How do you install osx on bare drive?

[Luis Ortega]

I am replacing the 5400rpm drive in my 2009 macbook pro with a 480gb ssd.
That part is easy.
I want to do a clean install of yosemite on the ssd then install all the software fresh.
I don't want to install a clone on the ssd but I have a current clone on an external usb drive.
Now with the app store and yosemite being free, etc., I am unsure how to go about a clean install if the computer only has a bare drive with no operating system on it, the os is an internet download, and I have no installation disk for yosemite.
There must be some fairly simple way to do this.
Thanks for any advice.

 

[DeltaMac]

Yes, the process is simple:
1. From your present system, App Store/Purchase Yosemite (which will download the free installer)
2. When the download completes, the installer will automatically launch, so quit the installer at that point.
3. Make a bootable USB flash drive (8 GB is a great size for that), using one of the methods to do that (search for it), or just use the easy DiskMakerX. http://diskmakerx.com
4. Swap your hard drive for the SSD.
5. Boot to the flash drive that you just created. Format the SSD with Disk Utility (in the menus when you boot to the Yosemite installer), then Quit Disk Utility, and continue installing Yosemite on your new SSD.
6. When the install completes - Your new SSD, plus Yosemite, will be ready to use with a completely fresh system!

 

[Luis Ortega]

Thank you very much.
That sounds pretty straightforward.

ps: I just started downloading yosemite and the app store said that I already had yosemite installed and did I want to continue and download the install file.
I said yes and its downloaded the 5gb file, but I don't see it in downloads.

 

[Zerozal]

Thank you very much.
That sounds pretty straightforward.

ps: I just started downloading yosemite and the app store said that I already had yosemite installed and did I want to continue and download the install file.
I said yes and its downloaded the 5gb file, but I don't see it in downloads.

Look in your Applications folder or Launchpad.

 

[DeltaMac]

Yes, the OS X installer will download to the Applications folder (not Downloads)

When you have the flash drive, or even a partition on an external hard drive, with a bootable installer, you would then have a very useful backup of that OS X installer, and you can drag your downloaded installer app from Applications to the trash. Don't forget to empty the trash, as that's more than 5GB space that uses.

 

[Luis Ortega]

Thanks, I found the osx installer app (5+ gb) in the applications folder and used the diskmaker app that Delta Mac suggested and now I have a functional install disk on a bootale usb drive.
Thanks a lot.