How to Properly Migrate With a Clean Install to OS X Mountain Lion (From Lion/SL)

jmpage2 · Aug 4, 2012

For anyone looking for a more painless approach, just download Lion DiskMaker, it is donation-ware. It worked the very first time.

http://blog.gete.net/lion-diskmaker-us/

That will get you up to step 10 of the OPs document, and you can just go from there with the rest of your installation.

Steve.P.JobsFan · Aug 4, 2012

bailmdb said:
Ok, following the guide and I can't get this to work.

I've been able to erase my flash drive and format it, no problem. On step 8 I get the InstallESD.dmg in the "Source" field, but when I try to drag the name and storage size of my flash drive to the "Destination" field it won't work. I am forced to choose the "Untitled" sub-drive listing and drag it to the "Destination" field. It allows me to do this without any problems.

I get alllllll the way to the end of Step 9 and with less than 1 minute of verifying the image I get an error that states: "Restore failure: Could not restore - Cannot allocate memory."

What am I doing wrong?? Appreciate any help.

That's weird. Normally that error message means that your USB flash drive is too small. But you have an 8GB USB flash drive, and the InstallESD.dmg is only 4.2 GB. On my end, I've make 10+ of these USB flash drives, with no error whatsoever. That's what I don't get. Try this: [URL="http://blog.gete.net/lion-diskmaker-us/"]Alternative Solution[/URL]

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jmpage2 said:
You're not the only one having issues. What's weird is that I created a boot disk for Lion and had no issues with it, but I can't seem to create a USB disk that works for ML.

When I erase my USB disk it still shows a couple of partitions. Then when I try to restore InstallESD.dmb to the USB disk it never works. I have to eject the partitions showing for the USB drive and then it will try to restore, only to fail several minutes from completion with a "invalid argument" error.

I was able to restore the Mac OS X Install ESD (by mounting InstallESD.dmg and then explicitly doing restore on the Mac OS X Install ESD partition) to the USB drive, but this resulted in a drive that never seemed to boot ML fully. It would present itself as a bootable disk but it would just sit there during boot with the Apple logo eventually becoming a blank icon and I finally just hard rebooted the computer.

I will start scouring for other instructions on making a boot disk for ML because I'm not having much success with this approach.

Also as someone else pointed out, while someone taking the time to create a guide is much appreciate, it seems that there might be some steps that are missing or not particularly well articulated, not to mention the use of at least one "screenshot" which shows disks/partitions that have nothing to do with the task at hand, which leads to further confusion.

That one "screenshot" was an example image. Your disks will look different, because you have different disks in your Mac than in mine. Maybe I should just yank the guide from the thread, if you guys are having THAT many issues. From now on, just use Lion DiskMaker...

http://blog.gete.net/lion-diskmaker-us/

bailmdb · Aug 4, 2012

All good!

Steve.P.JobsFan said:
That's weird. Normally that error message means that your USB flash drive is too small. But you have an 8GB USB flash drive, and the InstallESD.dmg is only 4.2 GB. On my end, I've make 10+ of these USB flash drives, with no error whatsoever. That's what I don't get. Try this: [URL="http://blog.gete.net/lion-diskmaker-us/"]Alternative Solution[/URL]

Nevermind. I got it to work! Up and running with Mountain Lion. So far, so good. I'm trying to check everything out and get used to the gestures. Thanks again for the guide and the assistance!

ATC · Aug 4, 2012

There must be some variable in the process affecting some users. I've tried the guide on two systems (different iMacs and USB drives) but getting the same error as some other posters (step 9 of the guide).

The other method worked on both systems fine (the lion disk maker script). There has to be a small obscure difference between the guide and the script, they both essentially do the same thing which is weird that one worked for us and the other didn't.

I hope the OP figures it out as his guide is very nicely written and the work is appreciated.

jmpage2 · Aug 4, 2012

Steve.P.JobsFan said:
That's weird. Normally that error message means that your USB flash drive is too small. But you have an 8GB USB flash drive, and the InstallESD.dmg is only 4.2 GB. On my end, I've make 10+ of these USB flash drives, with no error whatsoever. That's what I don't get. Try this: [URL="http://blog.gete.net/lion-diskmaker-us/"]Alternative Solution[/URL]

----------

That one "screenshot" was an example image. Your disks will look different, because you have different disks in your Mac than in mine. Maybe I should just yank the guide from the thread, if you guys are having THAT many issues. From now on, just use Lion DiskMaker...

http://blog.gete.net/lion-diskmaker-us/

Please don't be offended, I appreciate the work as I'm sure others do.

