Apple Brings Lion Internet Recovery to More 2010 Macs

Mikey7c8 said:

I'm going to buck the trend and say this is super awesome. Have a mid-2009 macbook pro, lets hope I'm next!

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Me too It seems to me like they are updating all EFI's for Mac's capable of running Lion...

SlugBlanket said:

Yep, Pro customers can (afford the Lion USB stick) themselves

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No, Pro customers can create their own Lion USB stick

kettikco said:

While this is nice, i'am still waiting for a firmware update to enable booting from USB drives on the mid-2011 Macbook Air.

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Works for me? Are you sure you made it bootable? If it will not work, what about rEFIt?

justperry said:

What if I don't want Lion? ... What if My internet connection is slow or Capped?
The day I get My new MacbookPro in a few months I instantly get Snow Leopard on it.

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Why wouldn't you? I am also not so fond of a number of features in Lion, but most of them can be turned off or set to mimic the Snow Leopard state. In addition to that there have been a lot of under the hood changes (read the Ars Technica Review if you want to know) targeted at the current and future hardware platforms. Why run a legacy OS which is not tailored to get the most out of your hardware. Especially when you get a new MacBook Pro built on hardware (processors, chipsets, airport cards, video drivers, perhaps ssd caching features, etcetera...) which was not available when Snow Leopard was built? I find that a little shortsighted...

What I don't understand is why Apple is trying to get rid of all the physical recovery options. If they offer them that's just great, but I prefer having a USB stick (or a CD even).

tom vilsack said:

gotta love apple 2012....you too can wait 4-5 hours to reinstall your osx lion...

2010 apple...your stuck with a usb stick that installs osx snow leopard in about 20 min...

wait em i missing something?

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Yes. You can create a Lion installer on a USB stick right now as well.

Tower-Union said:

Hey Apple, while your releasing EFI updates, could you release one for my 1,1 Mac Pro? You know, the one you told me was a 64 bit computer, and then admitted years later can't actually run a 64 bit OS?

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Welcome to the club. I solved that problem by selling mine on eBay and bought a 27" iMac i5 instead -- same performance, but without all those 64-Bit OS X problems. By the way, you know that 64-Bit Windows and 64-Bit Linux run perfectly fine on that Mac Pro 1,1 - and by fine I mean that unlike OS X, those other operating systems do run with their true 64-Bit kernels.

However, I'm also getting more and more fed up with Apple's OS X "strategy" and the increasingly worse support for their formerly "professional" platform. Thus I'm once again evaluating Linux alternatives to my most important applications, and FOR MY NEEDS it looks much better than it did a year or two ago.

4np said:

Works for me? Are you sure you made it bootable? If it will not work, what about rEFIt?

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No it does not work for you, the 2011 MBA's run on a different version of Lion, they don't run on Build 11A511 that you get off the app store or from apple on the usb stick, it can only be downloaded though the recovery partition. You can make a bootable usb stick of the Build 11A2063 but you have to do it a special way.

torana355 said:

No it does not work for you...

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The original author said he was trying to boot USB drives... that's not an OS thing, that's and EFI thing. So if it is not working on the MBA, you should really give rEFIt a go, as it allows you to boot from a lot of different devices... I've been using it for years... with success...

I love the whole concept of Internet Recovery built into the EFI. It's so clean and simple, no external media, a machine that's actually capable of 'recovering' itself via the net. Now we just need Time Machine in iCloud!

Ok, I know the realities are little different. Downloading an OS takes an age. But this is the future, and I'm glad to see Apple rolling it out to more and more older Macs. Hopefully this one means my iMacs are included!

justperry said:

What if I don't want Lion?
What if My internet connection is slow or Capped?
The day I get My new MacbookPro in a few months I instantly get Snow Leopard on it.

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If the MacBook Pro was released after Lion was released, good luck getting Snow Leopard to run on it.

