Mac Os X Recovery Download
Matt Cone January 17, 2013 TutorialsMac
It’s a good idea to have a bootable emergency drive on hand, just in case disaster strikes your Mac. An emergency drive (also referred to as an OS X Recovery Disk) can help you repair the hard disk, reinstall the operating system, and restore from a Time Machine backup to get your computer back fast.
With previous versions of OS X, you could have used the installation DVD to fix problems. But OS X Mountain Lion is sold in the App Store as a digital download — no physical disk is provided. What’s a maintenance-minded Mac user to do?
Create your own bootable OS X USB drive, of course! It’s easy, and if you’ve already purchased OS X and have a USB drive that’s 1 GB or larger, it’s completely free. Carry it in your pocket or put it on your keychain so it’s available if the worst-case scenario occurs. You’ll thank yourself for taking the time to complete this project.
Evaluating Your Emergency Drive Options
It can happen to any of us, even those who own brand-new Macs. First your computer starts freezing infrequently, then crashing more often, and then it won’t start at all. For situations like this, you need an emergency drive on hand to start up your computer and troubleshoot the problem.
Emergency USB Drive: Creating a bootable USB drive is your safest bet. This device is self-contained and kept entirely separate from your computer — and any potential problems associated with it. But if you don’t want to create a USB drive, you may have access to two other types of emergency drives, depending on when you purchased your Mac.
Recovery HD: Every Mac running OS X Lion and later has a hidden Recovery HD partition that can be used to boot the computer and repair the hard disk. (To use the Recovery HD partition as your startup disk, hold down Command-R at startup or, if that doesn’t work, option.) But the Recovery HD probably won’t work if the internal hard drive is damaged. When you can’t boot from the regular startup disk, chances are you won’t be able to boot from the Recovery HD either.
Internet Recovery: Macs purchased after OS X Lion was released have an additional feature called Internet Recovery, which works even if your internal hard drive is damaged. If there’s a problem with your computer, it can network-boot from Apple’s servers. First, your computer’s memory and hard drive are checked for major issues. If none are found, your Mac downloads and boots from a Recovery HD image. But even if your Mac has this feature, you’ll still benefit from having an emergency drive, as it can take a while to download the Recovery HD partition.
Purchasing a USB Drive for Your OS X Recovery Disk
Download Recuva for Mac software and do it yourself to recover lost, deleted, formatted data from Mac OS X and macOS easily and quickly. With a few simple clicks, you can perform a full Mac data recovery with the no.1 Recuva alternative for Mac. Download for Mac Download for PC Here Recuva for Mac Alternative is available. Startup 9.2.1 repairs problems that may occur when Mac OS 9.1 and Mac OS X are on the same partition and a version earlier than Startup 9.2 has been used. . If you just had your Mac logic board replaced during a repair, macOS Recovery might offer only the latest macOS compatible with your Mac. If you erased your entire disk instead of just the startup volume on that disk, macOS Recovery might offer only the macOS that came with your Mac, or the closest version still available. Download: OS X El Capitan This downloads as a disk image named InstallMacOSX.dmg. On a Mac that is compatible with El Capitan, open the disk image and run the installer within, named InstallMacOSX.pkg. It installs an app named Install OS X El Capitan into your Applications folder. Select the disk location (it can be an internal HDD/SSD or a removable storage device) where you.
If you don’t have a spare USB drive, you’ll need to purchase one. We recommend the Amazon Basics 8 GB USB Flash Drive, which is a simple and affordable option available for less than $10.
Making Your Own Emergency OS X USB Drive
The best option is a Recovery HD partition on a bootable USB drive. This drive provides you with all the tools you need to troubleshoot problems, repair the hard drive, reinstall OS X, and restore from a Time Machine backup. In short, it’s the perfect safety net for those rare times when your internal hard drive is hosed.
Here’s how to create an emergency USB drive:
Connect a hard drive or USB drive to your computer. If the drive is larger than 1 GB, consider partitioning it to make a 1 GB partition for the recovery disk. (If you don’t create a partition, this process will use all of the available space on the drive, no matter how large it is.)
Open the Recovery Disk Assistant application. It’s available for free from Apple’s website.
Accept the license agreement. The Recovery Disk Assistant window appears, as shown below.
Select the disk and then click Continue.
Authenticate with your administrator username and password. The Recovery Disk Assistant creates the recovery disk, as shown below. The process takes approximately five minutes.
