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Do System Updates Update the Recovery Partition?

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  Do System Updates Update the Recovery Partition? Nelson <nelson@nowhere.com> - 2014-12-15 14:32 -0500
    Re: Do System Updates Update the Recovery Partition? Your Name <YourName@YourISP.com> - 2014-12-16 09:09 +1300
      Re: Do System Updates Update the Recovery Partition? nospam <nospam@nospam.invalid> - 2014-12-15 16:11 -0500
      Re: Do System Updates Update the Recovery Partition? dempson@actrix.gen.nz (David Empson) - 2014-12-16 10:31 +1300
        Re: Do System Updates Update the Recovery Partition? nmassello@yahoo.com (Neill Massello) - 2014-12-15 16:08 -0700
    Re: Do System Updates Update the Recovery Partition? nmassello@yahoo.com (Neill Massello) - 2014-12-15 13:58 -0700

#67634 — Do System Updates Update the Recovery Partition?

I think it was OS 10.7 that introduced a separate Recovery Partition.  
If I upgrade to OS 10. >7, is the Recovery Partition upgraded also?  If 
not, how would I do that?

-- 
Nelson

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#67636

In article <0001HW.D0B4A1630295BC66B01029BF@news.astraweb.com>, Nelson
<nelson@nowhere.com> wrote:
> 
> I think it was OS 10.7 that introduced a separate Recovery Partition.  
> If I upgrade to OS 10. >7, is the Recovery Partition upgraded also?  If 
> not, how would I do that?

The Recovery Partition is not updated and you don't (and probably
can't) update it. It's there to resurrect the Mac if things go very
wrong, so is best left as a safe factory-standard, working system.*

If you really want an updated backup, you simply need to regularly
clone your hard drive / SSD to an external storage.


* Of course the problem is that as the computer gets older there's more
and more of a chance that Apple will no longer have the updates
available on their server, or change server locations, etc. meaning the
recovered system can't find any updates. So if you're a long term user
you should probably keep any updaters, and back them up.

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#67639

In article <161220140909415462%YourName@YourISP.com>, Your Name
<YourName@YourISP.com> wrote:

> > I think it was OS 10.7 that introduced a separate Recovery Partition.  
> > If I upgrade to OS 10. >7, is the Recovery Partition upgraded also?  If 
> > not, how would I do that?
> 
> The Recovery Partition is not updated and you don't (and probably
> can't) update it. It's there to resurrect the Mac if things go very
> wrong, so is best left as a safe factory-standard, working system.*

wrong. it is updated when the os is updated. it has to be.

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#67641

Your Name <YourName@YourISP.com> wrote:

> In article <0001HW.D0B4A1630295BC66B01029BF@news.astraweb.com>, Nelson
> <nelson@nowhere.com> wrote:
> > 
> > I think it was OS 10.7 that introduced a separate Recovery Partition.
> > If I upgrade to OS 10. >7, is the Recovery Partition upgraded also?  If
> > not, how would I do that?
> 
> The Recovery Partition is not updated

The Recovery Partition is indeed updated at some points. I recall during
the pre-release period for Yosemite, one of the software updates was for
the recovery partition.

I observed that my previous MacBook Pro still had a Lion recovery
partition after I upgraded to Mountain Lion, therefore it appears that
Mountain Lion doesn't need to replace Lion's recovery partition. (My
Lion recovery partition was OS X 10.7.3, the first version of Lion I
installed. I don't know whether a 10.7 to 10.7.2 recovery partition
might have been updated to a later version.)

I moved to a new computer with Mavericks, so I don't have enough
information to determine whether installing Mavericks on top of an
earlier system would have updated its recovery partition.

When I installed the public release version of Yosemite (on top of my
Mavericks system), it also replaced the Mavericks recovery partition
with a Yosemite one.

Checking now, my recovery partition's System folder says it is OS X
10.10.1, therefore in appears the recovery partition was updated again
by the 10.10.1 update. Most of the files on the recovery partition
appear to be 10.10 rather than 10.10.1, e.g. that is the version in the
com.apple.recovery.boot folder and inside BaseSystem.dmg.

