#425 Size of macOS recovery partitions should not be changed

[Ryan Carsten Schmidt]

I used clonezilla to clone a 256GB Mac SSD to a 1TB SSD. It was smart enough to know that even when the other partitions (an HFS+ partition with Mac OS X 10.7, an ext4 partition with Linux Mint, and an APFS container with volumes for macOS 12, 13, 14, and 15) should be resized proportionally to fill the new disk, the EFI partition's size of 209.7MB should not be increased. However, it did increase the size of the 650MB macOS recovery partition; that should not have been increased either; increasing its size only wastes space on the new disk.

macOS Recovery has changed over the years as you can read about in the following article. Sometimes it is in the same APFS container as the other volumes, in which case you would resize that container normally. But you don't want to resize it when Recovery is its own partition, such as when Recovery was first introduced in Mac OS X 10.7.

https://eclecticlight.co/2023/11/25/a-short-history-of-recovery-in-macos/

[Steven Shiau]

Thanks for your feedback. We will try to improve that in the future release.

Steven

[Steven Shiau]

BTW, could you please boot Clonezilla live in your Mac machine with Clonezilla live, then:
1. sudo -i
2. fdisk -l /dev/YOUR_DISK
3. parted -s /dev/YOUR_DISK print
4. sfdisk -d /dev/YOUR_DISK
5. blkid
(Replace YOUR_DISK with your disk name, e.g., sda or nvme0n1)
Please post the results of 2-5.
Thanks.

Steven

[Ryan Carsten Schmidt]

The original 256GB disk:

Disk /dev/sdc: 232.89 GiB, 250059350016 bytes, 488397168 sectors
Disk model: Sabrent Disk Dev
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 33553920 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 830DB9E6-83B0-4628-A003-CF84835586AE

Device         Start       End   Sectors   Size Type
/dev/sdc1         40    409639    409600   200M EFI System
/dev/sdc2     409640 123114719 122705080  58.5G Apple HFS/HFS+
/dev/sdc3  123114720 124384255   1269536 619.9M Apple boot
/dev/sdc4  124385280 245557154 121171875  57.8G Microsoft basic data
/dev/sdc5  245819800 488397127 242577328 115.7G Apple APFS
label: gpt
label-id: 830DB9E6-83B0-4628-A003-CF84835586AE
device: /dev/sdc
unit: sectors
first-lba: 34
last-lba: 488397134
sector-size: 512

/dev/sdc1 : start=          40, size=      409600, type=C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B, uuid=EB1F6E6E-EFDB-43C5-95EB-EA02B2E3FB6B, name="EFI System Partition"
/dev/sdc2 : start=      409640, size=   122705080, type=48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC, uuid=26A028F6-B8F4-4952-8AB4-EF4BF75B9A44
/dev/sdc3 : start=   123114720, size=     1269536, type=426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC, uuid=5FA7AE45-E307-4018-85C1-E5A43CF17C0D
/dev/sdc4 : start=   124385280, size=   121171875, type=EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7, uuid=91E00482-EAE6-4E8C-A6C5-00380E9E9E06
/dev/sdc5 : start=   245819800, size=   242577328, type=7C3457EF-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC, uuid=59D50508-2B68-4CBB-ACE6-0E4EF50DD1FB

The new 1TB disk (some partitions have been deleted and recreated after cloning but the Recovery partition hasn't):

Disk /dev/sda: 931.51 GiB, 1000204886016 bytes, 1953525168 sectors
Disk model: Samsung SSD 870 
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 830DB9E6-83B0-4628-A003-CF84835586AE

Device         Start        End   Sectors   Size Type
/dev/sda1         40     409639    409600   200M EFI System
/dev/sda2     409640  107831511 107421872  51.2G Apple HFS/HFS+
/dev/sda3  107831512  112909487   5077976   2.4G Apple boot
/dev/sda4  112910336  497258495 384348160 183.3G Microsoft basic data
/dev/sda5  497520731  982192475 484671745 231.1G Microsoft basic data
/dev/sda6  982194176 1953525127 971330952 463.2G Apple APFS
label: gpt
label-id: 830DB9E6-83B0-4628-A003-CF84835586AE
device: /dev/sda
unit: sectors
first-lba: 34
last-lba: 1953525134
sector-size: 512

