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Got my Lion USB Recovery USB from Apple
- Thread starter Paratel
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didn't cost me anything. Just called and said I had issues with install and had information documenting such. I will check tonight to see the size of the drive.
Out of curiosity can you wipe it and reformat it? Common sense tells me yes but it seems too easy.
I just called them because I wanted to have something in case my HDD failed. It took the guy on the phone with AppleCare about 10min to find the document telling him that he can send me a flash drive. Then he told me that in the documentation on my account, he would write "customer is experiencing issues installing Lion" as an excuse to send me one. 
its very difficult. there is supposedly a chinese tool that does but is for windows only. here it is http://mckaywei.com/2011/04/27/how-to-format-macbook-air-usb-drive/
but be careful. i tried to do it with one and i think the usb port fried the chip inside because no computer will recognize it now.
I like the fact that in the screen capture you posted the icon for the Lion Recovery USB Thumb Drive shows up as a accurate depiction art wise on your desktop.
Nice they went the extra step........Or is this what the $69 will be after all???
Hmmm
Any chance someone can post the icon file from that key ? id like it to be my default for all memory sticks
So it's probably exactly the same as what Apple's recovery tool produces, in other words it still requires an Internet connection
Me too, I'd like to have one, I tried making a recovery disk, but my iMac freezes when I put it in on next boot up
I made one of these for myself following instructions from ars. Mine is an 8 gig stick and contains everything that was in InstallESD.dmg from the original "Install OS X Lion.app" I purchased from the OS X app store. I know it's more than 4 gig because Disk Utility said it ran out of space when I tried making one on a 4 gig stick. Luckily I had an 8 gig stick lying around and used that instead.
I have booted from mine, started an install but was never prompted whether to "archive and install" versus "wipe and install" so I chickened out and ran "Install OS X Lion.app" instead of using my stick. I think your stick relies on stuff that is in your recovery partition and on downloaded stuff from Apple which could make the install take a lot longer. I expect the $69 stick to be more like the one I have and it would contain everything required to restore Lion without an intact recovery partition or an internet connection.
After you post that icon, perhaps I'll add it to my stick just for kicks.
I have booted from mine, started an install but was never prompted whether to "archive and install" versus "wipe and install" so I chickened out and ran "Install OS X Lion.app" instead of using my stick. I think your stick relies on stuff that is in your recovery partition and on downloaded stuff from Apple which could make the install take a lot longer. I expect the $69 stick to be more like the one I have and it would contain everything required to restore Lion without an intact recovery partition or an internet connection.
After you post that icon, perhaps I'll add it to my stick just for kicks.
I just received this USB disk from Applecare.
For some silly reason, it's actually an 8 gig disk low-level formatted to present an optical drive with just the recovery tools rather than a more useful full Lion installer.
Using the Silicon Image flash formatting tool, I was able to turn it into a normal 8 gig disk and put the real Lion installer on there.
This device was new enough that only the most recent version - the "10/08/18 build" - of that tool, that I was able to find, knew about it.
Google for "SM3255AB_J0818".
For some silly reason, it's actually an 8 gig disk low-level formatted to present an optical drive with just the recovery tools rather than a more useful full Lion installer.
Code:
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: Apple_partition_scheme *8.1 GB disk2
1: Apple_partition_map 30.7 KB disk2s1
2: Apple_Driver_ATAPI 2.0 KB disk2s2
3: Apple_HFS Mac OS X Recovery 889.8 MB disk2s3Using the Silicon Image flash formatting tool, I was able to turn it into a normal 8 gig disk and put the real Lion installer on there.
This device was new enough that only the most recent version - the "10/08/18 build" - of that tool, that I was able to find, knew about it.
Google for "SM3255AB_J0818".
