$2700 iMac and no hardcopy of OS X Mountain Lion

Droidrage729 said:

I would have been happy to pay for lion no biggie or leaped or whatever came on a 2007 Mac mini but I was told that wouldn't solve my issue. Not sure I am new to Mac systems got my first mac and iPhone this past year so I didn't expect any of that.

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I can see where that would be an issue but one solution could be that you could've taken your Mac to the Apple store nearest you and they would've logged into your App Store account, had you buy Lion/ML and they would install it for you. They have their backup copy right in the store. Chances are they probably wouldn't even ask you to buy Lion/ML seeing as they know your Mac came with it and they would just install it for free for you via their backup copy.
Then you go home and log into your Mac App Store account and buy ML and make a backup copy of it on a USB stick, DVD or SD card.

talisabt said:

You can't put it on usb.

Facepalm, seriously guys.. wake up and think before you post.

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<looks at the copy of OSX on USB sitting beside him> Interesting...

canadianpj said:

<looks at the copy of OSX on USB sitting beside him> Interesting...

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You can put it on a USB All nite long but as in my case if you didn't purchase it it won't allow you to install. I plan on purchasing a new mini so I shouldn't have an issue like this again.

The problem with buying ML from the store is that you may be missing drivers and tweaks specific to the 2012 iMac. If there was a way to do an internet download recovery, and direct it to a USB drive rather than the system drive, that might work, although that would create an image and require a 16GB USB drive rather than an 8GB one for the installer. The problem with CCC is that you'd have to use it when the iMac is right out of the box in order to get a clean clone.

Use a fast USB 3 flash drive for your installer so you wont wait forever. The fastest drives these days read/write above 200MB/s.

Bootable clones FTW. Either just after your fresh annoying online install for the last time until 10.9, or once you've set it up with everything the way you like it, (or both).

Having said that, I also agree with the thread title's sentiment as well, I think it's completely ludicrous that they don't include a separate physical method to reinstall the OS anymore.

You an also use your Time Machine Backups to start up your computer, re-install OS X, and do everything that you could do from the recovery partition

talisabt said:

You can't put it on usb.

Facepalm, seriously guys.. wake up and think before you post.

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http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4718

Installing OS X on an external storage device

Use these steps to install Lion from your Mac to a different internal hard drive or to an external USB, FireWire, SDHC or SDXC card, or a Thunderbolt storage device.

Important: This will erase the storage device. A storage device that is already formatted to support Windows (formatted for FAT or NTFS file systems) will be reformatted. You should back up any important files that are on the device to a different drive.

Attach a USB, FireWire, or Thunderbolt storage device to your computer, or insert an SDHC or SDXC card into the SD card slot if your Mac has one.
Launch Disk Utility, from the /Applications/Utilities folder, then click Continue.

talisabt said:

Go spend the money, buy a new 2012 imac then post.

How about people who own the 2012 late imac and have a solution post...

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I have spent the money, I am just waiting on delivery, and the App store is not where you download the version for Macs shipping with ML... I would suggest you read more on apples support pages and forums than here... because every thing I read on apples pages suggests you are wrong...

talisabt said:

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1. Buy a new 2012 imac
2. Go to App store and download Mountain Lion
3. OH WAIT YOU CAN'T....

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I bought my 2011 iMac after ML released, it lets me download ML from the store. I'm confused as to what is preventing a 2012 model from downloading ML. It may say $19.99, but you'll be able to redownload it, since that's what came installed on your machine. You'll also be able to download and install ML and the most recent iLife bundle on any other mac you own, for free.

talisabt said:

Go spend the money, buy a new 2012 imac then post.

How about people who own the 2012 late imac and have a solution post...

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1. Buy a new 2012 imac
2. Go to App store and download Mountain Lion
3. OH WAIT YOU CAN'T....

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With every post, you make it clear you just want to rant and are not interested in a solution.

Did you read the article? cmd+R downloads a new, fresh copy of ML.

If your computer came with ML originally installed, it's re-installed with no additional info from you.
Your computer's serial number will be sent to Apple to help authenticate your request to download and install OS X Lion.

If you purchased an upgrade from the AppStore, you are prompted to enter your AppleID and password.

He has a complimentary copy of Mountain Lion. Not Mountain Lion purchased through the App Store. The license is slightly different between those Macs with Mountain Lion pre-installed from those of you who purchased the update through the App Store.

With the App Store purchased version, you can install Mountain Lion on any Apple computer you own.

If you purchased a new computer with Mountain Lion installed, you can only reinstall the OS on just that one computer. That's why you can't redownload the App Store version of Mountain Lion without purchasing it.

He'll have to try and update using the restore partition, though it will have to download all the updates.

skottichan said:

I bought my 2011 iMac after ML released, it lets me download ML from the store. I'm confused as to what is preventing a 2012 model from downloading ML. It may say $19.99, but you'll be able to redownload it, since that's what came installed on your machine. You'll also be able to download and install ML and the most recent iLife bundle on any other mac you own, for free.

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The problem with downloading from the store for a 2012 iMac is that the retail 10.8.2 predates the installed ML version of 10.8.2, which is customized for the new iMacs, and includes support for the nVidia 6xx GPUs. When 10.8.3 is released it will probably support the late 2012 iMacs. It would then be possible to purchase and download 10.8.3, and create a USB installation drive.