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paul the 6th

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 24, 2009
14
0
York, North Yorkshire (UK)
Been having some mega headaches with my mac lately - constant sbbod and locking up for 5-10 minutes at a time, taking 15 minutes to boot up etc. trouble finding the start up disc and so on.

Tonight I managed to boot from the recovery partition and nursed it for close to 2 hours. Now it's just fired back up after 10 minutes sitting around and it's exactly the same with all the old files etc.

I recently upgraded to mountain lion via the App Store - now I want to do a clean install but don't have a disc or USB drive with the boot files on, and with the current state the mac is in, I can't open App Store to make a boot disc without it freezing permanently.

My mac is basically screwed. If I format the partition I will I have the option of installing mountain lion from apple servers via the net?

Getting severely frustrated with it now. :( thanks in advance everyone
 

smoge

macrumors regular
Jun 14, 2011
217
1
If you are already running OSX Mountain lion, then surely you are looking for a format not clean install?
 

paul the 6th

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 24, 2009
14
0
York, North Yorkshire (UK)
If you are already running OSX Mountain lion, then surely you are looking for a format not clean install?

It's the first time I've ever had to do this with a mac, I always thought a clean install and formatting were basically the same thing? Basically I want to wipe it (format it) and then do a nice clean install of OS X to make it run smooth again.
 

paul the 6th

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 24, 2009
14
0
York, North Yorkshire (UK)
Recovery disk download:
http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1433

small file (not mac app store)
Says lion but is good for mountain lion... I'm told.

Already got recovery partition on my iMac as standard, the apple website says that particular download will give the same functionality to macs which don't have it already.

Thinking I might be able to create a boot disc from my dads mac on Tuesday - more days of having an apple paperweight on my desk. Is there a way to tell if my HDD is dying? And what are the implications in terms of repair etc.?
 
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