Apple Pro Training Series: OS X Support Essentials 10.10: Supporting and Troubleshooting OS X Yosemite: Recovery Utilities
Reference 3.2 OS X Recovery Utilities
OS X Recovery is a useful administrative and troubleshooting resource. When you start up from this system, you have access to several system-administration and maintenance tools.
This system even has a few utilities you cannot find anywhere else in OS X. Again, in most cases, when you first start the OS X Recovery system, you see the OS X Utilities window.
From the OS X Utilities window in OS X Recovery, you can access the following functions:
- Restore From Time Machine Backup—Use this to restore a full-system Time Machine backup from either a network or a locally connected disk. Lesson 16 “Time Machine” covers this topic in greater detail.
- Install OS X or Reinstall OS X—As the name implies, this option opens the OS X Installer. If you are running from an OS X Install disk, the disk contains all the OS X installation assets. However, the local hidden Recovery HD and disks created with OS X Recovery Disk Assistant do not contain the installation assets and thus require Internet access to reinstall OS X. Further, the OS X Installer must verify that the user is allowed access to the OS X Yosemite assets. On older Mac computers that have been upgraded to OS X Yosemite, you must verify the installation by providing the Apple ID used to purchase OS X. For Mac computers that shipped with OS X Yosemite, this verification is automatic. Lesson 1 “Install OS X Yosemite” covers this topic in greater detail.
- Get Help Online—This option opens Safari, taking you directly to the Apple Support website.
- Disk Utility—This application handles storage-related administration and maintenance. It is especially useful when the Mac has started up from OS X Recovery, because Disk Utility can be used to manage a system disk that otherwise can’t be managed when in use as the startup disk. Specifically, Disk Utility can be used to prepare a disk for a new installation of OS X or to attempt repairs on a disk that fails installation. Lesson 9 “File Systems and Storage” covers this topic in greater detail.
Startup Disk (by clicking the close button or quitting)—If you attempt to quit the OS X Utilities window, you will see a prompt to start the Startup Disk utility. From this utility you can select the default system startup disk. The default startup disk can be overridden using any of the alternate startup modes discussed in Lesson 27 “System Troubleshooting”.
Wait, there’s more. OS X Recovery has a few extra utilities tucked away in the Utilities menu at the top of the screen:
- Firmware Password Utility—This utility allows you to secure the Mac computer’s startup process by disabling all alternate startup modes without a password. You can disable or enable this feature and define the required password. Learn more about firmware passwords in Lesson 7 “System Security”.
- Network Utility—This is the primary network and Internet troubleshooting utility in OS X. Its primary use in OS X Recovery is to troubleshoot any network issues that could prevent the download of OS X installation assets. The Network Utility is further discussed in Lesson 22 “Network Troubleshooting”.
- Terminal—This is your primary interface to the UNIX command-line environment of OS X. The most useful command you can enter from here is resetpassword followed by pressing the Return key.
- Reset Password opened via Terminal—This utility lets you reset the password of any local user account, including the root user’s, on the selected system disk. Obviously, this utility can pose a serious security threat, and consequently it can only be run from OS X Recovery. Further, it’s hidden from plain view, as you can only open it by entering the resetpassword command in the Terminal. You can find out more about Reset Password in Lesson 7 “System Security”.