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macswitcha2

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Oct 18, 2008
1,255
8
I've read that you can do a clean install via a thumb drive. Does it matter? Is the clean install better?
 

WizardHunt

macrumors 68000
May 11, 2007
1,694
38
Las Vegas, Nevada USA
I've read that you can do a clean install via a thumb drive. Does it matter? Is the clean install better?

Well it is personal opinion but I think a fresh install would have been better as many of my apps that are not working when I contact the developers or manufacturer they tell me to uninstall it and then reinstall and it will work. In most cases they are right. So if that is true then a fresh install would have been better.
 

Supershuttle

macrumors newbie
Dec 1, 2010
22
1
Back up your files using whatever preferably Time Machine, then clean install then use Migrant Assistant.
 

iVeBeenDrinkin'

macrumors 65816
Oct 17, 2008
1,291
4
Do a clean install. You don't need any drive. All you need is your Mac, your iTunes ID you bought Lion with, and an internet connection.
 

Rowf

macrumors regular
Feb 7, 2011
241
3
I installed over Snow Leopard and everything's running fine.
Boot up time was a little slower on the first day but seems the same as Snow Leopard now and shutdown is fast.

All Apps work o.k and the system is quite fast and stable.

All in all it worked well for me, but maybe I was one of the lucky ones :)
 

iVeBeenDrinkin'

macrumors 65816
Oct 17, 2008
1,291
4
How do you do a clean install without a DVD or USB Drive as you have to boot into the image? Please explain

Recovery.

Restart your Mac... Hold down command+R to boot into recovery, then you will have the option to do a clean install of Lion, via internet and your iTunes ID. You will also have access to disk utility and all the other goodies you would as if you had a disc.
 

luigidorf

macrumors newbie
May 25, 2009
27
0
Recovery.

Restart your Mac... Hold down command+R to boot into recovery, then you will have the option to do a clean install of Lion, via internet and your iTunes ID. You will also have access to disk utility and all the other goodies you would as if you had a disc.

I went through a lot of trouble trying to do it this way. In the recovery partition, whenever I tried to reinstall Lion it would take at 6-8 hours for the progress bar to advance 25% (although it constantly displayed a little over 5 hours remaining), and when it got there it would display the message, "Can't download the additional components needed to install Mac OS X."

I did this because the guys at AppleCare told me to. I tried it four times with the same results. One time I reinstalled Snow Leopard and downloaded a fresh copy of Lion, but still got the same message. Since all the installing and downloading was so slow, I my computer was held up for over two days.

I finally used my dad's flash drive and booted from that, and I was running a clean copy of lion in under three hours.

Despite my warning, I would be very interested to hear if the same error is common when you try to reinstall Lion via the recovery partition after erasing the main part of the disk.
 

iVeBeenDrinkin'

macrumors 65816
Oct 17, 2008
1,291
4
I went through a lot of trouble trying to do it this way. In the recovery partition, whenever I tried to reinstall Lion it would take at 6-8 hours for the progress bar to advance 25% (although it constantly displayed a little over 5 hours remaining), and when it got there it would display the message, "Can't download the additional components needed to install Mac OS X."

I did this because the guys at AppleCare told me to. I tried it four times with the same results. One time I reinstalled Snow Leopard and downloaded a fresh copy of Lion, but still got the same message. Since all the installing and downloading was so slow, I my computer was held up for over two days.

I finally used my dad's flash drive and booted from that, and I was running a clean copy of lion in under three hours.

Despite my warning, I would be very interested to hear if the same error is common when you try to reinstall Lion via the recovery partition after erasing the main part of the disk.

That's too bad, it took me less than 40 minutes to download and clean install Lion.
 
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