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Chicken and egg 10.8 installation problem

M

moosegoose

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 25, 2002
28
0
Just bought a second-hand 2011 27 inch iMac. (I currently have a 2009 24 iMac)

I want to wipe it completely and install the latest version of mountain lion (it currently has 10.7.5 on it and the seller did not include any installation disks).

I'd like to use my Apple ID to download mountain lion directly onto the machine, but the instructions say that I need to erase the disc first to do a clean install. However, this isn't possible as it is the start-up disk and there are no partitions.

I'm currently using my 2009 24 inch iMac as my main work machine. Can I:
1. Download the mountain lion installer from the App Store to my 2009 iMac (without installing it here!).
2. Connect the two machines together in target mode and install Mt lion from the 2009 iMac to the 2011 iMac.

Is this possible? I can't think of any other way of doing it as I don't have any kind of installation disks. The 2009 iMac only has a snow leopard installer (somewhere).

Any thoughts greatly appreciated.
 
Try holding down Command-R while you're booting, this should take you into internet recovery. And from there you'll be able to wipe the disk.

Your other choice is download 10.8.4 from the App Store and put the installer on a USB stick or SD card.
 
And after Internet recovery wipes the disc, what do you see when you press the power button?

How do you then get to the Apple store and purchase mountain lion?
 
moosegoose said:
And after Internet recovery wipes the disc, what do you see when you press the power button?

How do you then get to the Apple store and purchase mountain lion?
Click to expand...
After you wipe the disk, you can install OS X. No need to hit the power button. But if you power on an iMac with a blank disk, it will go in to Internet Recovery.
 
Sorry, what I meant was how will it connect to the app store at that stage since there's no operating system?
 
moosegoose said:
Sorry, what I meant was how will it connect to the app store at that stage since there's no operating system?
Click to expand...
That's what the internet recovery is about. It downloads what it needs. It's in the Firmware. It'll even ask you for your Apple ID and password when you go to install OS X.
 
I've done the command R.

If I try to erase, via the disk utility, it won't let me as it says ‘can't unmount the disc’.

If I choose the reinstall Mac OS X lion command the installation destination is greyed out.

I seem to be stuck in some kind of loop.
 
moosegoose said:
I've done the command R.

If I try to erase, via the disk utility, it won't let me as it says ‘can't unmount the disc’.

If I choose the reinstall Mac OS X lion command the installation destination is greyed out.

I seem to be stuck in some kind of loop.
Click to expand...
Are you sure you held down Command and R while the system was starting? Also, are you trying to erase the correct disk?

I should've linked this Apple article earlier: OS X: About OS X Recovery
 
moosegoose said:
I'm currently using my 2009 24 inch iMac as my main work machine. Can I:
1. Download the mountain lion installer from the App Store to my 2009 iMac (without installing it here!).
2. Connect the two machines together in target mode and install Mt lion from the 2009 iMac to the 2011 iMac.
Click to expand...

This seems like it would work just fine. If your 2009 iMac has Lion installed then you might consider putting it into Target Disk Mode instead and booting to it's OS from the 2011 iMac but if not then your original idea should work unless I'm overlooking some detail.
 
moosegoose said:
OK.

Its downloading Lion from somewhere. No ID requuired.
Click to expand...

You are little sideways here. :)

It is downloading Lion because you booted from Internet recovery, and Apple's servers will see that your serial number came with Lion so they will give that to you free. This is not going to get you Mt. Lion.

At this point you have two choices. You can let the Lion install complete, then open the App Store app and install Mt. Lion from there. (Did you erase the drive before you started the Lion install?)

Or you can stop the Lion install and use your other machine to DL Mt. Lion and use this free app with an 8GB USB key to make an installer. Then option key boot to the USB key. Once it starts to the recovery screen use Disk Util to erase the entire disk (select the drive name like 1TB Seagate or whatever... not Macintosh HD) then format to Mac OS Extended. Then go ahead with the ML install.
 
Many thanks. That makes sense. It effectively restoring the computer to the state was bought in.

Just one point of clarification though; when I boot up into Lion for the first time there should be no existing user accounts. As I erased the previous User, every trace of that individual should be gone. correct?

Then, when I want to transfer from my current iMac, all I need to do is connect the two and use migration Assistant
 
moosegoose said:
Many thanks. That makes sense. It effectively restoring the computer to the state was bought in.

Just one point of clarification though; when I boot up into Lion for the first time there should be no existing user accounts. As I erased the previous User, every trace of that individual should be gone. correct?

Then, when I want to transfer from my current iMac, all I need to do is connect the two and use migration Assistant
Click to expand...
If you erased the disk, there will be no trace of anything from the previous owner. Also, it should come up and go through setup as if it's a new Mac, including the option to migrate data from another Mac or a Time Machine backup.
 
That's terrific. It's done exactly that —as promised! Thank you very much.

The last time I transferred the user account across was when I upgraded my wife's iMac to a new one. Unfortunately, I did something stupid when I created the identity on the new machine. Everything was fine until we attached her backup drive which would not sync with the new identity. (We can access the old data but there are unfortunately now two Time Machine identities on the backup drive which is annoyingly awkward).

Is there a way to avoid that this time?
 
moosegoose said:
That's terrific. It's done exactly that —as promised! Thank you very much.

The last time I transferred the user account across was when I upgraded my wife's iMac to a new one. Unfortunately, I did something stupid when I created the identity on the new machine. Everything was fine until we attached her backup drive which would not sync with the new identity. (We can access the old data but there are unfortunately now two Time Machine identities on the backup drive which is annoyingly awkward).

Is there a way to avoid that this time?
Click to expand...

It sounds like what you did last time was create an account on the new machine then AFTER that you ran Migration Assistant. What that does is bring in the old account and you end up with two accounts and the data not where you want it.

To avoid this run the Migration Assistant at the end of the new install process (it will pop up on its own) and it will import your account. Do not setup and account and then run Migration Assistant.
 
That sounds pretty much like what I did.

Hah! Won't make that mistake again. Thank you very much.
 
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