How to access recovery partition in Mac OS X Lion (10.7)

Mac OS X Lion by default creates a small recovery partition when you do a clean install or an upgrade from Mac OS X 10.6. The Recovery Partition is not mounted by default. This is the first time that Apple has brought in the recovery partition. The recovery partition comes into action when your system entirely goes wrong and you screwup the entire install process.

The recovery partition will be used incase you are restoring your system over the internet. The partition has a file named BaseSystem.dmg, and this file contains all the essential files that are required for running the native install. It connects to the Mac App Store and downloads the install files and triggers the install process.

How to mount the recovery partition in Mac OS X Lion:

  1. Open the Terminal from Launchpad 
  2. Now it is simple. Just type the following command to mount the disk: diskutil mount Recovery HD

[alert_box] Note: Be sure not to touch any of the files from the recovery partition.[/alert_box]

 

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  • There should be quotes in the command referenced above, e.g.
    diskutil mount “Recovery HD”
    Otherwise, when running the command mentioned, it gives an error such as:

    diskutil mount Recovery HD
    Usage: diskutil mount [readOnly] [-mountPoint Path] DiskIdentifier|DeviceNode
    Mount will mount the volume in the “standard” place (/Volumes), unless
    an optional mount point is specified.

  • Romain

    Use
    diskutil mount “Recovery HD”
    or
    diskutil mount Recovery HD

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