When the recovery disk has been created, click Quit.
Like the Recovery HD partition on your startup drive, the emergency drive is invisible when it’s connected to your computer. The Finder won’t provide any indication that it exists, but don’t worry — it’s there, waiting for your signal to help with a disaster!
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Dec 16, 2020 • Filed to: Solve Mac Problems • Proven solutions
Recovery Mode in OS X provides a set of solutions for users to utilize when users need to repair and reinstall their operating system in an emergency. You can also reset the Mac password using recovery mode if needed. There are several ways to boot Mac into recovery mode. If you find one method overwhelming, there are several other alternatives you can use. We will walk you through the different ways on how to boot Mac into recovery mode so that they will become undoubtedly useful in a rare emergency.
Part 1: How to Boot Mac in Internet Recovery Mode
Along with the introduction of a locally stored recovery volume, Apple introduced its Internet Recovery service that allows your operating system to download contents of the recovery hard disk partition from the company's service. This option is great to use when your local drive is completely corrupted and you no longer can access locally-stored recovery tools.
To launch Internet Recovery, make sure your Mac is connected to a WiFi network and follow the steps below:
- Reboot your Mac.
- Hold the 'Options', 'Command', and 'R' buttons until the boot chimes are triggered.
- Wait until the system finished downloading the recovery tools from Apple's website.
It is noted that you are unable to boot Mac into Recovery Mode if you are using devices older than the ones below:
- MacBook Pro (13-inch, Early 2011)
- MacBook Pro (15-inch, Early 2011)
- MacBook Pro (17-inch, Early 2011)
- iMac (21.5-inch, Mid 2011)
- iMac (27-inch, Mid 2011)
- MacBook (13-inch, Mid 2010)
- MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2010)
- Mac mini (Mid 2010)
- MacBook Pro (15-inch and 17-inch, Mid 2010)
- iMac (21.5-inch and 27-inch, Mid 2010)
- MacBook Air (11-inch and 13-inch, Late 2010)
Part 2: How to Create a bootable drive into Recovery Mode
You can create a bootable drive to store an OS X Recovery Disk so that you can access recovery tools anytime, anywhere. It would be great if you could invest in a high-capacity USB 3.0 flash drive to store the required tools.
There are plenty of articles outlining how you can create a bootable OS X Recovery Disk, including ours. Once you have this established, you can follow these steps to get your Mac into Recovery Mode:
- Reboot your Mac.
- Hold down 'Option' on your keyboard once you hear the chime sound.
- Attach your bootable OS X Recovery Disk to your Mac and select it from the prompt list.
- Your Mac will launch into Recovery Mode and you can start fixing your Mac.
As you can see, there are plenty of methods you can use to boot Mac into Recovery Mode. There is no need to panic when you find yourself in trouble - just choose and master the method that seems least intimidating to you and you will be well on your way. After you boot Mac into Recovery Mode, you can also restore your data on Mac.
Part 3: How to Boot Mac with Installation Disk
If you are using an older Mac, it probably comes with a grey recovery DVD that you can use to run recovery routines. If you had bought a copy of a newer operating system, you can also use the installation disk to perform recovery.
It is the easiest way to go into Recovery Mode and here is how you can do it:
- Insert the grey DVD and reboot your Mac.
- Hold down 'C' on your keyboard until you hear the boot chimes.
The recovery tool will take some time to load. Follow the wizard that will put your Mac into Recovery Mode.
Part 4: How to Boot Mac into Recovery Mode with Local Recovery
- Reboot your Mac.
- Hold the 'Command' and 'R' buttons until the boot chimes are triggered.
- You will see the OS X utility window that will prompt you to choose one of the four options.
Part 5: How to Boot Mac into Recovery Mode from Time Machine
It is really important to keep backups of your machine and Apple facilitates this with its Time Machine feature. It would be best to store your backup on an external drive so that you can initiate Recovery Mode using this when your hard drive is wiped out.
Follow these steps to boot Mac into Recovery Mode:
- Reboot your Mac.
- Hold down the Option button when the startup chimes sound.
- Connect your Time Machine drive. It will take some time for the system to detect the drive. You might need to key in your password.
- Choose the drive to launch your Mac into Recovery Mode.
After all the above methods, you finally fail to boot your Mac into Recovery mode. Don't worry. We also provide further solutions for you - Fix 'Cannot boot into Recovery mode'. For those who need the data recovery solution, Recoverit would be a nice option. Free download and try it now.
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