Clean Install of Mavericks on Early 2011 MBP?

[laylos]

Hi

I have just entered the Macworld by purchasing a used early 2011 MBP.

I received it with Mavericks already installed on it but having it a few days I think it was only an upgrade and not a clean install as I have found some preferences and other items in Keychain.

I would like to do a clean install of OSX 10.9. I have created a bootable USB for doing this following watching some vids on youtube.

Can I do a clean install using the USB (over the existing OSX 9 version) or do I need to install Snow Leopard 10.6 via my OS X Utilities and then upgrade to 10.9?

Thanks
Steve

 

[yjchua95]

Hi

I have just entered the Macworld by purchasing a used early 2011 MBP.

I received it with Mavericks already installed on it but having it a few days I think it was only an upgrade and not a clean install as I have found some preferences and other items in Keychain.

I would like to do a clean install of OSX 10.9. I have created a bootable USB for doing this following watching some vids on youtube.

Can I do a clean install using the USB (over the existing OSX 9 version) or do I need to install Snow Leopard 10.6 via my OS X Utilities and then upgrade to 10.9?

Thanks
Steve

You can boot from the USB installer you made, open up Disk Utility from there, reformat the internal drive and install a fresh copy of OS X.

 

[r0k]

You can boot from the USB installer you made, open up Disk Utility from there, reformat the internal drive and install a fresh copy of OS X.

There is one caveat. If you install Mavericks from a USB drive, it omits creating the recovery partition. Since you already have a bootable install USB this is no big deal. If you want a recovery partition, there are ways to create one afterwards.

I went from an upgrade install to a clean install of Mavericks. The clean install is much nicer. I installed Mavericks over Mountain Lion, remembering to create an installer USB stick first. Later, when I wanted to put an SSD in my late 2011 MBP, I installed Mavs to a blank SSD connected by an SATA to USB cable. I then allowed Migration to pull everything off of the internal Macintosh HD. After booting several times to prove everything was working, I opened up my MBP, took out the old HDD and put in the SSD. Bottom line: I got the combined effect of an SSD and clean install of Mavs and my MBP is running flawlessly.

 

[yjchua95]

There is one caveat. If you install Mavericks from a USB drive, it omits creating the recovery partition. Since you already have a bootable install USB this is no big deal. If you want a recovery partition, there are ways to create one afterwards.

I did a clean install of Mavericks (made a bootable SD card) on an unformatted Samsung 840 Pro SSD and the recovery partition was created after the installation was completed.

So it doesn't matter, the recovery partition will always be there, as long as OS X installs successfully.

 

[laylos]

Thanks Guys

I'll give it a whirl later and see how it goes.

Cheers
Steve

 

[r0k]

I did a clean install of Mavericks (made a bootable SD card) on an unformatted Samsung 840 Pro SSD and the recovery partition was created after the installation was completed.

So it doesn't matter, the recovery partition will always be there, as long as OS X installs successfully.

Interesting. I formatted my Samsung 840 Evo SSD in Disk Utility then did the install. I seem to remember it wouldn't show up as an install target until after I made a "Macintosh SSD" partition in Disk Utility. After the install, I went in terminal to check if the recovery partition was there. It is not there. Again no big deal because I always have my USB stick. Not exactly ideal because my USB stick would take me all the way back to 10.9.0.

Perhaps when 10.9.3 comes out, I'll re-download the app and make myself a more current USB stick.

 

[MrGimper]

The supported way of creating a Mavericks USB installer is to follow this:

Create Mav USB install

 

[laylos]

Thanks for the information and help all.

I sent the MBP back to the seller as the backlight on the keyboard did not work. I also asked if they could do a clean install of Mavs whilst they had it again.

At least I know where to come to when I have questions about the laptop. !

Cheers
Steve