On the one hand, Internet recovery is good for those who lose their install media, on the other hand (as you and others have said), what about those with slower connections or bandwidth caps?

Have any of you actually tried to re-install Lion yet?

It makes no ***** difference if you have a DVD/USB, it still then connects to the internet to download the correct stuff, it still takes around 2 hours on a reasonable connection in the UK.

Not progress. In those 2 hours you can install Leopard, then up to Snow Leopard then be almost finished with CS5.5.

The idea behind it is brilliant and in years to come will be the way forward, but at the moment it's a joke.

its really not that hard to create USB Lion Recovery Stick.

I like the ability to install the OS over the internet if I need to, maybe I'm on vacation and having issues or something, but off a DVD or USB drive is SO much faster. It's about 18-30 minutes instead of a few hours.

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G4DP said:

Have any of you actually tried to re-install Lion yet?

It makes no ***** difference if you have a DVD/USB, it still then connects to the internet to download the correct stuff, it still takes around 2 hours on a reasonable connection in the UK.

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No it doesn't. I've installed Lion with no internet from a USB key and it took all over 18 minutes or so.

tom vilsack said:

gotta love apple 2012....you too can wait 4-5 hours to reinstall your osx lion...

2010 apple...your stuck with a usb stick that installs osx snow leopard in about 20 min...

wait em i missing something?

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Yes, you are.

You can easily burn a Lion installation DVD useful for any Mac from the install image. As noted about, you can also create a similar installer on a USB stick. So there are two physical media options.

When creating a new Lion disk, a recovery partition will be generated. That is specific for that particular machine, but will allow you to reinstall.

Lion Internet Recovery is really the third solution.

You're getting worked up about nothing.

Bear said:

If the MacBook Pro was released after Lion was released, good luck getting Snow Leopard to run on it.

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I just installed 10.6.8 on my friend's "Late 2011" 15-inch Antiglare the other day. Ran perfectly. All you need is either the restore DVDs from an "Early 2011" MacBook Pro, or like me, create a NetRestore DMG using Server Admin Tools and restore the whole hard drive via Disk Utility and Target Disk Mode (two Macs are required).

He was blown away by how much faster his computer is on Snow Leopard.

I know that I have the recovery partition (it shows up when I run Carbon Copy Cloner) but the partition doesn't appear as bootable when I hold down Option on boot. Only the main OS install and Internet recovery are available.

Is there a trick to getting the system to boot from the recovery partition?

Samskeyti said:

I don't think you could back it up even if you tried. Final Cut X aside, because that's an anomaly (one of which Apple is improving).

You won't be able to, but try.

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1) Shake discontinued
2) Xserve discontinued
3) xserve raid discontinued
4) Final Cut Server discontinued

I'll stop there.

EDIT: Also, see this post, which was well written.

4np said:

Why wouldn't you? I am also not so fond of a number of features in Lion, but most of them can be turned off or set to mimic the Snow Leopard state. In addition to that there have been a lot of under the hood changes (read the Ars Technica Review if you want to know) targeted at the current and future hardware platforms. Why run a legacy OS which is not tailored to get the most out of your hardware. Especially when you get a new MacBook Pro built on hardware (processors, chipsets, airport cards, video drivers, perhaps ssd caching features, etcetera...) which was not available when Snow Leopard was built? I find that a little shortsighted...

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Pretty sure this is not the case, but some things a mission critical and moving to an untested (for the system in question) could introduce lots of uncertainty.

But, there are always options:
- Not installing this update
- Keep Lion on a USB drive if your internet is slow or capped (as one mentioned in this thread)
- Use the SL disk
- etc

Bottom line is that because you think it is shortsighted doesn't mean it is.

This gives users just one more option.

For those who want physical media for Lion:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820313111

(it's $8, come on!)

- Download Lion from the Mac App Store.

