For those who are unable to use the web-based recovery tool for OS X Lion, Apple has released a new Mac application that allows users to create their own OS X Lion recovery/installation external drives. Specifically, this drive lets you reinstall Lion, repair the disk using Disk Utility, restore from a Time Machine backup, or browse the web with Safari. You need a recovery HD already setup to create this new drive. Here are the instruction straight from Apple:
The Lion Recovery Disk Assistant will erase all data on the external drive when creating the Recovery HD. You should either backup your data before running the Lion Recovery Disk Assistant, or create a new partition on the external drive.
If you need to create a new partition on the external disk
1. Open Disk Utility, located in the Utilities folder in Launchpad.
2. Select the drive on which you would like to install the Recovery HD and add a partition. Note: Partition should be at least 1 GB in size.
3. Click Options and make sure GUID Partition Table is selected.
4. Make sure the format for the partition is Mac OS Extended Journaled.
5. Click Apply.
Open Lion Recovery Disk Assistant and follow the on screen instructions to create a Recovery HD on the external drive.
When the Lion Recovery Disk Assistant completes, the new partition will not be visible in the Finder or Disk Utility. To access the external Recovery HD, connect the drive, then restart the computer and hold the Option key. Select Recovery HD from the Startup Manager.
The Lion Recover Disk Assistant download is available here.
