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Internet Recovery Lion or ML

J

Jony Mac

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Oct 27, 2010
389
7
Pittsburgh, PA
I still haven't upgraded my MacBook Air to ML, but my other Macs are. My question is if I upgrade my mid 2011 MacBook Air to ML, that shipped with Lion how will that effect the Internet Recovery feature?

If I use Internet Recovery does it go straight to Lion as it shipped with it, or will it use ML? I'm thinking about what happens if I sell this or give it to a family member. Does my seat of ML stick or my AppleID stay tied to that machine?
 
M

Mrbobb

macrumors 603
Aug 27, 2012
5,009
209
If u Internet Recovery now, Apple will download Lion to you.

Once u upgrade to ML, then the upgrade procedure will override your recovery partition and from now on Internet Recovery will look for ML.

I recommend the following if u intend to ever give this machine to somebody else and want him to have a clean OS:

Don't Internet Update to ML, INSTEAD, download ML but DO NOT INSTALL. The clean ML image will be in the download folder and the procedure says to move it to the Application folder. Before you do, make a second copy of this image and safeguard it somewhere, on a usb stick, whatever, then you will have a clean ML image should you ever want to give the machine away. Then proceed with upgrade as normal.

In the future, when u wanto clean install and obliterate everything that's there before, boot into the Recovery partition, use the disk utility to format the receiving drive, THEN tell install to source from the clean image.
 
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J

Jony Mac

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Oct 27, 2010
389
7
Pittsburgh, PA
Mrbobb said:
If u Internet Recovery now, Apple will download Lion to you.

Once u upgrade to ML, then the upgrade procedure will override your recovery partition and from now on Internet Recovery will look for ML.

I recommend the following if u intend to ever give this machine to somebody else and want him to have a clean OS:

Don't Internet Update to ML, INSTEAD, download ML but DO NOT INSTALL. The clean ML image will be in the download folder and the procedure says to move it to the Application folder. Before you do, make a second copy of this image and safeguard it somewhere, on a usb stick, whatever, then you will have a clean ML image should you ever want to give the machine away. Then proceed with upgrade as normal.

In the future, when u wanto clean install and obliterate everything that's there before, boot into the Recovery partition, use the disk utility to format the receiving drive, THEN tell install to source from the clean image.
Click to expand...

I guess my concern would be giving or selling the machine with a copy of ML I purchased. Is there no way for me to upgrade to ML, without preventing the machine to go back to Lion. If you wipe the whole disk, Internet Recovery is there to download the OS. I'm not concerned about the recovery portion at all.

My though was since upgrade to ML, then when I want to get rid of this, wipe the whole disk..partition and all. Then boot into Internet Recovery. I'd assume Internet recovery would restore the OS the machine shipped with. I'm trying to validate if that is the case or not.
 
M

Mrbobb

macrumors 603
Aug 27, 2012
5,009
209
Jony Mac said:
I 'd assume Internet recovery would restore the OS the machine shipped with. I'm trying to validate if that is the case or not.
Click to expand...

Negative. It would nice. Like an option "reset to factory."

But an OSX purchase is like 20 bux. This ain't Windows.
 
M

macbookfan

macrumors regular
Jun 17, 2008
117
128
When you upgrade to ML it will upgrade the recovery partition. The thing you see when you hold option key when you start the computer.

However you can force the computer to re-download the original shipped os. to do so you must hold command + R at the time of boot.
 
J

Jony Mac

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Oct 27, 2010
389
7
Pittsburgh, PA
That's exactly what I want. I already own ML on my other machines, and I know you can use this license on all your personal macs.

I wanted to make sure if I sold / got rid of it I could still let the new person get the OS installed that shipped with it, and not have an OS that's tied to my AppleID.

This is why I don't care about recovery partition. In the end I'd wipe the whole disk and want to downloads Lion.

If I'm reading this right this is possible correct?
 
theSeb

theSeb

macrumors 604
Aug 10, 2010
7,466
1,893
none
macbookfan said:
When you upgrade to ML it will upgrade the recovery partition. The thing you see when you hold option key when you start the computer.

However you can force the computer to re-download the original shipped os. to do so you must hold command + R at the time of boot.
Click to expand...

Can anyone confirm this is the case? It certainly wasn't when ML was released earlier in the year and I tested it many times on various Macs. All of them would reinstall Lion via IR after an update to ML. (this was back in the few weeks after ML was released though)
 
B

Brian Y

macrumors 68040
Oct 21, 2012
3,776
1,064
theSeb said:
Can anyone confirm this is the case? It certainly wasn't when ML was released earlier in the year and I tested it many times on various Macs. All of them would reinstall Lion via IR after an update to ML. (this was back in the few weeks after ML was released though)
Click to expand...

If you do a normal recovery (i.e. command + R), it will boot into the Mountain Lion recovery partition, and will re-install Mountain Lion. If the machine did not ship with mountain lion, you will need to put in your Apple ID and password (or one that has bought mountain lion).

If you boot into Internet Recovery (command + opt + R I believe), you boot a small EFI interface, which downloads a recovery console to the machine. This will always reinstall the shipped version, and doesn't need a username/password.
 
theSeb

theSeb

macrumors 604
Aug 10, 2010
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Brian Y said:
If you do a normal recovery (i.e. command + R), it will boot into the Mountain Lion recovery partition, and will re-install Mountain Lion. If the machine did not ship with mountain lion, you will need to put in your Apple ID and password (or one that has bought mountain lion).

If you boot into Internet Recovery (command + opt + R I believe), you boot a small EFI interface, which downloads a recovery console to the machine. This will always reinstall the shipped version, and doesn't need a username/password.
Click to expand...

Indeed. *Facepalm*

I completely misread this entire thread. I shall blame the flu and keep my mouth shut now.

I somehow read the earlier posts that the IR in EFI has been updated to load ML. *facepalm*
 
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J

Jony Mac

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Oct 27, 2010
389
7
Pittsburgh, PA
Brian Y said:
If you boot into Internet Recovery (command + opt + R I believe), you boot a small EFI interface, which downloads a recovery console to the machine. This will always reinstall the shipped version, and doesn't need a username/password.
Click to expand...

Thank you. This is exactly what I was after.
 
Weaselboy

Weaselboy

Moderator
Staff member
Jan 23, 2005
34,137
15,601
California
Brian Y said:
If you do a normal recovery (i.e. command + R), it will boot into the Mountain Lion recovery partition, and will re-install Mountain Lion. If the machine did not ship with mountain lion, you will need to put in your Apple ID and password (or one that has bought mountain lion).

If you boot into Internet Recovery (command + opt + R I believe), you boot a small EFI interface, which downloads a recovery console to the machine. This will always reinstall the shipped version, and doesn't need a username/password.
Click to expand...

Exactly. This is the correct answer.

Here is a long article that goes into the difference between normal recovery and Internet recovery.
 
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