- Follow these instructions:

http://www.tuaw.com/2011/08/11/build-your-own-lion-install-usb-thumb-drive-for-cheap/

The best thing about this is that you can keep updating this USB installer drive as Apple releases new versions of Lion via the App Store. I just updated mine to 10.7.3, so any Mac I install with it will have 10.7.3 right off the bat. It's quite nice...

...and only costs $8. Free if you already have an unused USB flash drive lying around like I did.

longofest said:

1) Shake discontinued
2) Xserve discontinued
3) xserve raid discontinued
4) Final Cut Server discontinued

I'll stop there.

EDIT: Also, see this post, which was well written.

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You have a point, but Apple isn't really a Personal Computer builder anymore. They are a consumer electronics company with a sideline PC business with the Mac line.

Let the HPs, Lenovos and Dells of the world have these low margin product catagories. The future is in the iDevices for maximum corporate profit.

G4DP said:

Have any of you actually tried to re-install Lion yet?

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Yes I have. Several Times. On more than 1 kind of Mac.

G4DP said:

It makes no ***** difference if you have a DVD/USB, it still then connects to the internet to download the correct stuff, it still takes around 2 hours on a reasonable connection in the UK.

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I've done it on MacBooks that have no internet connection (no ethernet and mac address was blocked by my router). It installs just fine.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a fan of Lion.
It isn't as simple as new features I'd like to disable.
My boot and shutdown times are much greater than Snow Leopard (I have both installed on separate disks so I can do comparison tests).
Since I upgraded to 10.7.3 I also am seeing some graphic anomalies when I move a window from 1 screen to another (each screen is run by a separate video card).
I used the combo updater, not the system updater one.

I think internet recovery is a great feature. I also think that it is held back by current technology (downloading 4 or 8 gigs takes time).

It also doesn't make sense for certain people. If you were an admin at a school with 300 iMacs, would you want to do internet recover on all of them? Or have to download the installer to upgrade them all if they came with SL?

Can't get it to install

I have a Macbook Pro 6,1 and the installer runs and asks me to reboot but it never applies the firmware.

I am doing a fresh install and will try again tonight...

justperry said:

What if I don't want Lion?
What if My internet connection is slow or Capped?
The day I get My new MacbookPro in a few months I instantly get Snow Leopard on it.

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i hope to be wrong, but i think you can't run SL on a 2011 MBP, because they came out after Lion, so SL doesn't support the hardware.
i really hope to be wrong, because i hated lion since first day i tried it and if i'm ever buying a new laptop i hope it doesn't come with lion (let's see how the new cat will be...).

anyway, why don't just make a bootable usb stick to reinstall the OS? it looks so stupid to me waiting to download 4gigs from internet.. does everyone live next to the apple server with 100mb connection to it?!?

DakotaGuy said:

You have a point, but Apple isn't really a Personal Computer builder anymore. They are a consumer electronics company with a sideline PC business with the Mac line.

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That was my original point

longofest said:

Because Apple truly does not care about Pro customers anymore. Not trolling... just speaking the truth.

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DakotaGuy said:

Let the HPs, Lenovos and Dells of the world have these low margin product catagories. The future is in the iDevices for maximum corporate profit.

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No need to have contempt...

Even if there's a low margin profit, this is kind of a really needed market! From what do you think those lovely iDevices feed from in order to consume data?

I'm sure toilet paper is a low margin business too...

MacAddict2000 said:

I just installed 10.6.8 on my friend's "Late 2011" 15-inch Antiglare the other day. Ran perfectly. All you need is either the restore DVDs from an "Early 2011" MacBook Pro, or like me, create a NetRestore DMG using Server Admin Tools and restore the whole hard drive via Disk Utility and Target Disk Mode (two Macs are required).

He was blown away by how much faster his computer is on Snow Leopard.

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You serious!? Oh this is great, I can wait til' the 2012s come out and install SL on the current 2011s.

Pro

faroZ06 said:

Pro customers don't need Lion Recovery. They can fix their OS themselves. I'd actually not want Lion messing with my partitions.

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Pro users don't need (want) Lion period.