How to do a CLEAN restore on a 2012 MBA with recovery partition?

[Sean Dempsey]

So I just did a "reinstall" with the recovery partition on a 2012 MBA. After waiting something like 9 hours for it to finish (it had to download everything......), it finally starts up and all my stuff is still there.

I had wanted to do a factory, clean reinstall. What am I missing? I didn't format/partition the main drive, I thought the "reinstall" would handle that.

 

[Icy1007]

In Mac OS X the OS is completely separate from your apps and user data. Reinstalling the OS will not touch your apps or user data. There should be an option to wipe the drive (reformat), but I'm not sure where it is at.

 

[blevins321]

When you boot to the recovery partition, open disk utility and format the drive before you reinstall Lion.

 

[JediMeister]

Although this article is for Mac OS X 10.6, Part One is still relevant. Substitute the install DVD for the Recovery HD, and since Disk Utility is one of the options from the get go, you don't need to select it from the Utilities menu as suggested. After you have erased the drive, you can quit Disk Utility and proceed with the reinstall of Mac OS X.