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NVRENUF!

macrumors regular
Original poster
Mar 19, 2012
181
0
PERTH, Australia
How is the new imac's coming shipped with copy of the os ?
being there is no optical drive ! Are they coming with a USB copy bootable of the OS ?
what happens when you need to format and Re-Install?

or does it come with a disc and the expectation of using a external optical drive.
 

Stetrain

macrumors 68040
Feb 6, 2009
3,550
20
If it's like other recent macs, then it comes with a recovery partition on the hard drive as well as a firmware level internet recovery option.

The internet recovery option downloads the OS via the internet and installs it in case you replace the drive or otherwise lose the recovery partition.
 

Macman45

macrumors G5
Jul 29, 2011
13,197
135
Somewhere Back In The Long Ago
Internet recovery is the way Apple go now. Disk creator will allow you to download a copy of OSX and create a bootable USB drive in order to speed up the re-installation if required.

No physical disks have been supplied since SL, with Apple electing at first to sell USB drives for Lion, and now electing to go down the Internet / Cloud route.
 

hideous cheese

macrumors regular
Feb 8, 2012
197
59
Is there a way to directly redownload Mountain Lion from the Mac App Store (on machines 10.8 is preinstalled) rather than pfaff about with the restore Partition?
 

Weaselboy

Moderator
Staff member
Jan 23, 2005
34,073
15,496
California
For that you use the Recovery Disk Assistant linked to in my last post.

Cool this will work installing fresh new SSD ?

just need copy of osx ? on a usb or disc via usb cd drive yeah >?

Yes, this will work for installing Mac OS X on any kind of storage device.

And using a 4 GB USB flash memory thumb drive should suffice.

No it won't. The Recovery Disk Assistant just uses a 1GB thumb drive to create the Recovery HD partition on a bootable USB key. Once booted from that USB key, the entire 4.7GB OS still must be downloaded from Apple's servers.

----------

Is there a way to directly redownload Mountain Lion from the Mac App Store (on machines 10.8 is preinstalled) rather than pfaff about with the restore Partition?

If your machine came with Mountain Lion, you did not buy it from the app store, so it will not be available there for you to download free. What you can do though is use this process to grab the installer from Apple's servers. Then use an 8GB USB key and this free app to make a full installer.

If your machine came with a previous OS and you bought Mountain Lion from the App Store, you could redownload and us the same free app to make that installer in to a USB key.
 
Nov 28, 2010
22,670
30
located
No it won't. The Recovery Disk Assistant just uses a 1GB thumb drive to create the Recovery HD partition on a bootable USB key. Once booted from that USB key, the entire 4.7GB OS still must be downloaded from Apple's servers.

Thanks for the correction, thought Apple would provide a better solution, since even Microsoft can do that, but then again, Apple is becoming less and less what it once was, which is good for some, and bad for some.

Anyway, as a correction:
Make An OS X Lion Boot Disc
How to create a bootable, backup Mountain Lion install disk

I will edit my snippet to reflect the changes, thanks again.
 

hideous cheese

macrumors regular
Feb 8, 2012
197
59
Thanks Weaselboy

I'd read elsewhere that if I machine comes pre-installed with iLife you can log into the App Store and the presence of iLife will be detected and the apps register as purchased. I wondered if something similar would happen for the pre-installed OS. This would make downloading it way easier.

First thing I'm doing is reinstalling the OS to wipe iLife (but would be useful to have them available later if I choose) and repartition the drive via creating an install partition on an external disk through the ML installer.
 

Weaselboy

Moderator
Staff member
Jan 23, 2005
34,073
15,496
California
Thanks Weaselboy

I'd read elsewhere that if I machine comes pre-installed with iLife you can log into the App Store and the presence of iLife will be detected and the apps register as purchased. I wondered if something similar would happen for the pre-installed OS. This would make downloading it way easier.

First thing I'm doing is reinstalling the OS to wipe iLife (but would be useful to have them available later if I choose) and repartition the drive via creating an install partition on an external disk through the ML installer.

On a new machine, once you "accept" the iLife apps under your AppleID, they will be shown on any machine you reinstall. Just look in the App Store under purchases with that same AppleID and they will be there.
 

NVRENUF!

macrumors regular
Original poster
Mar 19, 2012
181
0
PERTH, Australia
What I am wondering is how
once i get the new 27inch rock up, and i swap out hdd for SSD
how do i get OS back on there.

I have purchased ML from app store for my current one.
 

mmomega

macrumors demi-god
Dec 30, 2009
3,879
2,089
DFW, TX
Great thanks.

anyone know where it downloads after purchase from app store?
so i can move it to a usb ?

Anytime you download and app from the app store it goes into the applications folder. OS X is no different.
Just open your Applications folder in Finder once it downloads and you will see it. Copy it to wherever you like then force quit the OS X installer.

Right Click on the "Install Mountain Lion OS X" app,
Show package contents
Contents
Open Shared Support Folder
Copy the "InstallESD.dmg" file to somewhere safe.

You can now remove the Install Mountain Lion OS X app for good.

Download Lion Diskmaker from the internet
insert at least an 8GB USB drive, open the Lion Diskmaker app
it will guide you what to do next
Once it is done you will have a fully bootable Mountain Lion install USB drive.
 
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