Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

l008com · Mar 22, 2013, 07:02 PM

So for many years now, the procedure for upgrading a hard drive for has been to physically install the new drive. Then connect the old drive externally. And use CCC (or Disk Utility, or whatever) to copy the contents of the old drive, directly to the new drive. This, while the Mac is booted off my own laptop.

But if I do this now, I'll get a drive with no recovery partition. But I don't want to spend the time installing OS X first, then doing a migration from the old drive. That will take twice as long. (and I charge by the hour). Is there a way to create the recovery partition after the fact?

Spheric Harlot · Mar 22, 2013, 07:30 PM

Originally Posted by l008com

That will take twice as long. (and I charge by the hour).

I'm sorry, but: Isn't this a win-win situation?

l008com · Mar 22, 2013, 07:31 PM

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot

I'm sorry, but: Isn't this a win-win situation?

Milking the clock is good for short term gains, not so good for long term relationships.

Spheric Harlot · Mar 22, 2013, 07:33 PM

I was kind of kidding.

But the installation of OS X from a USB stick and re-migration from an existing partition doesn't take *that* much longer than cloning an entire disk including all system files, does it?

Have you actually timed it?

l008com · Mar 22, 2013, 07:37 PM

I haven't timed it but I have been doing this for years, and I do know that it takes much longer. When someone is having problems, you'll occasionally do the install then migrate, instead of a full migrate, to fix any system problems. It definitely takes a lot more time. It's a shame the installer doesn't have a simple "create recovery volume" function.

At least I run a netboot server off my laptop, so I don't have to actually download the 4+ GB Mountain Lion system every time I do this. But still reinstalling the whole system just to get a recovery volume installed seems like an awful waste of time.

Spheric Harlot · Mar 22, 2013, 07:45 PM

Is a netboot server faster than a USB stick installer?

I realize that Gbit Ethernet is nominally faster than USB2, but I have to wonder. The USB stick variant is so much less complex, too (once you've created the installer). I no longer do this professionally, so I opt for simple and reliable these days.

l008com · Mar 22, 2013, 07:47 PM

I haven't done comparison tests, but my laptop has a 500+MB/sec SSD drive, so I betcha netbooting is faster. But the speeds are probably pretty close anyway, since the installer copies itself to the computer, and runs itself off the local machine. The speed difference in total install time is likely minimal. The biggest advantage to netbooting is I can do as many different machines at once as I want, and that I can do any versions I want, from Panther all the way up to Mountain Lion.

Spheric Harlot · Mar 22, 2013, 08:08 PM

Makes sense. I only have 10.6, 10.7 and 10.8 on my install stick, and I've never had to image/install on more than one or two machines at a time (rarely did business or corporate clients).

andi*pandi · Mar 23, 2013, 08:21 AM

I recently wiped and put a backup of 10.7 on an external disk using CCC. It prompted me to create the invisible recovery partition.

Doc HM · Mar 23, 2013, 11:31 AM

If you use the current version of CCC to clone 10.7 or 10.8 drive to a new drive and it doesn't detect a recovery partition on the target drive it will allow you to create one as you go (in either Lion or ML flavour)

CCC is one of the true (along with Disk Warrior) no brainer purchasing decisions in IT.

Waragainstsleep · Mar 23, 2013, 03:34 PM

I always thought a fresh install and migrate would be cleaner than a clone. If you're doing this sort of thing on site I guess you have a point about speed but I did most of mine in the workshop so spending 5 minutes hitting the migrate button having spent 5 booting from the installer and hitting the install button doesn't really add to the bill because there is always something else to do while its running.