Help - upgrading 1st gen Macbook Air from Snow Leopard to Lion

Hi All,

I have a early 2008 macbook air with snow leopard and I want to upgrade it to Lion (on a usb stick). I wiped the harddrive clean, then boot with the stick, and chose "reinstall lion" option, but it failed with message "Failed to download additional component". I'm certain it has internet connection. I tried several times with the same error, so I googled a bit, and some people say it works if upgrading from SL (rather then from a wiped HD). So I reinstalled SL and try again, but still the same error. Before I make a trip to Apple store, i want to ask if anyone has resolved this particular issue before. Thanks in advance for your help!

Lukewarmwinner said:

How much storage does your USB hold? Mine worked after using a 8gb drive instead of 4. That might do the trick

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The stick I have is actually 16 GB

halledise said:

I think you'd need to download Recovery Disk Assistant from Apple and then install that on a separate stick.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4848

startup from that stick and then you should be able to install Lion from the one you already have.
actually I'm just remembering, the early Airs only had the one usb port so not sure how you get around that one

ps. if it's the original Air then Everymac reckons that 10.7.5 is the latest you can go to.
if it's the model after you can install 10.8.
if it is the original model Air, I reckon it'll struggle with Lion and SL would be a much better option - Lion was a bit of a dog imho, was so glad when ML came out.

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Yes I have the first gen MacBook Air, which only has one USB port.

The reason I want to install lion is that it will allow me to sell it at higher price. Am I mistaken? I would like to sell a machine that runs smoothly.