Fresh install question

[Silly John Fatty]

I’m just about to do a complete fresh install with the CMD + R option.

What OS will this install on my Mac? It originally came with Lion installed, but I later bought Mountain Lion (last July). If it installs Lion again, will I be able to download Mountain Lion again for free and install it again?

I don’t have any install disc because I bought the Mac already in the time when they weren’t delivered with install discs anymore.

Thanks 🙂

 

[Dalton63841]

I’m just about to do a complete fresh install with the CMD + R option.

What OS will this install on my Mac? It originally came with Lion installed, but I later bought Mountain Lion (last July). If it installs Lion again, will I be able to download Mountain Lion again for free and install it again?

I don’t have any install disc because I bought the Mac already in the time when they weren’t delivered with install discs anymore.

Thanks 🙂

When you installed Mountain Lion it should have updated the Recovery partition for it. Try this... Reboot, and hold Option when it comes on. When it shows the bootable drives, the recovery partition should be called "Recovery-10.8" or something to that affect. Recovery-10.8 would of course mean Mountain Lion.

 

[Silly John Fatty]

Alright, so if I got this right, it should install Mountain Lion on it, because whatever system you install will override the one from the recovery partition, therefore whatever system you re-install will be the latest that has been installed on the computer — right or wrong? 😛 (Really need to make sure!)

 

[Bear]

Internet Recovery is likely to install the version of OS X that came on your computer originally. Booting from the Recovery Partition will install the version of OS X that created the partition - you will have to supply your Apple ID and password.

 

[Silly John Fatty]

Internet Recovery is likely to install the version of OS X that came on your computer originally. Booting from the Recovery Partition will install the version of OS X that created the partition - you will have to supply your Apple ID and password.

Alright, but this is the only thing that comes with the fresh install, right? I mean, all other stuff will be deleted I guess? Are perhaps changes in the OS kept? I’m not sure if I have done any, maybe I installed apps that did? I’m such a noob at this, sorry. Just want to make sure I can do a completely fresh install, so it can be like on day 1 when I bought it 🙂

 

[Silly John Fatty]

I’m a bit confused by the way, so here another question.

If I do the CMD + R trick at the start, will I be able to reinstall everything without internet connection? Also I’m not sure if I explained it right, but I don’t want anything on my computer left 🙂 I have a backup and I will then restore selected files and folders, so I don’t want a complete time machine backup or anything. It’s so complicated. 😕

 

[Weaselboy]

I’m a bit confused by the way, so here another question.

If I do the CMD + R trick at the start, will I be able to reinstall everything without internet connection? Also I’m not sure if I explained it right, but I don’t want anything on my computer left 🙂 I have a backup and I will then restore selected files and folders, so I don’t want a complete time machine backup or anything. It’s so complicated. 😕

A command-r boot will boot to the local recovery partition, in you case ML. If you want a fresh install as your described the next thing you need to do is start Disk Util and erase Macintosh HD. That will wipe everything you had on the drive except the recovery partition. Now click install OS and you will get a new ML install. And yes... the entire 4.7GB OS gets downloaded from Apple's servers over the Internet.

When this install completes you will have nothing but the OS on there and it will be like a new machine.

 

[Silly John Fatty]

A command-r boot will boot to the local recovery partition, in you case ML. If you want a fresh install as your described the next thing you need to do is start Disk Util and erase Macintosh HD. That will wipe everything you had on the drive except the recovery partition. Now click install OS and you will get a new ML install. And yes... the entire 4.7GB OS gets downloaded from Apple's servers over the Internet.

When this install completes you will have nothing but the OS on there and it will be like a new machine.

Alright, I need to delete everything first then. Reinstalling on top wouldn’t do that, would it?

And so in both cases I need the internet? Because I read somewhere that I don’t. Now what’s the difference between reinstalling Lion (which the Mac came with), and ML (which I bought later), they’re both downloaded from the internet?

 

[Weaselboy]

Alright, I need to delete everything first then. Reinstalling on top wouldn’t do that, would it?

Correct. A simple reinstall without erasing the drive first would still have all your data and accounts etc there like nothing ever happened.

And so in both cases I need the internet? Because I read somewhere that I don’t. Now what’s the difference between reinstalling Lion (which the Mac came with), and ML (which I bought later), they’re both downloaded from the internet?

Correct. Either way you will be downloading the OS from the Internet.

The only difference is with ML you would be prompted for your AppleID used to buy ML since your machine did not come with it.

 

[Silly John Fatty]

Alright, I see! Then I better wait for the night or else I can wait for hours until ML is downloaded again! Thanks very much, it made sense with the Apple ID as well 🙂

I think I have a last question: if I decide to install Lion, can I then just install Mountain Lion on top of it, or do I need to get the latest Lion first, or something like this?

A game that I have runs fine on Mountain Lion, but it doesn’t always get past Mountain Lion installation (and sometimes there’s some bugs). That wasn’t the case when I had installed it on Lion the first then, and then upgraded the whole computer to Mountain Lion. So I’m thinking right now if it might not be smarter to install Lion first.

But yes, the question was if I can “jump” from the Lion it will install on my Mac straight to the Mountain Lion that I bought. (BTW, this will not be the latest, will it? It will be the one I bought, therefore the first I guess?)

