Dec 21, 2020 • Filed to: Solve Mac Problems • Proven solutions

Do you know that mini heart attack you get when your Mac crashes or would not start? It is the worst feeling in the world, especially if you have a lifetime worth of work stored inside your machine. What should you do in these situations? As you are probably have been advised many times, backing up your data regularly is a great practice. For Mac users, setting up an OS X Recovery Disk would be beneficial when trouble strikes. For example, it is conducive to Mac file recovery while you find data lost.

What Is an OS X Recovery Disk?

The OS X Recovery Disk is a native but hidden recovery volume on your Mac hard drive. This feature can be used to start up your machine and perform emergency maintenance services such as repairing a corrupted drive by running Disk Utility, surf the Internet to assess the problem you might be experiencing or download any necessary updates. You can also use the OS X Recovery Disk to reinstall your operating system and restore lost data from Time Machine backup.

Part 1 How to Restore Mac with Recovery Disk Mac

Now that you know that your machine has a built-in recovery tool, you may ask, 'How to use the OS X Recovery Disk?' The feature allows you to do the following options:

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. How To: Dual Boot Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan & 10.10 Yosemite How To: Create a Bootable Install USB Drive of Mac OS X 10.9 Mavericks How To: Dual Boot Mac OS X Mavericks 10.9 & Yosemite 10.10 How To: Rename Multiple Files at Once in Mac OS X Yosemite. To cut a long story short, the Startup disk is showing as missing. I tried all the trouble shooting and seem to be unable to identify and fix the problem. I was able to download the OS X on my external hard drive so I can operate the Mac now. But the problem has not been solved. What do I do from here to repair the disk.

• Use Time Machine backup to restore your Mac.
• Reinstall Mac OS X with a recovery disk.
• Get help online or check your internet connection.
• Use Disk Utility to verify and repair connected disks.

Here is how to repair Mac disk and recover Mac with OS X Recovery Disk:

Mac Boot Repair Disk Download

1. To put your Mac into Recovery Mode, restart your machine and hold down the 'Command + R' keys on your keyboard simultaneously. Continue to do this until the Apple logo appears.

1. When your Mac has started up, the OS X utility window will appear and prompt you to choose one of the four options listed above. (Note: if you do not see this, but instead see a login page, you will need to restart your Mac and do the whole process again).

1. Click 'Disk Utility' and choose the drive you want to repair on your Mac. Open the 'First Aid' tab. To check the problem your Mac has, click the 'Verify Disk' button. Click the 'Repair Disk' button to start fixing this button.

Part 2 How to Create an OS X Recovery Disk

Since OS X Mountain Lion, everything went digital and maintenance-minded. Mac users could no longer depend on physical recovery disks to help them fix any problems on their machines. But what how can you access this hidden partition if something goes wrong with your hard drive? You can always connect your computer online and initiate the OS X Internet Recovery feature, but realistically, you may not always have an internet connection. This method will also not work if you had upgraded an old Mac to run on a newer version of OS X.

In these situations, having your OS X Recovery Disk easily accessible on an external USB drive or SD card would be beneficial. It is straightforward. Read on to learn how to create OS X Recovery Disk that you can easily access anywhere, anytime. Before you start, here are some of the things you need to adhere to:

• To create an OS X Recovery Disk, make sure that your machine is at least running on OS X Lion or Mountain Lion and that there is an existing Recovery System on its startup volume. If you have a newer Mac, use Internet Recovery to get the system online.
• An external USB drive or SD card with at least 1GB free space.

Once you have made sure both requirements are fulfilled, follow the following steps to create an OS X recovery disk:

1. Download the Recovery Disk Assistant from the Apple website if you do not have it already in your Applications/Utility folder.

1. Wait until the download is complete and double-click on the file, which should be named 'RecoveryDiskAssistant.dmg.' This will create the Recovery Disk Assistant.appfile - drag it into your Applications folder.

1. Attach an external hard drive or USB stick and launch the Recovery Disk Assistant. Agree to the terms and conditions and wait until the software detects your external drive.
2. Select the drive you want to use to create the OS X Recovery Disk. Click 'Continue'. (Note: all data in the selected drive will be overwritten so that the wizard can install the needed data to make the external hard drive or USB stick into a recovery disk.)

It will take some time for the process to complete. When the software prompts you that it is done, click on the 'Quit' button. Eject the new recovery disk and keep it in a safe place. You will be able to use the disk when you need it the most. It is also a good idea to update this disk regularly.

Part 3 How to Recover Data on Mac Hard Drive

How do I recover files on my Mac for free?

Mac Boot Repair Disk Download Windows 10

If you just want to recover deleted or lost files from Mac hard drive, you can rely on a free data recovery program to help you do that. For example, Recoverit Free Mac Data Recovery. This file recovery freeware for Mac is dedicated to recovering data on Windows or Mac computer. If you want to retrieve data from an external device, like an external disk or memory card, connect it to your computer and the stored data can also be recovered.

Recoverit - The Free Software for Mac OS Recovery

• Recover documents, photos, videos, emails, and more from Mac hard drive.
• Recover 1000+ types and formats of files in different data loss situations.
• Scan and preview the files before you recover them from all storage devices.

Video Tutorial on Windows and Mac Hard Drive Recovery

Mac Boot Repair Disk Downloads

This free hard drive data recovery software is easy to use and user-friendly. Watch the video, and you can get three simple steps to recover your data from the hard drive.

