I cannot buy LION or install SL

[jannikmariager]

Hello gents

I have an Imac and a macbook and a friend upgraded these for me to Lion recently - now I want to reformat the macbook and find out that my SL disc wont boot for some reason - read on forums this is caused by Lion ?

anyway and then enter the recovery HD and finally found on the macbook and to install Lion they ask for my apple ID and responds with "you have not purchased Lion" so I find out my friend used a version he downloaded off the Internet.

If I enter Mac Appstore Lion is "installed" so I cannot buy it there. So what do I do - I want the original version but cannot buy it so cannot format my macbook - Im afraid if I delete the partition on the macbook it will screw things up even more and still not bea ble to boot from my SL disc and then I have a dead computer

any tips ??

Jannik

 

[SaSaSushi]

As long as you have a retail Snow Leopard DVD you should be able to boot up to it by inserting it and holding the C key as soon as you hear the startup chime. This will force it to boot to the Snow Leopard DVD.

Then you can use Disk Utility to nuke the Lion installation and then reinstall Snow Leopard.

This video may prove helpful.

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Something else you might try is holding down the control key in the Mac App Store and then clicking on the Purchases tab. This should give you back an "Install" button. I assume that if you click on it you will be asked for your Apple ID and password again but I wonder if it would then give you the option to purchase it if you enter your own information.

It's worth a try anyway.

Once you have managed to purchase Lion, Lion DiskMaker is a great little free app for creating a USB thumb drive installer.

 

[jannikmariager]

Hi Thanks for your reply

unfortunately when I hold down the C button during startup nothing happens (tried about 10 times now) and I have no TM backup of my macbook

In mac appstore when I press the "purchased" button between "categories" and "updates" (I assume thats the button you meant? ) all I get is a list of whats installed and Lion is not on that list but if I choose Lion under "featured" it says "INSTALLED"

by the way I could not press "Purchased" while holding down CTRL - did I do it wrong or did you mean something else ?

Jannik

 

[wilsonlaidlaw]

Correct SL disc

Are you sure that your SL disc is the correct one for your iMac or a generic multi machine copy. If it is for another machine e.g. a MacBook, it may not start up in your iMac. If it definitely the correct disc, you may also have a finger print, small scratch or smudge in the wrong place. Try cleaning the disc with radial strokes and some window cleaner on a soft cloth i.e not round in circles. I had a Leopard disc that needed a polish every time it was used before it would fire up.

 

[old-wiz]

Retail disks are black and install on any system with correct HW specs.
Grey disks are machine specific; an iMac grey disk will not install on a MB, but you should at least get to the screen that says "cannot be installed on this machine."

 

[SaSaSushi]

In mac appstore when I press the "purchased" button between "categories" and "updates" (I assume thats the button you meant? ) all I get is a list of whats installed and Lion is not on that list but if I choose Lion under "featured" it says "INSTALLED"

by the way I could not press "Purchased" while holding down CTRL - did I do it wrong or did you mean something else ?

Jannik

I'm so sorry, Jannik! I meant to type hold down the Alt/Option key while pressing on Purchases!

In fact, it doesn't matter where you click on Lion, in Purchases or Featured or anywhere else so long as you hold down the ALT key as you do so. Then "Installed" should change to "Install".

 

[CylonGlitch]

Another thing, is you can boot up holding OPTION instead. This should present to you, on screen, the devices you can boot from. As other said, make sure your SL disk is for your machine or a full retail. From there go through disk utilities and wipe the drive. It works, I did it this past weekend. I had so many problem installing the full retail lion over a developer version I wanted to restart everything. It was a pain in the butt, but it does work. Remember though, once erased; install SL first. Then install Lion.

 

[blevins321]

Retail disks are black and install on any system with correct HW specs.
Grey disks are machine specific; an iMac grey disk will not install on a MB, but you should at least get to the screen that says "cannot be installed on this machine."

Snow Leopard retail disk is white. Old Leopard was black. Just FYI There are two versions of Snow Leopard that are retail - 10.6.0 and 10.6.3. You might have an issue if you try to install a version off one of those disks that is newer than your computer.

 

[old-wiz]

Snow Leopard retail disk is white. Old Leopard was black. Just FYI There are two versions of Snow Leopard that are retail - 10.6.0 and 10.6.3. You might have an issue if you try to install a version off one of those disks that is newer than your computer.

Ooops... Went and looked and my SL retail disk is indeed white. I keep seeing in my mind the old Leopard retail disk.

 

[jannikmariager]

Hello all

thanks for all your feedback

Think I solved the problem by getting my cousin to log in on a imac with SL installed with my apple ID and then purchase Lion this way - then I could boot on my own imac and macbook in the recovery HD and then sign in with my apple ID and then download the Lion file - im now creating a bootable HD to do a clean install on my macbook so hopefully this should do it

thanks alot

Jannik

 

[SaSaSushi]

I'm glad to hear you sorted it.

Yes, Lion purchases are tied to the user account, not the machine it is installed on. Once you've purchased it you can install it on as many Macs as you have authorized with your Apple ID. There is no limit to the number as long as they are authorized to your account.