Screenshot being wrong has nothing to do with the difference between your disks and mine, it has to do with the fact that your screenshot does not show the mountain lion disk image, which is sort of required to create a ML boot disc.

freedom1587 · Aug 5, 2012

Necessary to backup the bootcamp part?

Well, when William Hummel states in the document that "Make sure no items are in the Excluded list", does it mean that even the bootcamp part should not be excluded?

Thanks!

mlim650 · Aug 5, 2012

Hi,

I intend to buy a bigger internal hard disk to install ML into. Can I do it without having to get an external enclosure?

Can I swap the drive during the boot up after step 10?

Thanks.

jmpage2 · Aug 6, 2012

mlim650 said:
Hi,

I intend to buy a bigger internal hard disk to install ML into. Can I do it without having to get an external enclosure?

Can I swap the drive during the boot up after step 10?

Thanks.

Create the boot disk, replace your hard drive and install OS X onto the new hard drive, then retrieve your apps and data from a TM Backup which you hopefully have.

mlim650 · Aug 6, 2012

jmpage2 said:
Create the boot disk, replace your hard drive and install OS X onto the new hard drive, then retrieve your apps and data from a TM Backup which you hopefully have.

Thanks!! It's good to know that this is possible. I will give it a go when I return from my trip.

Steve.P.JobsFan · Aug 6, 2012

freedom1587 said:
Well, when William Hummel states in the document that "Make sure no items are in the Excluded list", does it mean that even the bootcamp part should not be excluded?

Thanks!

Yes. Besides, Time Machine won't backup your Bootcamp partition anyways, regardless if it's in the list or not.

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jmpage2 said:
Please don't be offended, I appreciate the work as I'm sure others do.

Screenshot being wrong has nothing to do with the difference between your disks and mine, it has to do with the fact that your screenshot does not show the mountain lion disk image, which is sort of required to create a ML boot disc.

Gimme a few minutes to boot out of Boot Camp, log in to OS X, and add that. Thanks for the clarification, that is what confused me.

Steve.P.JobsFan · Aug 6, 2012

I have fixed a few more errors in the PDF. See "EDIT6" in the original post above for more details. Please re-download the PDF, so you have the correct version. However, please note that the new PDF with these changes is currently in an "experimental" status. I'm so fatigued, I cannot tell if the instructions make sense. If they don't please notify me. I will resolve it in the morning, and merge the PDFs together. Thank you!

playsontheleft · Aug 7, 2012

Ok, having a couple of issues here. I'm trying to clean install Mountain Lion on another machine and the USB I'm using is behaving a bit oddly. Firstly, towards the end of the restore process onto the USB, I'm receiving the error "Could not restore - Invalid argument". I don't know how to fix this or what causes it, but it does not seem to prevent the USB from being restored correctly.

Until I try to boot from it - upon booting the other Mac, I select the "Mac OS X" USB as my boot drive and wait for it to load. For a minute or two I receive an Apple logo with the spinning wheel beneath it, but then the logo is replaced by a light grey circle with a cross through it. From here, the wheel simply continues spinning and nothing further happens so I am forced to hold the power button to turn off the computer. Can anyone tell me what's wrong and how to fix it? Thanks.

Steve.P.JobsFan · Aug 10, 2012

I have encountered the same issues you all have. I just tried to make another USB flash drive, and was met with the "resource busy" error. I have found a solution, at least for me. Unmount the USB flash drive, unplug it, and plug it back it. Then, make sure on the restore tab, you're restoring "Mac OS X Install ESD", NOT InstallESD.dmg. Also, make sure "Untitled" is in the destination box. This fixed it, at least for me.

aircanman · Aug 15, 2012

Please correct me if I am wrong, but the last couple of days I have had to reinstall everything, and I did the following, think it gave me a clean install.

