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Lion Clean Install Requires Snow Leopard Disk?

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Apr 12, 2001
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In order to perform a "clean install" of Lion -- on a new hard drive or when restoring a machine to sell it, for example -- users will need to install Snow Leopard first, according to an email forwarded to MacRumors, purportedly from Apple CEO Steve Jobs.

We have inspected the raw header information included in the email and believe it to be genuine, but these emails must always be taken with a grain of salt.
On Jun 20, 2011, at 9:57 PM, xxxx <xxxx@gmail.com> wrote:

Steve,

I'm really exited about Lion, but I'm a bit anxious about the absence of any physical media in the event of a crash where I need to do a clean install. Will Lion still provide a way to make a bootable image in the event that I need to start from scratch?
Click to expand...
And Steve's typically short response:
From: Steve Jobs <sjobs@apple.com>
Subject: Re: Lion clean install
Date: June 21, 2011 7:55:05 AM PDT
To: xxxx <xxxx@gmail.com>

You can clean install Snow Leopaard [sic] first.

Sent from my iPhone
Click to expand...
If this is true, it seems likely Apple will continue to sell Snow Leopard for the foreseeable future for users upgrading from Leopard and to perform clean installs.

Apple still sells Leopard for users who wish to upgrade their pre-Intel PowerPC Macs. Leopard is $129 and only available through 800-MY-APPLE, not the Apple Online Store or the retail stores. The company could offer Snow Leopard in the same surreptitious manner.

Article Link: Lion Clean Install Requires Snow Leopard Disk?
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2011/06/21/lion-clean-install-requires-snow-leopard-disk/
Apple has gone crazy with this release?

What happened to user experience and ease of use? C'mon.
 
About what I’d expect during this transition.

I expect new machines will start to come with a key disc or flash drive (like the Air), which may not have the full Lion (since that’s downloadable) but will take the place of the Snow Leopard disc for a vital purpose: getting the thing to boot when no usable OS is on the internal!

dukebound85 said:
such an elegant solution /sarcasm
Click to expand...

It’s a downloadable OS. Would you expect a new install on a non-bootable drive to not require any media at all? (I do think that will come in future, but there would have to be pretty advanced firmware to make the download happen.) Or would you expect it to require something other than the Snow Leopard disc that you had to have before you bought Lion anyway?

I suppose Apple could have a way to make your own emergency disc “just in case," but almost nobody would do it. So, for now, use Snow Leopard as the emergency disc.

It could be argued that OS’s should not be downloads; that it’s too soon to make that leap. Since I’m not a modem user, I disagree and welcome this (very slightly rough) transition away from coffee coasters! :)
 
Maybe I'm missing something, but wouldn't the definition of a clean install rule out installing Snow Leopard and the upgrade to Lion? A clean install, in my mind, means installing the OS from scratch on your new system/drive.
 
BLACKFRIDAY said:
Apple has gone crazy with this release?

What happened to user experience and ease of use? C'mon.
Click to expand...

For most users (who are not nearly as technically as the average MR poster) that is friendly... er.

I will be doing a clean install of SL before I download Lion.
 
This is just plain stupid. I'm not going to keep an album of previous OS releases on disk because Apple wants to toy around with the Mac App Store.

Isn't the point to move away from physical media?
 
It might not be brilliant, but it works. Just reinstall Snow Leopard and you can download Lion again for free from the Mac App Store with your Apple I.D. Makes sense to me...
 
You only have to do it once, because once Lion is installed, it will put a recovery partition on the hard disk. So you won't need a disc after the initial install.
 
That is ridiculously stupid. How un-apple like

Edit: I had bounced around this and other options in a blog post just yesterday. For instance, Apple could still have physical media only at Apple Stores, or via special order.

I simply can't believe Apple is being this obstinate about being Mac App Store only
 
mmm

:D

you can do that, or wait for some ISO release, USB install, etc.
From apple or from another respetable source as tpb
 
In the developer preview, the way to do a clean install (that I've used for every developer preview) is to create a blank partition, formatted as HFS+, and tell the installer to install Lion there.
 
Steve Jobs doesn't know a thing about Lion. He only cares about iOS.

Yes, you can clean install Lion without Snow Leopard.
 
Its not that bad only have to add an xtra step of intallining 2 OS's on a new hard drive instead of 1.:eek:
 
This is un-apple like. Come on apple, what's so wrong about physical medias? They can at least provide a USB for those who need it...
 
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