MBA 2011 doesn't boot Lion install (CD, USB drive, etc)

[3460169]

I received my 13" Air today and immediately fubared its disk, including the recovery partition. (I break stuff for a living. I have a bootable USB disk with Lion's installer so I figured I'd just reinstall from that. Nope. Apparently these new Airs shipped with a somewhat newer version of Lion than what's on the MAS. /facepalm

I'm now running through the option-command-R recovery process -- entirely over the Internets. I'm ever so thankful for 50Mbps downloads but FFS, how hard is it for Apple to toss in a USB key with the OS installer for an $1800+ machine?

 

[h00ligan]

I have to agree, it is ludicrous they did not provide a recovery thumb drive.

 

[Davidkoh]

Im happy they don't, stuff like this will make more and more available from the internet. Moving from one physical storage (CD) to another (USB) in a too small step forward. What they should do is upgrade their servers, so you can actually max out your connection when downloading it.

 

[3460169]

I'm more annoyed that this thing doesn't boot the Lion install image that I paid for and downloaded from the MAS only a few hours ago, i.e., more than a week after I ordered this machine. I can deal with the Internet recovery at 50Mbps... and be hugely grateful I'm not on satellite.

 

[Davidkoh]

I'm more annoyed that this thing doesn't boot the Lion install image that I paid for and downloaded from the MAS only a few hours ago, i.e., more than a week after I ordered this machine. I can deal with the Internet recovery at 50Mbps... and be hugely grateful I'm not on satellite.

Hmm, are you sure you made it bootable though? I mean it should boot atleast and then maybe say it is the wrong version.

 

[h00ligan]

Im happy they don't, stuff like this will make more and more available from the internet. Moving from one physical storage (CD) to another (USB) in a too small step forward. What they should do is upgrade their servers, so you can actually max out your connection when downloading it.

So what.. people with a measly 1-3 meg line should go to an apple store (that is probably far away) to do this?

It's a $1 piece of plastic that should have been included in case of an emergency. I don't' want to have to connect and dl 5 gigs to get things rolling again... no matter how fast their servers are.. I can see many instances where this becomes extremely cumbersome.

And as the OP wrote, the fact the image was backed up and ready to go is frustrating at best.

 

[3460169]

Hmm, are you sure you made it bootable though? I mean it should boot atleast and then maybe say it is the wrong version.

Yes it does boot and then errors out complaining about some EFI nonsense. In any case my re-install is done having taken ~ 40 mins over the air.

edit: I had used this same USB disk image to install Lion on my previous 11" 2010 MBA, so I'm guessing Apple left out a few key drivers and whatnot for the 2011 MBAs in the MAS version. AFAIK the Lion installer expects to be able to go out on the net (even when booted from local media) to grab whatever it might need, which is all well and good -- just the MAS Lion image doesn't have the necessary drivers or whatever to boot the new MBAs into the Utilities/Recovery mode.

Suspect this will be remedied in a Lion dot-release... for now option-command-R is fairly painless, if the bandwidth is available.