Startup Manager uses different volume names

[Sumleilmus]

When I boot into Startup Manager, it calls volumes by different names from the ones I see in the Finder, or as output of

diskutil list

Finder/diskutil name•••••••••••Startup Manager name
Xyz92______________________Xyz92
Recovery SSD_______________Recovery-10.8
WIN327BU__________________Windows
Data92_____________________Data92
Recovery D92_______________Recovery-10.8
Backup92___________________Backup92
Recovery BU________________Recovery-10.8
LocalTimeMachine____________LocalTimeMachine

I dislike having three identically named recovery partitions, but I don't know how to persuade Startup Manager to call them by different names. I don't insist on the names I have chosen: any name that lets be associated the recovery partition with the name of the boot volume that immediately precedes it would suit me.

Why does Startup Manager only change some names, anyway?

[trevor]

Looking at your list, every time you have a space in the volume name, the name is truncated at the space and -10.8 is added. The only thing you show where a different rule is followed to change the name is when WIN327BU is changed to Windows.

So, I'd say if you want to control your naming in Startup Manager of non-Windows volumes, don't use spaces in the name.

Trevor

[DeltaMac]

Another possibility is that the recovery systems are identical (except for the names that you chose), and the boot manager recognizes any recovery system partition as a special case, similar to how a Windows boot partition is represented.

Could be that you only need to back up ONE recovery system partition, assuming the same Mac OS version. I have not seen any indication that the Recovery Partitions are hardware specific (as where the older restore DVDs). I could be wrong on that, and someone else might offer proof.

[Sumleilmus]

Trevor,

Good reasoning. I eliminated spaces but…

Finder/diskutil name•••••••••••Startup Manager name
Xyz92______________________Xyz92
RecoverySSD_______________Recovery-10.8
WIN327BU__________________Windows
Data92_____________________Data92
RecoveryD92_______________Recovery-10.8
LocalTimeMachine____________LocalTimeMachine

(not all volumes detailed in the original post are with me at work)

DeltaMac,

I did change icons, and that is a help telling them apart. The one that is on an SSD I gave the same icon as the SSD. Although the names are changed, the icons persist when mounted via Startup Manager.

????

[DeltaMac]

I have one volume on my installer hard drive (which has a total of 9 bootable partitions, of which 4 are OS X installers), which is named "10.7.5 Installer" (which is exactly what it is), but the boot manager screen shows the name as "EFI Boot" - and there doesn't seem to be a way to change the name that is seen by the Boot Manager. ALL my other partitions appear with the name that I have chosen, except just that one. I have a custom icon, too, and that shows correctly (so I know which partition I have), and it doesn't affect choosing or booting to the correct partition.

I just tried changing the name for that partition to something completely different, shut everything down, restarted to the Boot Manager, and that still shows the name as EFI Boot.
I think it's just an anomaly or bug in the boot manager that you have to work around.
That's the only name that the boot manager changes. And, it's not really changed - the finder still shows the name I expect to see.

[Sumleilmus]

Well if Startup Manager, which I presume is what you mean by Boot Loader – or are you using the known most current name – calls WIN327BU "Windows" and recovery partitions "Recovery-10.8" no matter what their name is, but calls Mac OS X bootable volumes by their right names, and then sometimes shows "EFI Boot," then quite a few names are being changed, not just one.

I seem to recall seeing EFI Boot in Startup Manager when I had a boogered volume with a Boot Camp partition on it broken by adding a Recovery Partition. I fixed it with GDISK and a lot of help from Christopher Murphy on Apple's discussions, and then it quit showing EFI Boot to Startup Manager.

Other than having a lot of partitions, is there anything out of the ordinary about your hard drive's partitioning? Is it a hybrid? Any FAT32 format partitions? Any Bootcamp?

[DeltaMac]

The hard drive that I use (for almost everything), has a total of 10 partitions. Four are OSX installers, and then four more partitions with basic OS X installs for each version, 10.5 to 10.8. Two more partitions that are non-booting data partitions. (oh, and a partition for a 10.7.5 Recovery system.)
Normal partitioning with all partitions MacOS Extended, on a GUID partition map.
No Boot Camp partition, and no backup of anything that's not OS X related.