MP 1,1-5,1 Delete useless recovery partitions in Mojave

[Niek D]

I have a Mac Pro 5.1 with a RX580 running Mojave. I install every new OS version on a new disk and then use the former start-up disks as datadisks in the Mac Pro. I also regularly enable/disable SIP for the HW-acceleration of the RX580 and therefor have to restart in Recovery mode. Which is a problem because al 4 disks have a recovery partition and that seems to confuse the Mac so it simply stalls. I had to remove 3 of the older (HFS+)-disks to use the recovery partition on the Mojave disk.

Luckily I could use an old computer with 10.6.8 and the disk-utility Debug trick to delete the Recovery partition on 2 disks, the 3th disk simply could not be read by Snow Leopard. So now I only have to remove 1 disk in Recovery mode...

Is there an easy way to delete the recovery partition on that disk using High Sierra or Mojave? I have read that just erasing and repartitioning the disk would not do the trick, but I have no spare disk to copy the 4 TB of data on that disk to try it out..

 

[DeltaMac]

Hmm...
I have no such issues booting to the recovery system - and I have one external hard drive with 4 different bootable systems installed, each with recovery partitions, all on the same hard drive (plus 8 OTHER bootable installers, each on its own partition, again, all on the same hard drive) I use it frequently to test older systems.

Do you check that your Startup Disk pref pane has the boot system selected that you want to boot?
If yes, then restarting with Command-r SHOULD boot to that selected system's recovery system (and no other)
In fact, I just used all 4 recovery partitions just a few days ago, changing some configurations for each of the 4 systems. As long as Startup Disk was set correctly before trying the recovery system, the proper recovery system booted each time. No problems at all. (I do NOT use the Option-boot screen to select other recovery partitions - I ONLY use the Startup Disk pane to pre-select the correct system first. Works for me. ) Pre-selecting the Startup Disk might take a bit longer, but that's what I use.

 

[Niek D]

Thanks for your reaction but what computer do you use? I can only start from one of the 4 internal disks, it won't start from an external disk using eSata or USB-3. The start-up disk is Mojave, and using a RX580 means Option-boot won't work at all.. And as soon as I remove the non-Mojave disks with their recovery partitions starting up in recovery mode is no problem. So now I have to completely shut down the computer, remove a disk, start-up in Recovery mode, disable SIP, shut down computer, put in disk, start-up in Mojave... And starting up from shut down costs almost 3 minutes, so I really want to get rid of that recovery partition!

 

[bjar]

Thanks for your reaction but what computer do you use? I can only start from one of the 4 internal disks, it won't start from an external disk using eSata or USB-3. The start-up disk is Mojave, and using a RX580 means Option-boot won't work at all.. And as soon as I remove the non-Mojave disks with their recovery partitions starting up in recovery mode is no problem. So now I have to completely shut down the computer, remove a disk, start-up in Recovery mode, disable SIP, shut down computer, put in disk, start-up in Mojave... And starting up from shut down costs almost 3 minutes, so I really want to get rid of that recovery partition!

I think carbon copy cloner can delete recovery partitions. I’ll have to check when I get home.

 

[crjackson2134]

On a drive formatted to APFS, the Recovery partition is wrapped in the container file. CCC can manipulate the Recovery Partition on HFS+ formatted drives, but I don’t believe it can perform this task on APFS drives.

Backup your data (file copy it) to a different drive, then use the gpt destroy command to completely wipe the target drive (using a terminal session).

diskutil list (to find the target disk name/number)

sudo gpt destroy diskX (to destroy all data and reset the drive to like new condition, X=drive number)

From there you can reformat and replace the data as desired.

 

[Niek D]

Thanks, I will try this as a last solution, because it means copying 2x 4TB data which is at least 12 hours on my mac.. The whole proces of deleting the recovery partition using 10.6.8 was done in 2 minutes...

 

[h9826790]

For APFS, better not to touch the recovery partition. I have no problem of running a cMP that has multiple APFS recovery partition (I also removed all HFS+ recovery partition which is useless now).

Anyway, you may consider use the the "hex edit method" rather than "Lilu method". So that you can turn ON / OFF HW acceleration at anytime without reboot.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/activate-amd-hardware-acceleration.2180095/page-9#post-27442938

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...re-acceleration.2180095/page-12#post-27500014

 

[Niek D]

I real don't understand why such a simple act as removing or deleting a partition you don't have any need for has to be such a problem for Apple. Or did the real good programmers leave the company when Forestall was fired and they would have to work for Jony Ive? I can't really blame them for that...

At the moment the 'hex edit method' seams somewhat less stable than the 'Lilu methode'. I will try the hex edit when 10.14.6 comes!