Accidentally overwritten Macintosh recovery partition when installing Ubuntu





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About a month ago I ditched macOS for Ubuntu on my iMac Late 2009. During the installation I explicitly told Ubuntu to leave the Macintosh recovery partition alone. It did not. I now wish to go back to macOS and I’ve tried the usual CTRL-R variants to enter recovery mode, and I have tried resetting the PRAM. But now I have confirmed that the recovery partition has been overwritten.



So I fired up a VM with a copy of macOS Sierra, downloaded Sierra from the Apple Store and ran createinstallmedia. Hitting option during boot doesn’t show the bootable USB. The usb was reformatted even before I ran createinstallmedia with Journaled GUID.



I’m sure I’m missing something, has anybody ran into this type of issue before?










share|improve this question























  • You may want to ask your question here: discussions.apple.com/community/desktop_computers/imac_intel

    – historystamp
    Feb 1 at 4:14













  • As you have a running VM, you've potentially a method to use something like Carbon Copy Cloner to get that VM onto the other Mac's drive. CCC will also recreate the recovery partition as part of the process. [I've never actually tried it from a VM, but it might be worth a shot.]

    – Tetsujin
    Feb 1 at 8:13




















1















About a month ago I ditched macOS for Ubuntu on my iMac Late 2009. During the installation I explicitly told Ubuntu to leave the Macintosh recovery partition alone. It did not. I now wish to go back to macOS and I’ve tried the usual CTRL-R variants to enter recovery mode, and I have tried resetting the PRAM. But now I have confirmed that the recovery partition has been overwritten.



So I fired up a VM with a copy of macOS Sierra, downloaded Sierra from the Apple Store and ran createinstallmedia. Hitting option during boot doesn’t show the bootable USB. The usb was reformatted even before I ran createinstallmedia with Journaled GUID.



I’m sure I’m missing something, has anybody ran into this type of issue before?










share|improve this question























  • You may want to ask your question here: discussions.apple.com/community/desktop_computers/imac_intel

    – historystamp
    Feb 1 at 4:14













  • As you have a running VM, you've potentially a method to use something like Carbon Copy Cloner to get that VM onto the other Mac's drive. CCC will also recreate the recovery partition as part of the process. [I've never actually tried it from a VM, but it might be worth a shot.]

    – Tetsujin
    Feb 1 at 8:13
















1












1








1








About a month ago I ditched macOS for Ubuntu on my iMac Late 2009. During the installation I explicitly told Ubuntu to leave the Macintosh recovery partition alone. It did not. I now wish to go back to macOS and I’ve tried the usual CTRL-R variants to enter recovery mode, and I have tried resetting the PRAM. But now I have confirmed that the recovery partition has been overwritten.



So I fired up a VM with a copy of macOS Sierra, downloaded Sierra from the Apple Store and ran createinstallmedia. Hitting option during boot doesn’t show the bootable USB. The usb was reformatted even before I ran createinstallmedia with Journaled GUID.



I’m sure I’m missing something, has anybody ran into this type of issue before?










share|improve this question














About a month ago I ditched macOS for Ubuntu on my iMac Late 2009. During the installation I explicitly told Ubuntu to leave the Macintosh recovery partition alone. It did not. I now wish to go back to macOS and I’ve tried the usual CTRL-R variants to enter recovery mode, and I have tried resetting the PRAM. But now I have confirmed that the recovery partition has been overwritten.



So I fired up a VM with a copy of macOS Sierra, downloaded Sierra from the Apple Store and ran createinstallmedia. Hitting option during boot doesn’t show the bootable USB. The usb was reformatted even before I ran createinstallmedia with Journaled GUID.



I’m sure I’m missing something, has anybody ran into this type of issue before?







macos ubuntu mac recovery






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share|improve this question











share|improve this question




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asked Jan 31 at 19:47









Christian WilesChristian Wiles

61




61













  • You may want to ask your question here: discussions.apple.com/community/desktop_computers/imac_intel

    – historystamp
    Feb 1 at 4:14













  • As you have a running VM, you've potentially a method to use something like Carbon Copy Cloner to get that VM onto the other Mac's drive. CCC will also recreate the recovery partition as part of the process. [I've never actually tried it from a VM, but it might be worth a shot.]

