovery partition not working

I tried to apply the recent windows 7 updates and my laptop no longer boots. I tried to press F12 and select the HDD Recovery partition, but it does not boot regardless. There is a message that it does not communicate to a specific device. I believe the address called out was 0xc0000e9, but I am going by memory. I never created a recovery CD because I thought I was covered by the HDD partitions. This was purchased on 10/26/2012, so it should still be under warranty.
PLEASE HELP!

Hi I'm going to assume that your recovery works like mine and that the recovery partition is still good and not corrupted.
Shut down your PC. Press F12 and select HDD recovery. Click enter. This should start the recovery from the hidden recovery partition.
PS I would advise you to make the recovery discs or USB recovery Try this first.
Perform a power cycle
Even when your laptop is off and unplugged, residual power can still be held in some components. While this is normal, clearing it can help with boot problems. Perform these steps to complete what’s called a power cycle.
Ensure the laptop is turned off.
Unplug the laptop's AC power cable.
Remove the battery (if the model has a removable battery).
Unplug all wires or peripherals. This includes CDs, DVDs, USB sticks, mice, printers, and any other accessories.
Hold down the power button for thirty seconds.
Reattach the battery.
Connect the AC adaptor to the power socket that was confirmed to be working in the first step.
Connect the other end of the AC adaptor to your computer.
Try starting the computer.
If your laptop starts normally now, you're done!
I Love my Satellite L775D-S7222 Laptop. Some days you're the windshield, Some days you're the bug. The Computer world is crazy. If you have answers to computer problems, pass them forward.

How to boot service/recovery partition after a Windows 7 install

Does anyone knows how to restore the boot feature of the service / recovery partition ?
I did a Windows 7 RC install and it seems to have disable booting to the recovery partition. I can see that both the SERVICEV003 and Lenovo partition are still there.
Thanks.

Hi all,
it worked as described in the link i provided:
sh-3.2# diskutil list
/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.1 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI                         209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            499.2 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
/dev/disk1
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *2.0 GB     disk1
   1:       Microsoft Basic Data MYSD2GB                 2.0 GB     disk1s1
sh-3.2#
My Recovery HD is back and boots.
Thank you very much for help.
Regards, Peter

If i'll buy mountain lion will my recovery partition be able to install it instead of Lion? (on macbook air mid 2011)

i have a macbook air mid 2011 with that came with Lion. if i format my mac the recovery partition is downloading the latest version of Lion and installs it. will i be able to do the same but with mountain Lion? i like clean installions of OS and not updating old one to a new with from the OS itself.
thanks!

You would first need to buy Mountain Lion from the Mac App Store and install it. During the initial install it may give you the option of running Disk Utility to wipe the drive it is being installed to (Not sure as I have never done it as ML is not available). If it doesn't give you that option then you would need to install if over the top of Lion and when doing so it shoild update the Recovery HD partition to work only with ML. Then using the Recovery HD WIPE the main partition and then Reinstall ML.
You could also use the downloaded ML files to create your own USB thumb drive of the install files then use that to wipe the drive and reinstall.
In any event the install routine should update the R-HD to work, download, only with ML.

REFIt boot help - Recovery partition

I've just gotten refit installed with ubuntu, 7 and 10.8.2.
MY problem: I have a bit of OCD - I want to only see my Mac OS X , Windows 7 and linux. I'm seeing my macintosh recovery partition as well. is there any way i can hide it. or make it only shown when i hold option at start or something?
Thanks

To discuss rEFIt with other people, check out the OnMac Forums or the Dual Boot forum at InsanelyMac.
(http://refit.sourceforge.net/#rsrc)

My 21" imac won't boot. However, it will boot to recovery partition. disk appears full. how do I delete in reovery?

Initially, my imac would boot up to a white screen and a bar at the bottom. I was able to boot to the recovery HD partition and noticed on the screen that the primary hard drive has only 48 MB free. I'm guessing that is not enough, or, I need to re-install the OS. I'd like to know if I can delete files from the primary partition or if I need to re-install the OS? Any assistance would be great here.