Basically I installed ML the normal way, over Lion, but then I restarted the mac holding down the option key, then used the 10.8 recovery sector to wipe the drive, then install ML, in which it downloaded loads of stuff from Apple, and asked me for the user ID before proceeding, it then installed ML.

I think this gave me a full installation of ML.

2square · Aug 16, 2012

filevault 2

hello all,

i'd like to add to how much this guide is appreciated.

i have a query, on inserting a new hard drive, once you install ML from the usb disc image, on starting migration assistant, how does having filevault 2 enabled on the old drive affect transfer of data, both via time machine backup and a sata enclosure link with the old drive?

thank you.

Luis Ortega · Aug 16, 2012

All I did was click on app store in Lion, buy and download ML, and click install.
Everything was normal after it did it's thing on my 2007 SantaRosa MBP 2.4/ 4gb ram/240gb ssd.
It runs FCP and the Adobe production suite fine, or as well as it did since SL.

AppleDApp · Aug 16, 2012

Luis Ortega said:
All I did was click on app store in Lion, buy and download ML, and click install.
Everything was normal after it did it's thing on my 2007 SantaRosa MBP 2.4/ 4gb ram/240gb ssd.
It runs FCP and the Adobe production suite fine, or as well as it did since SL.

Not considered a clean install

Tyler23 · Aug 16, 2012

Urgent help needed!:

I'm attempting to do this now, following the directions in the pdf file at the top of this page. However, I'm attempting step 9, and after clicking erase and restore, I am getting the error "Restore failure - Could not restore - resource busy."

I have attached a screenshot of where I'm at..please help if possible!

2square · Aug 17, 2012

unmount the usb partition "untitled", but not the usb itself.

Tyler23 · Aug 17, 2012

2square said:
unmount the usb partition "untitled", but not the usb itself.

Followed what you said and it started running, but right at the end gave me the error "could not restore - invalid argument"

2square · Aug 17, 2012

try restoring the 'mac os x install esd' not the 'installesd.dmg' - just trying this now, should work, though i've read that error shouldn't have any effect on the working of the usb.

Tyler23 · Aug 17, 2012

Clean install has completed properly

Now, I'm weary of using migration assistant as there is probably a lot of junk I don't want copies over an I'd rather redo all of my settings myself. Would it be ok to manually drag my applications, documents, iTunes and iPhoto folders from my external hard drive directly through finder? How can I go about doing this?

AppleDApp · Aug 17, 2012

Tyler23 said:
Clean install has completed properly Now, I'm weary of using migration assistant as there is probably a lot of junk I don't want copies over an I'd rather redo all of my settings myself. Would it be ok to manually drag my applications, documents, iTunes and iPhoto folders from my external hard drive directly through finder? How can I go about doing this?

I would drag and drop documents then backup
drag and drop music then backup
drag and drop photos then backups
and so on.

So that if ever too much junk gets on your computer you can always revert. Moving everything manually gives an opportunity to clean up your mac and get rid of old files you do not need.

Tombds · Aug 19, 2012

Permissions after moving files

I have read every answer on this thread and can see the benefit of clean install but still have unanswered questions about getting user files back again.

I would drag and drop documents then backup
drag and drop music then backup
drag and drop photos then backups
and so on

I plan on doing a clean install as well but am wary of running into permissions issues copying files back from the backup. Will this procedure work from a time machine backup?

Should I:
1. Backup system with Time Machine and Superduper
2. Format and Install ML.
3. Set up a new user with the same username as I was using before.
4. Manually reinstall applications.
5. Move User folders back by dragging them from my Superduper or Time Machine backup. Will this create ownership / permissions problems?

If I keep the same username will Time Machine start over or will it inherit my backups.

Wondering if using setup assistant but excluding applications would be easier but would really like to get rid of a load of junk.

Thanks in Advance

AppleDApp · Aug 19, 2012

Tombds said:
I plan on doing a clean install as well but am wary of running into permissions issues copying files back from the backup. Will this procedure work from a time machine backup?

I my previous post I was suggesting to copy files to an external then do the clean install and backup to a separate drive with TM.

How to Properly Migrate With a Clean Install to OS X Mountain Lion (From Lion/SL)

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