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Installing OS on new SSD

J

jordandj24

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 28, 2014
4
0
I have a 2012 mbp which I purchased in January and did not know much about the differences of the hard drives. I just purchased a Samsung 850 Pro SSD - my question is can I download a copy of Mavericks from the App Store to an external hard drive, then swap out my current hard drive with the SSD and then install the OS from my external drive? Will that work?

I don't have much on my computer so I don't mind just doing a fresh install of the OS. I don't really care to clone the hard drive.

Thanks in advance for your help.
 
Just boot into Internet Recovery and then install from there.

Press power button and then hold Command+Option+R. Release the keys when the screen appears. You should see a globe and a loading bar. If the drive has not been formatted yet, do so in Disk Utility. After that, select "Reinstall Mac OS X" and proceed into it.
 
Last edited:
poiihy said:
Just boot into Internet Recovery and then install from there.

Press power button and then hold Command+R. Release the keys when the screen appears. You should see a globe and a loading bar. If the drive has not been formatted yet, do so in Disk Utility. After that, select "Reinstall Mac OS X" and proceed into it.
Click to expand...

Sorry if this is an obvious answer but how would it be possible to do if the SSD is completely blank. Would I need to load a copy of the OS somewhere else prior to launching into Internet Recovery?
 
jordandj24 said:
Sorry if this is an obvious answer but how would it be possible to do if the SSD is completely blank. Would I need to load a copy of the OS somewhere else prior to launching into Internet Recovery?
Click to expand...

It's Internet Recovery. It downloads everything from the internet. It is useful if your storage device is blank and has no recovery partition on it.

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jordandj24 said:
Also will the Internet Recovery install Yosemite or Mavericks?
Click to expand...

You have a 2012 MacBook Pro so it would install Mountain Lion. If you have Mavericks in your purchases list, you can upgrade to Mavericks after you install Mountain Lion.
 
simonsi said:
Internet Recovery will install whatever the MBP shipped with, in your case that should be Mavericks. Once installed you can update as normal from the App Store.
Click to expand...

He has a 2012 MacBook Pro and so it shipped with Mountain Lion.
 
simonsi said:
But that is the model, he bought it in January he says so probably Mavericks? My daughter bought one in July and that shipped with Mavericks.
Click to expand...

But Mavericks was released in late 2013. Or were they still selling 2012 MBPs in late 2013?

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Well whatever it shipped with, it is either Mountain Lion or Mavericks. It would not be Yosemite.
 
poiihy said:
But Mavericks was released in late 2013. Or were they still selling 2012 MBPs in late 2013?

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Well whatever it shipped with, it is either Mountain Lion or Mavericks. It would not be Yosemite.
Click to expand...

Apple still sells the mid-2012 13-inch MacBook Pro as new. Maybe someone can report which version Apple is installing on that now. Apple's spec page for that model says it comes with Yosemite, but with a model sold during 4 different OS X generations (originally with 10.7.4!), hard to say just which version is actually in the box.
One way to find out is to actually boot to Internet recovery, and see what Apple provides.
 
poiihy said:
But Mavericks was released in late 2013. Or were they still selling 2012 MBPs in late 2013?

----------

Well whatever it shipped with, it is either Mountain Lion or Mavericks. It would not be Yosemite.
Click to expand...

I just looked at Internet Recovery, and I can only download Yosemite to my mid-2012 (shipped with Mountain Lion, currently running Yosemite)! I was trying to reinstall it (Mountain Lion) on a separate partition, but only Yosemite would download!?!
 
Applefan 2013 said:
I just looked at Internet Recovery, and I can only download Yosemite to my mid-2012 (shipped with Mountain Lion, currently running Yosemite)! I was trying to reinstall it (Mountain Lion) on a separate partition, but only Yosemite would download!?!
Click to expand...

Because you already have a recovery partition which is with your OS X Yosemite, so it would install that. Boot and hold Command+Option+R to force into Internet Recovery instead of into the one on disk.
 
poiihy said:
But Mavericks was released in late 2013. Or were they still selling 2012 MBPs in late 2013?
Click to expand...

Yes they still sell 2012 MBP models new, they ship with the current OS (given a short crossover, so for one sold in January I'd expect it to have Mavericks, but there is a possibility it would have been built a few months before in ML-era.
 
poiihy said:
Because you already have a recovery partition which is with your OS X Yosemite, so it would install that. Boot and hold Command+Option+R to force into Internet Recovery instead of into the one on disk.
Click to expand...

Question: Will doing this allow me to choose which partition to download/install Mountain Lion on?
 
Applefan 2013 said:
I just looked at Internet Recovery, and I can only download Yosemite to my mid-2012 (shipped with Mountain Lion, currently running Yosemite)! I was trying to reinstall it (Mountain Lion) on a separate partition, but only Yosemite would download!?!
Click to expand...

You entered recovery, not internet recovery.
 
Applefan 2013 said:
Question: Will doing this allow me to choose which partition to download/install Mountain Lion on?
Click to expand...

Yes - partition choice will depend on your drives connected, and how those drives are formatted.
Your main goal is to simply download the OS X installer, then save it - so you can reuse it if you need to reinstall at some later time.
 
Thanks to everyone for your responses and help, really appreciate it. I just swapped out the hard drive for the SSD and using the internet recovery it is installing Mavericks.

To answer a previous question I bought my mbp brand new from Best Buy in January and it came with Mavericks. I've never had Lion on my computer.
 
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