10.13 beta 2 APFS and Recovery Partition

Just noticed after installing 10.13 beta 2 as a complete clean install while using APFS as the drive format the installer does not make a Recovery Partition. Anyone else run into this issue? If so how do you get the Recovery Parititon to show back up?

Replies

That happened to me with the first beta (upgrading instead of clean install), and still no recovery partition with the second beta.

Are you sure it's not there? It's not a "partition" anymore, it's now an APFS Container inside an APFS Volume.

I understand that its a APFS Container inside a APFS Volume, but how do you get it mounted during startup? Its not showing up in the boot menu when pressing Option key during bootup.

Yeah - how do you access it??? I see the recovery volume by running diskutil but it's greyed out.

Instead of holding down Option at boot, hold down Command + R, and that should get you to the Recovery options.

I know it works because I’m in the middle of reinstalling macOS 10.13 from that recovery partition

> … not showing up in the boot menu when pressing Option key during bootup. …


If the macOS boot volume is encrypted: it's traditional for the recovery option to be hidden from Startup Manager.


Here:


sh-3.2$ date ; uptime ; sw_vers
Sat Jun 24 07:50:07 BST 2017
7:50  up  1:01, 2 users, load averages: 0.97 0.77 0.70
ProductName:    Mac OS X
ProductVersion: 10.13
BuildVersion:   17A291j
sh-3.2$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *160.0 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI NO NAME                 104.9 MB   disk0s1
   2: 516E7CBA-6ECF-11D6-8FF8-00022D09712B               155.6 GB   disk0s2
   3:               FreeBSD Swap                         4.3 GB     disk0s3

/dev/disk1 (external, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.1 GB   disk1
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk1s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk2         499.2 GB   disk1s2
   3:       Apple_KernelCoreDump                         655.4 MB   disk1s3

/dev/disk2 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +499.2 GB   disk2
                                 Physical Store disk1s2
   1:                APFS Volume High Sierra             14.3 GB    disk2s1
   2:                APFS Volume VM                      2.1 GB     disk2s2
   3:                APFS Volume Preboot                 18.6 MB    disk2s3
   4:                APFS Volume Recovery                505.4 MB   disk2s4

sh-3.2$ diskutil apfs list
APFS Container (1 found)
|
+-- Container disk2 BDBBC89B-A435-40FB-B312-92279D53B594
    ====================================================
    APFS Container Reference:     disk2
    Capacity Ceiling (Size):      499242745856 B (499.2 GB)
    Capacity In Use By Volumes:   17175969792 B (17.2 GB) (3.4% used)
    Capacity Available:           482066776064 B (482.1 GB) (96.6% free)
    |
    +-< Physical Store disk1s2 72786111-28C7-4673-90AD-E3B7DD13E01D
    |   -----------------------------------------------------------
    |   APFS Physical Store Disk:   disk1s2
    |   Size:                       499242745856 B (499.2 GB)
    |
    +-> Volume disk2s1 C006492F-8FC9-385E-9001-8DCB0D66D962
    |   ---------------------------------------------------
    |   APFS Volume Disk (Role):   disk2s1 (No specific role)
    |   Name:                      High Sierra (Case-insensitive)
    |   Mount Point:               /
    |   Capacity Consumed:         14343086080 B (14.3 GB)
    |   Capacity Reserve:          None
    |   Capacity Quota:            None
    |   Encrypted:                 Yes (Unlocked)
    |
    +-> Volume disk2s2 0A713EF8-F7F3-4997-9931-FC01F010BDF9
    |   ---------------------------------------------------
    |   APFS Volume Disk (Role):   disk2s2 (VM)
    |   Name:                      VM (Case-insensitive)
    |   Mount Point:               Not Mounted
    |   Capacity Consumed:         2147504128 B (2.1 GB)
    |   Capacity Reserve:          None
    |   Capacity Quota:            None
    |   Encrypted:                 No
    |
    +-> Volume disk2s3 9C11CA5F-16DD-4DDB-AF27-F718731058D6
    |   ---------------------------------------------------
    |   APFS Volume Disk (Role):   disk2s3 (Preboot)
    |   Name:                      Preboot (Case-insensitive)
    |   Mount Point:               Not Mounted
    |   Capacity Consumed:         18644992 B (18.6 MB)
    |   Capacity Reserve:          None
    |   Capacity Quota:            None
    |   Encrypted:                 No
    |
    +-> Volume disk2s4 DBAB9C94-2CDA-498F-8D22-757E36AB3A82
        ---------------------------------------------------
        APFS Volume Disk (Role):   disk2s4 (Recovery)
        Name:                      Recovery (Case-insensitive)
        Mount Point:               Not Mounted
        Capacity Consumed:         505393152 B (505.4 MB)
        Capacity Reserve:          None
        Capacity Quota:            None
        Encrypted:                 No
sh-3.2$ diskutil apfs listcryptousers /dev/disk2s1
Cryptographic users (2 found)
|
+-- 5A733CB5-99C7-48BF-9568-3872274B97DB
|   Type: Local Open Directory
|
+-- EBC6C064-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
    Type: Personal Recovery

sh-3.2$

> … see the recovery volume by running diskutil but it's greyed out.


Disk Utility: is the Mount button greyed out?


With or without Disk Utility: you should be able to use diskutil(8) to mount it.


Here, for example (booted from a drive at disk1):


sh-3.2$ diskutil mount /dev/disk2s4

Volume Recovery on /dev/disk2s4 mounted

sh-3.2$ mount | grep -i recovery

/dev/disk2s4 on /Volumes/Recovery (apfs, local, nodev, nosuid, journaled, noowners, nobrowse)

sh-3.2$

what does this do because my 10.13 beta 3 macintosh HD is locked and can't be unlocked. Please help.

Option-boot does not bring up the Repair Partition on an APFS drive — only Command-R can.


If, however, there's a non-APFS drive or partition in the system with an OS, Command-R will boot into it instead. Since you can't see or access any APFS volumes, a non-APFS repair partitition is useless.


For that reason, it's not such a good idea to have both an APFS and a non-APFS partition on the same drive unless it's the APFS volume that you are testing. If you get into trouble, you can Option Boot or Command R into the Repair Partition of the non-APFS partition only.


My non-APFS drive sits in an eSATA dock so that I can turn it off to Command-R into my 10.13.x Repair Partition.