/dev/sda1 : start=          40, size=      409600, type=C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B, uuid=EB1F6E6E-EFDB-43C5-95EB-EA02B2E3FB6B, name="EFI System Partition"
/dev/sda2 : start=      409640, size=   107421872, type=48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC, uuid=26A028F6-B8F4-4952-8AB4-EF4BF75B9A44
/dev/sda3 : start=   107831512, size=     5077976, type=426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC, uuid=5FA7AE45-E307-4018-85C1-E5A43CF17C0D
/dev/sda4 : start=   112910336, size=   384348160, type=EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7, uuid=A40B115A-860E-468E-8D0E-4F9D7971DB54
/dev/sda5 : start=   497520731, size=   484671745, type=EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7, uuid=91E00482-EAE6-4E8C-A6C5-00380E9E9E06
/dev/sda6 : start=   982194176, size=   971330952, type=7C3457EF-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC, uuid=21BD61CD-33F2-45B6-AB4E-E917A716F63F

blkid:

/dev/sdb1: LABEL_FATBOOT="EFI" LABEL="EFI" UUID="67E3-17ED" BLOCK_SIZE="512" TYPE="vfat" PARTLABEL="EFI System Partition" PARTUUID="9710828b-f9e9-433a-9285-3b4ebba95e9a"
/dev/sdb2: LABEL_FATBOOT="CLONEZILLA" LABEL="CLONEZILLA" UUID="C025-0912" BLOCK_SIZE="512" TYPE="vfat" PARTUUID="c39e49f5-b14c-4052-8cd4-948cdc1d5f8d"
/dev/loop0: BLOCK_SIZE="1048576" TYPE="squashfs"
/dev/sdc2: UUID="ee6b4a32-bcfb-3e59-9bc6-2c785419fcd1" BLOCK_SIZE="4096" LABEL="lion" TYPE="hfsplus" PARTUUID="26a028f6-b8f4-4952-8ab4-ef4bf75b9a44"
/dev/sdc5: UUID="d761b01c-6c8f-4251-9217-f57cd4862632" BLOCK_SIZE="4096" TYPE="apfs" PARTUUID="59d50508-2b68-4cbb-ace6-0e4ef50dd1fb"
/dev/sdc3: UUID="7f21bc48-1b9e-377d-9f9c-06dc12bf037d" BLOCK_SIZE="4096" LABEL="Recovery HD" TYPE="hfsplus" PARTUUID="5fa7ae45-e307-4018-85c1-e5a43cf17c0d"
/dev/sdc1: LABEL_FATBOOT="EFI" LABEL="EFI" UUID="67E3-17ED" BLOCK_SIZE="512" TYPE="vfat" PARTLABEL="EFI System Partition" PARTUUID="eb1f6e6e-efdb-43c5-95eb-ea02b2e3fb6b"
/dev/sdc4: UUID="ac84ed8a-ed53-46d7-a36a-fff2eace200c" BLOCK_SIZE="4096" TYPE="ext4" PARTUUID="91e00482-eae6-4e8c-a6c5-00380e9e9e06"
/dev/sda4: LABEL="shared" UUID="6762-6CE4" BLOCK_SIZE="512" TYPE="exfat" PARTUUID="a40b115a-860e-468e-8d0e-4f9d7971db54"
/dev/sda2: UUID="dcc425e1-4408-389d-8813-ee323a55fef5" BLOCK_SIZE="4096" LABEL="lion" TYPE="hfsplus" PARTUUID="26a028f6-b8f4-4952-8ab4-ef4bf75b9a44"
/dev/sda5: UUID="ac84ed8a-ed53-46d7-a36a-fff2eace200c" BLOCK_SIZE="4096" TYPE="ext4" PARTUUID="91e00482-eae6-4e8c-a6c5-00380e9e9e06"
/dev/sda3: UUID="7f21bc48-1b9e-377d-9f9c-06dc12bf037d" BLOCK_SIZE="4096" LABEL="Recovery HD" TYPE="hfsplus" PARTUUID="5fa7ae45-e307-4018-85c1-e5a43cf17c0d"
/dev/sda1: LABEL_FATBOOT="EFI" LABEL="EFI" UUID="67E3-17ED" BLOCK_SIZE="512" TYPE="vfat" PARTLABEL="EFI System Partition" PARTUUID="eb1f6e6e-efdb-43c5-95eb-ea02b2e3fb6b"
/dev/sda6: UUID="534bc223-7881-475f-b2bd-05bc27ac196b" BLOCK_SIZE="4096" TYPE="apfs" PARTUUID="21bd61cd-33f2-45b6-ab4e-e917a716f63f"

[Steven Shiau]

Please give testing Clonezilla live >= 3.2.0-32 or 20250106-* a try:
https://clonezilla.org/downloads.php
This issue should have been fixed.
Please let us know the results if you give it a try.
Thanks.

Steven

[Ryan Carsten Schmidt]

Thanks. Your change looks reasonable:

https://github.com/stevenshiau/clonezilla/commit/f1f246ab8ac2c0b29afefcf564e4acf54bdde7b0

I won't be able to try it at the moment. I don't want to erase and re-clone the affected drive right now, and I don't have another spare drive handy to try it on.