It also looks like Time Machine deleted its backup of this computer's
Mavericks recovery partition and has backed up the Yosemite one instead.
(My TM backup has also kept the 10.7.3 recovery partition from my
previous computer.)

> and you don't (and probably can't) update it.

"You" generally don't update it (or otherwise modify it). Apple does
that automatically as part of installing a new major OS X version, if
they deem it necessary, or in some cases as part of a minor version
update or a specific Recovery HD software update.

> It's there to resurrect the Mac if things go very wrong, so is best left
> as a safe factory-standard, working system.*
> 
> If you really want an updated backup, you simply need to regularly
> clone your hard drive / SSD to an external storage.
> 
> 
> * Of course the problem is that as the computer gets older there's more
> and more of a chance that Apple will no longer have the updates
> available on their server, or change server locations, etc. meaning the
> recovered system can't find any updates. So if you're a long term user
> you should probably keep any updaters, and back them up.

That is already partly true for Mac OS X 10.3.9 and earlier - Software
Update doesn't work any more, but you can still manually download the
updates, as long as you know what to look for.

Apple used to publish support documents listing all the updates for a
particular Mac OS X version, but I didn't find one for 10.3 or later,
and the 10.2 one was incomplete. Luckily I had already accumulated and
kept a set of updates for 10.3 -> 10.3.9 and subsequent updates when I
was running that version, so I could refer to my own archives when I
needed to reinstall a 10.3 system relatively recently.

When I last checked, Apple still had Apple II and Mac OS 9 and earlier
updates available for download, and Software Update still worked for
10.4.

If it gets to the point in future where 10.7 and later can no longer use
Software Update, then there is at least one problem I know of: Apple
doesn't provide links to manually install Safari 6 and later. A kind
soul in the MacRumors forum has been posting direct download links to
the installer packages, so I've kept a reference copy of the final
Safari update for Lion (6.1.6), just in case.

-- 
David Empson
dempson@actrix.gen.nz

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#67642

David Empson <dempson@actrix.gen.nz> wrote:

> The Recovery Partition is indeed updated at some points. I recall during
> the pre-release period for Yosemite, one of the software updates was for
> the recovery partition.
> 
> I observed that my previous MacBook Pro still had a Lion recovery
> partition after I upgraded to Mountain Lion, therefore it appears that
> Mountain Lion doesn't need to replace Lion's recovery partition. (My
> Lion recovery partition was OS X 10.7.3, the first version of Lion I
> installed. I don't know whether a 10.7 to 10.7.2 recovery partition
> might have been updated to a later version.)
> 
> I moved to a new computer with Mavericks, so I don't have enough
> information to determine whether installing Mavericks on top of an
> earlier system would have updated its recovery partition.

It does. I installed 10.9 on top of 10.8 and have had a 10.9.1 Recovery
partition ever since. 

> When I installed the public release version of Yosemite (on top of my
> Mavericks system), it also replaced the Mavericks recovery partition
> with a Yosemite one.
> 
> Checking now, my recovery partition's System folder says it is OS X
> 10.10.1, therefore in appears the recovery partition was updated again
> by the 10.10.1 update. 

That's unusual, and it might be new with 10.10. I am running 10.9.5 (via
combo updater) but my Recovery partition is still 10.9.1. I'm pretty
sure that none of the 10.8 updates (again by combo update packages) ever
updated the Recovery partition. 

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#67638

Nelson <nelson@nowhere.com> wrote:

> I think it was OS 10.7 that introduced a separate Recovery Partition.
> If I upgrade to OS 10. >7, is the Recovery Partition upgraded also?  If
> not, how would I do that?

System *updates*, whether from the App Store or from downloaded delta or
"Combo" installer packages, do not affect the Recovery HD partition. It
remains at the same version put there the last time an "Install OS X
<Codename>" application was used for that drive. If you *upgrade* to
10.8 or later, the Recovery HD will be updated to correspond to the OS
version installed on the main, visible partition. 

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