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< 3.5 GHz, 6-Core Mac Pro (MacPro6,1) with 16GB RAM and D700 GPUs, running macOS 10.14.3 >

Greetings, folks!

I am baffled that I cannot boot my Mac into Recovery Mode after a clean install of 10.14.3. (I have poured through this site’s related pages!) I have plugged my keyboard directly into the Mac Pro, bypassing the hub, and tried multiple ways of holding down cmd-r during the boot process including prior to pressing the power button. I have no problem booting the Mac into Internet Recovery Mode (cmd-opt-r). Holding down the option key on boot does nothing; the Mac just boots normally. Holding down the shift key will bring up the login screen.

diskutil reports that the recovery volume exists and is valid. The calls returned below are:

  • diskutil list (with and without an external drive mounted)
  • diskutil verifyVolume disk1s3
  • diskutil cs list
  • sudo gpt -r show /dev/disk0

I had even downloaded and installed the recovery update, macOSUpd10.14.2.RecoveryHDUpdate.pkg, on multiple volumes, but still with no luck.

Any thoughts on why my Mac doesn’t respond to cmd-r?

Are there any shell scripts or AppleScripts that can be used to force the Mac to boot into the Recovery HD? (I can’t imagine . . . )

Blessings, and thank you!!

Richard Fairbanks

6-251-76-76:~ Me$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.3 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk1         500.1 GB   disk0s2

/dev/disk1 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +500.1 GB   disk1
                                 Physical Store disk0s2
   1:                APFS Volume Cupid                   370.2 GB   disk1s1
   2:                APFS Volume Preboot                 45.9 MB    disk1s2
   3:                APFS Volume Recovery                517.0 MB   disk1s3
   4:                APFS Volume VM                      2.1 GB     disk1s4

/dev/disk2 (external, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *4.0 TB     disk2
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk2s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Cupid Clone             500.0 GB   disk2s2
   3:                  Apple_HFS OS X 1                  40.0 GB    disk2s3
   4:                 Apple_APFS Container disk3         40.1 GB    disk2s4
   5:                  Apple_HFS Applications            100.0 GB   disk2s5
   6:                  Apple_HFS Me                      1000.0 GB  disk2s6
   7:                  Apple_HFS Miscellaneous           2.3 TB     disk2s7

/dev/disk3 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +40.1 GB    disk3
                                 Physical Store disk2s4
   1:                APFS Volume macOS Mojave            25.3 GB    disk3s1
   2:                APFS Volume Preboot                 44.4 MB    disk3s2
   3:                APFS Volume Recovery                517.0 MB   disk3s3
   4:                APFS Volume VM                      8.6 GB     disk3s4

6-251-76-76:~ Me$ diskutil verifyVolume disk1s3
Started file system verification on disk1s3 Recovery
Verifying file system
Volume was successfully unmounted
Live mode required because other APFS Volumes in its Container are mounted
Using live mode
Performing fsck_apfs -n -l -x /dev/rdisk1s3
Checking the container superblock
Checking the EFI jumpstart record
Checking the space manager
Checking the space manager free queue trees
Checking the object map
Checking volume
Checking the APFS volume superblock
The volume Recovery was formatted by diskmanagementd (945.230.6) and last modified by apfs_kext (945.241.4)
Checking the object map
Checking the snapshot metadata tree
Checking the snapshot metadata
Checking the extent ref tree
Checking the fsroot tree
Verifying allocated space
Performing deferred repairs
The volume /dev/rdisk1s3 appears to be OK
File system check exit code is 0
Restoring the original state found as mounted
Finished file system verification on disk1s3 Recovery

taken from: How to boot into recovery mode without cmd-r?

6-251-76-76:~ Me$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.3 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk1         500.1 GB   disk0s2

/dev/disk1 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +500.1 GB   disk1
                                 Physical Store disk0s2
   1:                APFS Volume Cupid                   362.6 GB   disk1s1
   2:                APFS Volume Preboot                 45.9 MB    disk1s2
   3:                APFS Volume Recovery                517.0 MB   disk1s3
   4:                APFS Volume VM                      2.1 GB     disk1s4

6-251-76-76:~ Me$ diskutil cs list
No CoreStorage logical volume groups found

6-251-76-76:~ Me$ sudo gpt -r show /dev/disk0
      start       size  index  contents
          0          1         PMBR
          1          1         Pri GPT header
          2         32         Pri GPT table
         34          6         
         40     409600      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
     409640  976695384      2  GPT part - 7C3457EF-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  977105024          3         
  977105027         32         Sec GPT table
  977105059          1         Sec GPT header
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2 Answers 2

Reset to default
2

try this

sudo nvram “recovery-boot-mode=unused”

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3
  • What does this do and when is it needed?
    – WestCoastProjects
    Nov 1, 2020 at 12:17
  • tells the machine to boot into recovery mode.
    – lbutlr
    Nov 8, 2020 at 17:14
  • Thx - i will try this when i reboot sometime in next several days
    – WestCoastProjects
    Nov 8, 2020 at 17:24
1

Wow!

Thank you so much, lbutlr!!

It did seem that adding “sudo reboot” was prudent. Thus:

sudo nvram "recovery-boot-mode=unused"
sudo reboot

I created a shell script that can be called quickly from a script menu, etc., appended below. (Please excuse any sloppy code; I’m a bit rusty.)

Blessings, and thank you!!

Richard Fairbanks

#!/bin/sh

say "rebooting into recovery mode in ten seconds, press any modifier key to abort"

# the following will abort a script within one-fifth of a second, if any modifier key (cmd, option, control, shift, and/or capslock) is pressed.
# It uses the checkModifierKeys Command Line Interface executable, posted by Saint Stefan at https://macscripter.net/viewtopic.php?pid=114479#p114479

for i in {50..1}; do
    if [ `/usr/local/bin/checkModifierKeys` -gt "0" ]; then
    say "aborting"
        exit
    else
        if [[ ( "$i" = "50" ) || ( "$i" = "45" ) || ( "$i" = "40" ) || ( "$i" = "35" ) || ( "$i" = "30" ) || ( "$i" = "25" ) || ( "$i" = "20" ) || ( "$i" = "15" ) || ( "$i" = "10" ) || ( "$i" = "5" ) ]]; then
            s=$(($i/5))
            say $s
        fi;
        sleep 0.2
    fi;
done

say "rebooting into recovery mode"

exit # this is here to stop you from running this until you have tested it out and are comfortable with the consequences!  ;-)  Comment it out with a # and it will do the reboot into recovery mode.

sudo nvram "recovery-boot-mode=unused"
sudo reboot
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