You should never, EVER let a hard drive get this full to the end...EVER!
Aassuming you can get your iMac booted, The only real and safe way to do this is to do it manually looking through each folder individually.
Many third party utilities claim to clean out a hard drive of various detritus, but some times will delete data that it shouldn't and delete any other important data that it shouldn't have.
The only "safe" way to accomplish what you need to accomplish is to do this manually.
Stay away from the OS X system folder!!!!!
Hard drive getting full?
You need to reclaim, at the very least, 15 GBs or more free data space on the hard drive.
At some point when you have recovered enough drive space, You can download an app called OmniDiskSweeper.
This app will allow you to see where files maybe able to be delete are located.
If your Mac is running a fairly recent version of OS X, here are some general guidelines.
Follow some of my tips for cleaning out, deleting and archiving data from your Mac's internal hard drive.
First thing, if you can get your iMac booted, Have you emptied your iMac's Trash icon in the OS X Dock?
If you use iPhoto, iPhoto has its own trash that needs to be emptied, also.
If you store images in other locations other than iPhoto, then you will have to weed through these to determine what are duplicates and what isn't
If you use Apple Mail app, Apple Mail also has its own trash area that needs to be emptied, too!
Other things you can do to gain space.
Delete any old or no longer needed emails and/or archive to disc, flash drives or external hard drive, older emails you want to save.
Look through your Documents folder and delete any type of old useless type files like "Read Me" type files.
Again, archive to disc, flash drives, ext. hard drives or delete any old documents you no longer use or immediately need.
Look in your Applications folder, if you have applications you haven't used in a long time, if the app doesn't have a dedicated uninstaller, then you can simply drag it into the OS X Trash icon. IF the application has an uninstaller app, then use it to completely delete the app from your Mac.
Download an app called OnyX for your version of OS X.
When you install and launch it, let it do its initial automatic tests, then go to the cleaning and maintenance tabs and run the maintenance tabs that let OnyX clean out all web browser cache files, web browser histories, system cache files, delete old error log files.
Typically, iTunes and iPhoto libraries are the biggest users of HD space.
move these files/data off of your internal drive to the external hard drive and deleted off of the internal hard drive.
If you have any other large folders of personal data or projects, these should be archived or moved, also, to the optical discs, flash drives or external hard drive and then either archived to disc and/or deleted off your internal hard drive.
Good Luck!

Cannot boot my OSX Lion partition on mac

Hi i've been looking online for a simillar problem but couln't find anything. I currently have a macbook pro with OSX Lion and a bootcamp partition with windows that I barelly use. I was using OSX and went out of battery so I connected the power supply and pressed the power button.I got the grey screen and held the option key to choose wich partition i want to go on (as I always do). The MAC HD doesnt appear anymore, there is only the Windows version. I tried booting on the windows partition, used option X, etc..Nothing seems to work...On my Windows partition I can view and browse through my MAC HD and everything seems to still be intact. As I am out of the country I do not have my booting DVD wich seems to me the last ressort.
Could anyone help me ? If there is any post about this please share them to me I am desperate here I need my OSX !!
I am not sure of wich exact version I have of OSX Lion.
Thanks in advance,
Simon

Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions - Lion
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.
Repair
When the recovery menu appears select Disk Utility. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported then click on the Repair Permissions button. When the process is completed, then quit DU and return to the main menu. Select Restart from the Apple menu.
If need be you can reinstall over the internet, but do not attempt to do so unless the drive is OK. Since Windows is working the odds are that at worst you have to reinstall Lion from scratch. At best your OS X volume csn be repaired or is OK, but OS X is corrupted and your can do the following:
Reinstalling Lion/Mountain Lion Without Erasing the 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.
Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions: Upon startup select Disk Utility from the main menu. Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions as follows.
When the recovery menu appears select Disk Utility. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the main menu.
Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion: Select Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion and click on the Continue button.
Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet if possible because it is three times faster than wireless.

OSX Lion Booting to Recovery Partition every reboot

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