Mac Boot Repair Disk Download Windows 7

3 Steps to Recover Files from Mac Hard Disk

Download Recoverit Free Data Recovery and take the next three steps to recover Mac hard drive data for free right away.

1. Select the recovery disk

To recover data from a Mac hard disk, please select the hard drive where you want to restore Mac data. Click the 'Start' button to move forward.

1. Scan the Mac recovery disk

Recoverit Mac Disk Recovery will start an instant and all-around scan on the recovery disk. All the lost, inaccessible or deleted files on Mac will be shown gradually.

1. Preview and recover data

Once the scan ends, all the scanned files will be listed according to the file formats. You can preview the files, select the wanted ones, and click 'Recover' to get them back.

Having a built-in recovery solution is excellent, especially when you tend to lose or misplaced recovery disks. It would be great to learn how to use it and have a copy of it stored outside the machine so that you will be able to access it when you cannot do it straight from your computer. Fail to do it? Only want to recover data? Recoverit can help you. Download it and recover lost files for free.

What's Wrong with Mac

Mac Boot Repair Disk Download Windows 8

Recover Your Mac

Fix Your Mac

Delete Your Mac

Learn Mac Hacks

Although Macs are reliable machines, they are not exempt from hiccups. All you need to do is carry around a single USB flash drive to be ready for situations the require you to diagnose, repair, or experiment with Mac OS X.

One of the maintenance tools every Mac user should have available in case of emergency is a bootable copy of Mac OS X on a removable device. A clean installation of the operating system can help pinpoint problems and will come to the rescue in a bind. And since most Mac owners use a MacBook of some kind nowadays, portability is a valuable thing. That means carrying around a bulky external hard drive with cables is not always ideal. It turns out a tiny USB flash drive serves as a great alternative.

Not sure when having OS X loaded on a flash drive would come in handy? Here are just a few examples:

• Your Mac isn’t starting correctly and you’re not sure if the internal hard drive is failing or if another piece of hardware is to blame.
• The file system on your startup disk has become corrupt and needs to be repaired.
• A software problem is plaguing your Mac and you’d like to see if you can replicate it in an isolated environment.
• Your Mac’s hard drive is completely dead and you’d like to use your computer for basic tasks like email and web browsing while you wait for your new drive to arrive.

Now that you’re convinced, let’s figure out how to do this. First you’ll need an Intel-based Mac from the past few years. Second, at least a 16GB USB flash drive, such as this SanDisk Cruzer Micro for about $30 at Amazon. Keep in mind 10.6 Snow Leopard was used to demonstrate this tutorial, so I’m not sure how much space 10.5, 10.4, and earlier require. While they should be fine, squeeze those versions of Mac OS X on a 16GB drive at your own risk. And the third thing you’ll need to get the job done is your OS X installation DVD.

1. To start things off, connect the USB flash drive to your Mac. Make sure there’s no valuable data on there because it will be permanently wiped out in a couple minutes.
2. Open Disk Utility (Applications > Utilities) and click on your flash drive in the list on the left.
3. Go to the Partition tab and select “1 Partition” from the Volume Scheme menu. Enter a name for the volume (I called mine “OS X USB”), select “Mac OS Extended (Journaled)” as the Format, and make sure the size is somewhere around 15-16GB.
4. Click on the Options button towards the bottom and choose “GUID Partition Table” from the popup window. Click OK.
5. Now that all of the settings have been chosen, click the Apply button and then Partition. Disk Utility will take a minute or two to complete the task.
6. I don’t believe this step is required, but it makes me feel better and doesn’t hurt. Click on the volume name you entered in Step 3 (in the list under the flash drive’s name). Go to the Erase tab, make sure the Format is “Mac OS Extended (Journaled),” and click the Erase button.
7. Insert your Mac OS X installation disc if you haven’t already. A window should pop up with the contents of the disc. Double-click the “Install Mac OS X” icon and progress through the installer until you get to the screen that says “Mac OS X will be install on…”
8. Click the Show All Disks button and select your USB flash drive.
9. Click on the Customize button and a new window will appear. Un-check all of the items except “Essential System Software.” You may choose to check “Rosetta” and “QuickTime 7” since they are so small and might come in handy. Click OK and then Install. The rest of the process should be automated and might take between 30-60 minutes since USB flash drives are slower than internal hard drives. When all is said and done, you should find about 9GB of your 16GB drive has been filled.
10. Eventually, the installation will finish and it should reboot directly to the USB drive. If it doesn’t, restart the Mac manually and hold down the Option key to choose the drive yourself. This is how you will access it in the future, too.
11. Set up the fresh installation just like you would a new computer. Once you’re in, run Software Update a few times to get the latest patches and install any third party diagnostic utilities you may have. For example, Alsoft’s DiskWarrior is an invaluable tool that goes above and beyond what OS X’s own Disk Utility has to offer. This way both tools are available in one convenient place whenever you need them.

All done! That wasn’t too painful, was it? Yes, booting to the flash drive will be a tad sluggish, but it’s not meant to be used on a regular basis. This is mainly for diagnosing issues and trying potentially risky things in a virtual sandbox that won’t ruin any of your data. While you’ll hopefully never need to use it, having a bootable copy of OS X on a USB flash drive is a cost-effective, portable emergency tool for your Mac.