Sorry again for so many questions 🙄

 

[Weaselboy]

I think I have a last question: if I decide to install Lion, can I then just install Mountain Lion on top of it, or do I need to get the latest Lion first, or something like this?

You can go straight to ML by just doing the erase and install from your existing recovery partition like I mentioned earlier.

If you want to get back to Lion, you need to command-option-r boot to Internet recovery and erase the entire drive (select the drive name like Seagate 1TB or whatever) to get rid of the ML recovery partition. Then click install OS and that will get you Lion along with a Lion recovery partition.

Then after that if you want to go from Lion to ML, just DL ML from the App Store and install it.

 

[Silly John Fatty]

Then after that if you want to go from Lion to ML, just DL ML from the App Store and install it.

Alright that’s what I was wondering 🙂 Thanks, let’s hope it will all work out 😉

 

[Silly John Fatty]

Another question (nope I still haven’t done it 😀), on this site here it says something interesting:

Lion features a new recovery mode (also called Lion Recovery), but not all installations of Lion get it

How can I know if mine has it? Does mine maybe have it because I have upgraded to Mountain Lion meanwhile?

 

[Weaselboy]

Another question (nope I still haven’t done it 😀), on this site here it says something interesting:



How can I know if mine has it? Does mine maybe have it because I have upgraded to Mountain Lion meanwhile?

I don't know what that site is talking about, if you install Lion or Mt. Lion you will definitely get a recovery partition. There is no way to stop the installer from doing this. The only way you would not have one is if you removed the partition after the install.

Go to Terminal and enter "diskutil list" (without the quotes) and you will see the 650MB Recovery HD partition listed.

 

[Bear]

I don't know what that site is talking about, if you install Lion or Mt. Lion you will definitely get a recovery partition. There is no way to stop the installer from doing this. The only way you would not have one is if you removed the partition after the install.
...

Actually there are some cases where recovery partitions don't get created. Also if you fully erase and repartition a disk and then restore form Time Machine, there is a strong chance it won't recreate the recovery partition. I know I didn''t get a recovery partition when I did that.

 

[Silly John Fatty]

In fact I see it! Thanks! 🙂 (stupid site)

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Actually there are some cases where recovery partitions don't get created. Also if you fully erase and repartition a disk and then restore form Time Machine, there is a strong chance it won't recreate the recovery partition. I know I didn''t get a recovery partition when I did that.

If I reinstall it the way I want to do it, will it recreate a recovery partition?

 

[Weaselboy]

Actually there are some cases where recovery partitions don't get created. Also if you fully erase and repartition a disk and then restore form Time Machine, there is a strong chance it won't recreate the recovery partition. I know I didn''t get a recovery partition when I did that.

I am not talking about cloning or restoring, I am talking about a OS install either through Internet recovery or regular recovery. That will always create a recovery partition.

If I reinstall it the way I want to do it, will it recreate a recovery partition?

Yes it will.

 

[Silly John Fatty]

I'm now writing from a fresh computer 🙂 Thanks for all the help.

Just a weird thing I noticed, I wasn't able to install from Lion, is that normal? I only had the option to install Mountain Lion, which I did.

 

[Weaselboy]

I'm now writing from a fresh computer 🙂 Thanks for all the help.

Just a weird thing I noticed, I wasn't able to install from Lion, is that normal? I only had the option to install Mountain Lion, which I did.

That is because you (apparently) did a command-r boot to a Mountain Lion recovery partition, so when you reinstall you will get Mountain Lion.

To get back to Lion you would need to go a command-option-r boot to Internet Recovery then erase the entire drive. That would erase the Mountain Lion recovery partition and allow you to install Lion.

 

[Silly John Fatty]

That is because you (apparently) did a command-r boot to a Mountain Lion recovery partition, so when you reinstall you will get Mountain Lion.

To get back to Lion you would need to go a command-option-r boot to Internet Recovery then erase the entire drive. That would erase the Mountain Lion recovery partition and allow you to install Lion.

Ah damn, in fact I pressed CMD + R 😉 But I might be able to keep Mountain Lion, have to see if what I wanted works.

I just can't find anything about the CMD + Option + R thing on Apple's site, isn't there an article on Apple.com where it's explained somewhere? You know, one of these support articles. Or is this a "non-official" thing?

 

[Weaselboy]

I just can't find anything about the CMD + Option + R thing on Apple's site, isn't there an article on Apple.com where it's explained somewhere? You know, one of these support articles. Or is this a "non-official" thing?

There is a good article here that explains both types of recovery and the differences. Also, some info here from Apple.

You are not the first to be a bit confused by all this. IMO Apple has not done a very good job explaining it all.

Glad you are up and running. 🙂

 

[Silly John Fatty]

Well I tried it with CMD + Option + R this time but I have the exact same thing that shows up and I only have the option to reinstall Mountain Lion, no Lion here. 😕 What does this mean?

With "Option key" you mean "fn" key, right?

Edit: Might actually be "Alt", apparently both are called the Option Key. Let's see!

Edit 2: Fail, one is the option key, the other the function key… getting everything mixed here…

Writing from Lion now 🙂 Seems to have worked out fine. What I noticed: it's much slower than ML, and also I miss the tabs in Safari that don't take the whole width!