While I was doing maintenance for my OS X, using the Maintenance app, the app told me that my disk partition needs to be repaired. So, as usual, I reboot OS X and held Cmd + R to access the Disk Utilty in OS X Recovery to fix it.

However, instead of coming to Disk Recovery Assistant, I was directed to the Internet Recovery, which was unusual. I later on figured out that this happened because the Recovery partition is missing somehow. To verify this, I ran diskutil list in Terminal but I can’t find the Recovery HD partition.

Internet Recovery is a feature addition since OS X. It lets us perform the disk recovery, then fix and reinstall OS X from Apple’s server. But, it requires an Internet connection, so you are out of luck if you have poor or unreliable Internet connection.

Here’s how I sorted out this issue without Internet Recovery, and it’s not as complicated as I first thought.

How to Create Recovery Partition

To begin with, you will need the OS X installer from the App Store (be it Mavericks, or Yosemite or others) and you will also need the Recovery Partition Creator (RPC), an AppleScript that enables us to create the partition in a friendly way.

To create the partition HD, follow these steps.

Launch the Recovery Partition script. You will be prompted to create a backup, and I encourage you to do so using Time Machine, just in case something goes wrong. In addition, the script will prompt you with the OS X version you are currently using. Click OK, then select the primary disk partition where the OS X install resides, from the selection before you. Click OK. You may select an external disk if you have one. This way you will have to connect the disk to your Mac everytime you run Disk Recovery Assistant. Select the OS X installer which you should have obtained from the App Store. Once you clicked OK, you will be prompted to check the drives in case of errors, before the script creates the partition. Click Continue. Click OK to let the script creating the Recovery partition with the OS X of your choice.

This process may take up to 5 minutes or more. Once the process is done, run the diskutil list again, and you should now be able to see this on the list: Apple_Boot Recovery HD .

The script is really handy; it enables us to have the Recovery partition back in only a few clicks away.

Now, we are able to repair disks with the Disk Recovery Assistant instead of through Internet Recovery; I personally think this method is more convenient. I hope you find this little tip useful and got the issue solved.