    – Tetsujin
    Feb 1 at 8:13





















  • You may want to ask your question here: discussions.apple.com/community/desktop_computers/imac_intel

    – historystamp
    Feb 1 at 4:14













  • As you have a running VM, you've potentially a method to use something like Carbon Copy Cloner to get that VM onto the other Mac's drive. CCC will also recreate the recovery partition as part of the process. [I've never actually tried it from a VM, but it might be worth a shot.]

    – Tetsujin
    Feb 1 at 8:13



















You may want to ask your question here: discussions.apple.com/community/desktop_computers/imac_intel

– historystamp
Feb 1 at 4:14







You may want to ask your question here: discussions.apple.com/community/desktop_computers/imac_intel

– historystamp
Feb 1 at 4:14















As you have a running VM, you've potentially a method to use something like Carbon Copy Cloner to get that VM onto the other Mac's drive. CCC will also recreate the recovery partition as part of the process. [I've never actually tried it from a VM, but it might be worth a shot.]

– Tetsujin
Feb 1 at 8:13







As you have a running VM, you've potentially a method to use something like Carbon Copy Cloner to get that VM onto the other Mac's drive. CCC will also recreate the recovery partition as part of the process. [I've never actually tried it from a VM, but it might be worth a shot.]

– Tetsujin
Feb 1 at 8:13












1 Answer
1






active

oldest

votes


















0














You machine doesn't support internet recovery. The earliest machines with a firmware update to support internet recovery came out in 2010.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202313



Looks like your machine came with a dvd. You will need to borrow or buy macos on a dvd. You need to find a dvd with an macOS equal to or later than.
Original OS Mac OS X 10.6.1 (10A2155)
Later OS Mac OS X 10.6.2 (10C2234)



It might be easier to get a full install dvd for macos 10.7.



You could try cloning a macos system less than or equal to
Maximum OS macOS 10.13.6 (17G65)
Typically the last support os runs slow.



Apple still seems to be selling 10.7.
https://www.apple.com/shop/product/D6106Z/A/os-x-lion
I bought it once. I remember it came as a download. I do not know if you will be able to install it on your machine. You may be able to convert the download to a boot usb flash drive install. You will need another machine to do this.






share|improve this answer



















  • 1





    You can still download the Lion Recovery Disk creator free from Apple here which can be used to recreate recovery partition. See this answer

    – lx07
    Feb 1 at 9:16













  • Good to know. You point to an interesting article.

    – historystamp
    Feb 1 at 20:36












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1 Answer
1






active

oldest

votes








1 Answer
1






active

oldest

votes









active

oldest

votes






active

oldest

votes









0














You machine doesn't support internet recovery. The earliest machines with a firmware update to support internet recovery came out in 2010.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202313



Looks like your machine came with a dvd. You will need to borrow or buy macos on a dvd. You need to find a dvd with an macOS equal to or later than.
Original OS Mac OS X 10.6.1 (10A2155)
Later OS Mac OS X 10.6.2 (10C2234)



It might be easier to get a full install dvd for macos 10.7.



You could try cloning a macos system less than or equal to
Maximum OS macOS 10.13.6 (17G65)
Typically the last support os runs slow.



Apple still seems to be selling 10.7.
https://www.apple.com/shop/product/D6106Z/A/os-x-lion
I bought it once. I remember it came as a download. I do not know if you will be able to install it on your machine. You may be able to convert the download to a boot usb flash drive install. You will need another machine to do this.






share|improve this answer



















  • 1





    You can still download the Lion Recovery Disk creator free from Apple here which can be used to recreate recovery partition. See this answer

    – lx07
    Feb 1 at 9:16













  • Good to know. You point to an interesting article.

