Where is recovery hd

To clone the Recovery HD, we must first make it visible, so that our cloning application can work with the volume. So the first step in the cloning process is to turn on the Debug menu. You can find instructions here:. If you're using a later version of macOS, jump ahead to the next section. Otherwise, make the Debug menu visible. You can create the Recovery HD clone on any volume listed in Disk Utility, but the cloning process erases any data on the destination volume. For this reason, it's a good idea to resize and add a partition dedicated to the new Recovery HD volume you are about to create.

The Recovery HD partition can be small; MB is the minimum size, but Disk Utility probably won't be able to create a partition that small , so use the smallest size it can create. After you have the destination drive partitioned, we can proceed.

Drag the Recovery HD volume to the Source field. Drag the volume you want to use for the new Recovery HD to the Destination field. Double-check to be sure that you're copying the correct volume to the destination because any volume you drag there is completely erased by the cloning process.

When you're sure that everything is correct, select Restore. Disk Utility asks if you want to erase the destination drive. Select Erase. Supply an administrator account password. Enter the requested information, then select OK. The cloning process begins. Disk Utility provides a status bar to keep you up to date on the process. Once Disk Utility completes the cloning process, you're ready to use the new Recovery HD, but with any luck, you'll never need to use it.

Creating he new Recovery HD volume this way doesn't set the visibility flag to hidden. As a result, the Recovery HD volume appears on your desktop. If you have multiple Recovery HD volumes attached to your Mac, you can select the one to use in an emergency by starting your Mac with the Option key held down.

This forces your Mac to display all available bootable drives. You can then pick the one you want to use for emergencies. Since Disk Utility can no longer access the hidden Recovery HD partition, you have to use Terminal and the command line version of Disk Utility, diskutil. The first step is to create a disk image of the hidden Recovery HD. The disk image does two things: It creates a copy of the hidden Recovery HD volume, and it makes it visible and accessible on Mac's desktop.

You need to find the disk identifier for the hidden Recovery HD partition. Enter the following at the Terminal prompt:. Press Enter or Return on the keyboard. Terminal displays a list of all partitions your Mac is able to access, including those that are hidden. The line with the Recovery item has a field labeled Identifier.

Here you'll find the actual name used by the system to access the partition. It likely reads something like disk1s3. The identifier for your Recovery partition may be different, but it will include the word "disk," a number, the letter "s," and another number. Once you know the identifier for the Recovery HD, you can proceed to make the visible disk image. In Terminal, enter the following command, substituting the disk identifier number you identified for the text "DiskIdentifier.

An actual example of the command is:. This can result in the error message: "Only one image can be created at a time. Press Enter or Return. Terminal asks for your administrator password. Select Remove the recovery partition on your hard drive to increase available hard drive space. Figure : Recovery Manager: Advanced options. Select a location. Europe, Middle East, Africa. Asia Pacific and Oceania. Select a language. Confirm Back.

Search all support. Search help. Tips for better search results Ensure correct spelling and spacing - Examples: "paper jam" Use product model name: - Examples: laserjet pro p, DeskJet For HP products a product number. Loading Results. The Virtual Agent is currently unavailable. Please try again shortly. Need help troubleshooting? Just ask. They allow us to carry terabytes of data everywhere we go, they can be easily shared among many devices, and their installation could hardly be any simpler.

Because of their ubiquitous nature, we have come to rely on them so much that we seldom consider just how fragile external hard drives are.

How many people know how to recover files from external hard drives and how many would simply panic, not knowing what to do? If you know how to recover data from external hard drives, you have much better chances to prevent the worst from happening and turn what could be a disastrous situation around. The goal of this article is to explain common hard drive issues and the different ways how they can be solved with the help of external hard drive recovery software tools.

Before you go online and download the first data recovery tool you come across pause for a minute and let us explain some of the most common causes of hard drive failure to help you successfully solve the underlying issue. By using the wrong hard drive recovery tool, you could make your problem worse and lose any chance to recover your data.

But before we get to the most common causes of a hard drive failure, we first need to touch upon how hard drives work. Inside every external hard drive is an assortment of sensitive components that record data as a magnetic pattern formed by groups of magnetized metal grains.

These grains cover circular platters that spin at 7, rpm, at least on consumer drives. Attached to the bottom of the hard drive is a circuit board, which houses the main controller chip as well as many other electronic components that control the operation of the headers.

One of these electronic components is a small memory chip that stores the firmware, which is permanent software that provides the necessary instructions for how the hard drive communicates with the other computer hardware.

Hard drive failures can be categorized into two broad categories: software failures and hardware failures. Software data loss is most commonly caused by badly written software applications or unfortunate user errors. The one thing that most cases of software data loss have in common is recoverability. There are many capable data recovery tools that you can use to recover external hard drives after a software data loss without any expert knowledge.

In the next chapter, we recommend our top 10 favorite tools for recovering external hard drives. This often happens after a sudden voltage spike. Inside the hard drive are special diodes that act as fuses. A voltage spike may cause these diodes to blow, making the hard drive seem as if it were dead and all data were lost. Clicking sounds are often an indication of serious hard drive damage. The head may be stuck on a platter, scratching it violently as the disk controller attempts to move it.

A scratched platter usually means an irreversible data loss. Because the gap between the hard drive heads and platters is so small, they can literally stick to each other. A hard drive recovery service center with a well-equipped, dust-free lab should be able to solve this problem, for a hefty price.

The damage can be extremely localized, perhaps affecting only the boot sector, or it can be widespread. The good news is that data recovery tools such as Disk Drill can easily recover data from inaccessible hard drives and help you spot growing file corruption before it gets out of hand.