I bought a 2nd hand MBPr and wish to do a fresh install of mountain lion...

This is my first Mac so bare with me. I am wanting to do a fresh install of mountain lion to completely erase any programs and traces the previous user may have left, that is format the existing Macintosh HD partition and do a new Mountain Lion install.

I presume I am eligible to get the install file for free since this machine comes factory loaded with Mountain Lion anywhere right ? But when I log into the app store it's still showing as an item I have to pay for. What exactly is my copy of Mountain Lion tied to, is it the first account that was created on this machine and used to log into the app store or the product serial number ?

Thanks..

Anyone ? Dang a woman can gestate a fully grown baby by the time one can get answer for a trivial question on a Mac forum.

phoenixsan said:

I am missing something or just being plain ignorant about how App Store works, but always had believed the software bought is linked to your ID. So, I cant get how that can be linked to a specific piece of hardware

Click to expand...

Ok, so it must be:

Someoe buys Macbook with Mountain Lion OS installed.

Macbook boots for first time and asks to create account, this account
is then tied to the eligibility to download Mountain lion for free.

If this person then sells their MacBook to someone else and erases their
account and signs out of the store then the new user will have to create
a new store account and buy the OS again! Here's hoping there is a serial\license
or something issued that is tied to the device like with Windows OEM copies and not
to some user profile/account.

CyBeRino said:

reboot machine while holding cmd-R.

Click to expand...

Cheers, so recovery will download the install files and re-install mountain lion.
Any way for me to slip in the install file on USB or at least keep it after the re-install is complete as I am not too keen on re-downloading it again being on a mobile broadband plan.