Recommendation on recovery partition?

[HFultzjr]

I just replaced a bad hard drive on 25" imac with a 500 GB WD Black. Wanted to go SSD, but had one of these on hand and customer wanted cheap. It now has one partition "Macintosh HD" containing a fresh install and is working great. My question is, what would be your advice on how to create a recovery partition and how to do it in simple terms. I'm still a Mac newbie (very much so).

 

[Markverhyden]

How did you install the OS? What version is it? How old is the iMac?

 

[HFultzjr]

OS is Mavericks installed via DVD
iMac is 6 years old I think.
Did the install from DVD and created one partition "Macintosh HD".
Don't have it in front of me at the moment, it's back to the customer along with a successful ddrescue of personal data from old drive.
I'm sure I could get it back if needed.

 

[Markverhyden]

Ok. 2010 would probably have come with 10.6 which did not have a built in recovery. Beginning with 10.7 Apple implemented a built in recovery. If one installs 10.7 or better on an older machine it should create a recovery partition. In the beginning they would have the full image local on the drive in case there was no Internet connection. But it seems that there is no "real" recovery partition anymore. One has to be connected to the Internet or use a bootable media. I'm pretty certain you can create a bootable partition on the drive and put the installer on it to boot from. Just never bothered as the need has been low.

 

[HFultzjr]

Thanks Mark.
I'll probably just create them a bootable USB for the OS.