You can discover more about how to use the Recovery HD volume in our guide to using the Recovery HD volume to reinstall or troubleshoot macOS.
Create Your Own Mac Recovery HD on Any Drive
Apple also created a utility called OS X Recovery Disk Assistant that can create a copy of the Recovery HD on any bootable external drive you have connected to your Mac. This is good news for the many Mac users who would like to have the Recovery HD volume on a drive other than the startup volume. However, the utility can only create the Recovery HD volume on an external drive. This leaves out all of the Mac Pro, iMac, and even Mac mini users who may have multiple internal hard drives. With the help of a few hidden macOS features, you can create a Recovery HD volume anywhere you want to, including on an internal drive.
Two Methods for Creating the Recovery HD
Due to some changes in features available in the various versions of macOS, there are two different methods to use to create the Recovery HD volume, depending on the version of the Mac OS you’re using:
OS X Lion through OS X Yosemite OS X El Capitan and later
What You Need
To create a copy of the Recovery HD volume, you must first have a working Recovery HD volume on your Mac’s startup drive, because you use the original Recovery HD as the source for creating a clone of the volume. If you don’t have the Recovery HD volume on your startup drive, then you won’t be able to use these instructions. Instead, you can create a bootable copy of the macOS installer, which includes all the same recovery utilities as the Recovery HD volume. You can find instructions for creating a bootable Installer on a USB flash drive here:
Create a Bootable Flash Drive With OS X Lion Installer Create Bootable Copies of the OS X Mountain Lion Installer How to Make a Bootable Flash Installer of OS X or macOS (Mavericks through Sierra)
With that out of the way, it’s time to turn our attention to what we need to create a clone of the Recovery HD volume.
How to Create a Recovery HD Volume With OS X Lion Through OS X Yosemite
The Recovery HD volume is hidden; it won’t show up on the desktop or in Disk Utility or other cloning applications. To clone the Recovery HD, we must first make it visible, so that our cloning application can work with the volume. With OS X Lion through OS X Yosemite, we can use a hidden feature of Disk Utility — a Debug menu that you can use to reveal hidden partitions. So the first step in the cloning process is to turn on the Debug menu. You can find instructions here:
Enable Disk Utility’s Debug Menu
You’ll only find the Disk Utility Debug menu available in OS X Lion through OS X Yosemite. If you’re using a later version of macOS, jump ahead to the next section. Otherwise, make the Debug menu visible.
Prepare the Destination Volume
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; 650 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. 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.
Unmount the Recovery HD Volume
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. You can use Disk Utility to unmount the Recovery HD volume if you prefer. Select the new Recovery HD volume from the Device list in Disk Utility, then select the Unmount button at the top of the Disk Utility window. 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.
Create a Recovery HD Volume on OS X El Capitan and Later
Creating a Recovery HD volume on an internal drive in macOS El Capitan and Sierra and later is more cumbersome because, with the advent of El Capitan, Apple removed the hidden Disk Utility Debug menu. 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.
Use Terminal to Create a Disk Image of the Hidden Recovery HD Volume
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. When the Terminal prompt returns, the Recovery HD disk image is on your Mac’s desktop 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. An actual example of the command is:
Use Disk Utility to Create the Recovery HD Partition
The next step in macOS El Capitan and later versions is to partition the drive that you want to have the Recovery HD volume created on. The Recovery HD partition you create needs to be only slightly bigger than the Recovery HD partition, which is usually somewhere between 650 MB to 1.5 GB. However, because the size may change with each new version of the operating system, make the partition size larger than 1.5 GB.
Clone the Recovery HD Disk Image to the Partition
To clone the Recovery HD disk image to the partition you just created, use the Restore command in Disk Utility. You now have a Recovery HD volume on the selected drive.
One Last Thing — Hiding the Recovery HD Volume
If you remember back to when you started this process, you used Terminal’s “diskutil” to find the Recovery HD volume. It had a type of Apple_Boot. The Recovery HD volume you just created isn’t currently set to be an Apple_Boot type. So, the last task is to set the Type. This also causes the Recovery HD volume to become hidden. You need to discover the disk identifier for the Recovery HD volume you just created. Because this volume is currently mounted on your Mac, you can use Disk Utility to find the identifier. That’s it. You’ve created a clone of the Recovery HD volume on the drive of your choice.
