macOS: Putting a Recovery Partition on Your Mac (Without Reinstalling macOS)

Sometimes, we break things. It’s unfortunate, but true. If you’ve somehow managed to delete or mangle your Recovery partition beyond recognition, there’s still hope. For versions of OS X and macOS from Lion 10.7 and up, there’s a script called Recovery Partition Creator that will non-destructively put a recovery partition back on your Mac without you having to reinstall macOS.

You might think a missing recovery partition means reinstalling OS X or macOS. Fortunately, there’s another way (Image Credit: fancycrave1)

A Word of Warning

These steps are not for the faint of heart. You could damage your installation and have to reinstall your Mac from a backup after this. Make sure you have a very recent Time Machine backup before proceeding.

Getting Things Ready

First things first. For this script to function properly, you need the installation image of your particular version of OS X or macOS. Head to the Mac App Store, locate your installation file in the Purchases tab, and download it.

Next, if you run OS X El Capitan or later, you will need to disable a feature known as System Integrity Protection (SIP). SIP, sometimes referred to as rootless mode, is a security feature that protects certain system files and directories against modification. This needs to be disabled for the Recovery Partition Creator to work.

First, boot into Recovery or Internet Recovery Mode. You do this by restarting your Mac and holding Command-R (Recovery Mode) or Option-Command-R (Internet Recovery Mode) when the gray screen appears. Once you are safely within the confines of Recovery or Internet Recovery Mode, click Utilities > Terminal. When Terminal launches, type the following command:

csrutil disable

Now restart your Mac, and you’re ready to rock and roll.

Getting Started With the Recovery Partition Creator

If you haven’t already, download the Recovery Partition Creator here. Find it in your Downloads folder, or where ever you download files to, and run it. If you run OS X Lion or OS X Mountain Lion, and Gatekeeper complains, right-click the Recovery Partition Creator script and choose Open.

If you are running OS X Lion, you might have to right-click and select Open to run Recovery Partition Creator

Recovery Partition Creator will let you know that it will check for required files and download them as necessary. Click OK to proceed.

Recovery Partition Creator makes sure it has everything it needs to run properly

Next, you’ll see a warning that I already gave you earlier. If you disregarded my suggestion to make a current Time Machine backup, this is your last chance.

The final warning before you embark on a dangerous adventure that should turn out just fine

On the next screen, you should choose where to install the recovery partition. For most users, this will be Macintosh HD. Click on the correct location, then on OK.

Choose where to install the recovery partition, usually Macintosh HD

Recovery Partition Creator will now tell you what file system it detected. Click OK.

Recovery Partition Creator detects what time of file system your selected drive is using

Now you’ll have an option to check your drive for errors, or skip the check. I found, on macOS Sierra 12.4, that skipping the drive check meant I didn’t get any further indication of the progress of the app. Take the time to do the disk check, for safety’s sake at least. Click Continue.

If you skip this step, you may regret it. Take the time to scan your disk for errors

Go get a snack while your disk is scanned for errors.

Scanning your disk for errors

Next: Installing Your New Recovery Partition and Tidying Up

Page 2 – Installing Your New Recovery Partition and Tidying Up

Installing Your New Recovery Partition

Once the disk scan is done, the recovery creation process can start. Click on Continue to keep moving forward.

The disk check is done, and it’s time to create the recovery partition

Recovery Partition Creator will ask what version of OS X or macOS you have. Select the correct option to proceed.

Select which version of OS X or macOS you are running

Next, Recovery Partition Creator will ask you to locate your operating system install file. This will usually be in Applications, so find it and click on it. Then you can click Choose.

Choose the install file for your version of OS X or macOS

Time for a cup of coffee while Recovery Partition Creator installs the recovery partition.

Creating and installing the recovery partition

During the installation, you might notice a volume called OS X Install ESD appear on your desktop, along with an open Finder window. This is perfectly normal. Yes, this is called OS X Install ESD even in macOS Sierra.

Don’t worry about seeing this pop up; it’s totally normal

At last, your recovery partition should be successfully created. Click OK to exit the script.

If all goes well, you’ll get this confirmation screen when your recovery partition is created

To test whether it’s worked, you can reboot your Mac and hold Command-R to boot into Recovery Mode.

Tidying Up

When you’re in Recovery Mode, let’s tidy up our security and make sure everything stays safe and sound. If you disabled SIP earlier, let’s enable it again. Launch Utilities > Terminal, and enter the following command:

csrutil enable

Then, reboot your Mac and get back to work (or play.)

Special thanks to Dan Frakes at Macworld for his excellent introduction to the Recovery Partition Creator script.

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