    – historystamp
    Feb 1 at 20:36
















0














You machine doesn't support internet recovery. The earliest machines with a firmware update to support internet recovery came out in 2010.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202313



Looks like your machine came with a dvd. You will need to borrow or buy macos on a dvd. You need to find a dvd with an macOS equal to or later than.
Original OS Mac OS X 10.6.1 (10A2155)
Later OS Mac OS X 10.6.2 (10C2234)



It might be easier to get a full install dvd for macos 10.7.



You could try cloning a macos system less than or equal to
Maximum OS macOS 10.13.6 (17G65)
Typically the last support os runs slow.



Apple still seems to be selling 10.7.
https://www.apple.com/shop/product/D6106Z/A/os-x-lion
I bought it once. I remember it came as a download. I do not know if you will be able to install it on your machine. You may be able to convert the download to a boot usb flash drive install. You will need another machine to do this.






share|improve this answer



















  • 1





    You can still download the Lion Recovery Disk creator free from Apple here which can be used to recreate recovery partition. See this answer

    – lx07
    Feb 1 at 9:16













  • Good to know. You point to an interesting article.

    – historystamp
    Feb 1 at 20:36














0












0








0







You machine doesn't support internet recovery. The earliest machines with a firmware update to support internet recovery came out in 2010.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202313



Looks like your machine came with a dvd. You will need to borrow or buy macos on a dvd. You need to find a dvd with an macOS equal to or later than.
Original OS Mac OS X 10.6.1 (10A2155)
Later OS Mac OS X 10.6.2 (10C2234)



It might be easier to get a full install dvd for macos 10.7.



You could try cloning a macos system less than or equal to
Maximum OS macOS 10.13.6 (17G65)
Typically the last support os runs slow.



Apple still seems to be selling 10.7.
https://www.apple.com/shop/product/D6106Z/A/os-x-lion
I bought it once. I remember it came as a download. I do not know if you will be able to install it on your machine. You may be able to convert the download to a boot usb flash drive install. You will need another machine to do this.






share|improve this answer













You machine doesn't support internet recovery. The earliest machines with a firmware update to support internet recovery came out in 2010.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202313



Looks like your machine came with a dvd. You will need to borrow or buy macos on a dvd. You need to find a dvd with an macOS equal to or later than.
Original OS Mac OS X 10.6.1 (10A2155)
Later OS Mac OS X 10.6.2 (10C2234)



It might be easier to get a full install dvd for macos 10.7.



You could try cloning a macos system less than or equal to
Maximum OS macOS 10.13.6 (17G65)
Typically the last support os runs slow.



Apple still seems to be selling 10.7.
https://www.apple.com/shop/product/D6106Z/A/os-x-lion
I bought it once. I remember it came as a download. I do not know if you will be able to install it on your machine. You may be able to convert the download to a boot usb flash drive install. You will need another machine to do this.







share|improve this answer












share|improve this answer



share|improve this answer










answered Feb 1 at 4:32









historystamphistorystamp

1714




1714








  • 1





    You can still download the Lion Recovery Disk creator free from Apple here which can be used to recreate recovery partition. See this answer

    – lx07
    Feb 1 at 9:16













  • Good to know. You point to an interesting article.

    – historystamp
    Feb 1 at 20:36














  • 1





    You can still download the Lion Recovery Disk creator free from Apple here which can be used to recreate recovery partition. See this answer

    – lx07
    Feb 1 at 9:16













  • Good to know. You point to an interesting article.

    – historystamp
    Feb 1 at 20:36








1




1





You can still download the Lion Recovery Disk creator free from Apple here which can be used to recreate recovery partition. See this answer

– lx07
Feb 1 at 9:16







You can still download the Lion Recovery Disk creator free from Apple here which can be used to recreate recovery partition. See this answer

– lx07
Feb 1 at 9:16















Good to know. You point to an interesting article.

– historystamp
Feb 1 at 20:36





Good to know. You point to an interesting article.

– historystamp
Feb 1 at 20:36


















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