MBA 2011 - Restoring without Internet Recovery

[serag213]

Hi Everyone


I have this problem,

Yesterday i loged into Recovery HD on my MacBook Air 2011, i erased my Macintosh HD to make a clean restore i thought the Lion USB can run on the MBA 2011 and after erasing the Macintosh HD I rebooted to the USB Installation but i got STOP SIGN so the MBA cant boot from the flash so i searched the web it seems that apple don't allow it for new MacBooks ..

Than i try to do INTERNET RECOVERY But it take so long and i live in libya where internet speed is vey low so i couldn't make it ...

Now i have MBA in recovery mode and USB Lion Installation and i want to restore the MBA with any way other than internet restoring as my internet connection is very slow and its disconnected always


REGARDS

 

[oneMadRssn]

I just reinstalled Lion 10.7.3 using a USB stick this past weekend, it worked fine on my 2011 MBA.

I used this tool: http://blog.gete.net/lion-diskmaker-us/ to create a USB stick from a .dmg image of Lion from the App Store.

 

[serag213]

i try it now but am still getting the STOP SIGN , IT wont boot ..

Could it be becuase of the old lion built ? 1.7 ?

i dont know am really going crazy because of this ?

 

[halledise]

i try it now but am still getting the STOP SIGN , IT wont boot ..

Could it be becuase of the old lion built ? 1.7 ?

i dont know am really going crazy because of this ?

here's your answer - and it works
scroll down to the method in the second part
under 'Mac Sysadmins are Smarter'

http://goo.gl/yszMx

then, once you're up and running (fresh erase and install takes about 10-15 minutes) I'd suggest you download the 10.7.3 Combo to your Air and back it up to a separate usb stick or external drive for future reference.

I have a small capacity stick with Lion Recovery on it (to be able to start up and run Disk Utility from) to do a HDD erase, then another 8 gb stick with 10.7 specific to my model Air on it as per the above method.

 

[serag213]

OK IT SEEMS REALLY GOING TO WORK BUT :

1- Boot the hardware you need an image for from the Recovery HD by holding Command-r at power on time.

OK Thats mean that i need to boot my MBA and enter Recovery Mode Great

2- Plug in a JHFS+ formatted external disk.

Is JHFS Means the Mac format Journaled ???

3- Select the Re-install OS X Lion option and target the external disk.

OK Great

4- Once the Installer finishes downloading, simply shutdown and unplug the disk.

??? Now whats that mean ?do i need the installer to finish downloading the componets from the interent to start installation ? if yes am allready has the problem of slow conection ??


thanks waiting for reply

 

[halledise]

OK IT SEEMS REALLY GOING TO WORK BUT :

1- Boot the hardware you need an image for from the Recovery HD by holding Command-r at power on time.

OK Thats mean that i need to boot my MBA and enter Recovery Mode Great

2- Plug in a JHFS+ formatted external disk.

Is JHFS Means the Mac format Journaled ???

3- Select the Re-install OS X Lion option and target the external disk.

OK Great

4- Once the Installer finishes downloading, simply shutdown and unplug the disk.

??? Now whats that mean ?do i need the installer to finish downloading the componets from the interent to start installation ? if yes am allready has the problem of slow conection ??


thanks waiting for reply

basically you're downloading and installing Lion which is specific to your Mac directly onto your usb stick.
I too have a slowish connection so yes there is the 2-3 hours wait for the download to complete (or leave it to do its thing overnight like in the old days) but the bonus is you only need do it one more time and you have it on a stick for keeps.

answers
1. yes
2. yes
3. yes
4. finish the download; shutdown Mac; insert stick; startup holding down alt/option key; select Mac OS X Installer and away you go.
make sure all you data is backed up first.

good luck

 

[bcaslis]

Can't get this work

I can't get this to work on a 2011 MBA. I get the download disk image off the external disk OK, but when I try to restore this to anything (like a USB flash drive) I get an error from Disk Utility. Here is the screenshot and the log from the Console:

2012-02-14 21:40:59 -0800: Restore Disk
2012-02-14 21:40:59 -0800: Source: “InstallESD.dmg”
2012-02-14 21:40:59 -0800: Destination: “Lion”
2012-02-14 21:40:59 -0800: Erase Destination: Yes
2012-02-14 21:40:59 -0800: Erase “Lion” and copy the contents of “InstallESD.dmg” to it.
2012-02-14 21:40:59 -0800:
2012-02-14 21:40:59 -0800: Starting Restore…
2012-02-14 21:41:00 -0800: Validating target...
2012-02-14 21:41:00 -0800: done
2012-02-14 21:41:00 -0800: Validating source...
2012-02-14 21:41:00 -0800: done
2012-02-14 21:41:00 -0800: Retrieving scan information...
2012-02-14 21:41:00 -0800: done
2012-02-14 21:41:00 -0800: Validating sizes...
2012-02-14 21:41:00 -0800: done
2012-02-14 21:41:00 -0800: Restoring
2012-02-14 21:50:54 -0800: Verifying
2012-02-14 21:53:04 -0800:
2012-02-14 21:53:04 -0800: Checksum failed.
Expected 283313D1
but got 2E5A84E6
2012-02-14 21:53:04 -0800: Could not restore - Invalid argument
2012-02-14 21:53:04 -0800: Could not restore - Invalid argument
2012-02-14 21:53:04 -0800:

Anyone else seeing this? I've tried this at least six times now with different disks. If I let the image download to a disk and let it continue it installs properly. It's almost like the download is customized for the individual disk or something.

 

[serag213]

thats what ive been doin for the last 3 days leaving it all day and night but it only download 1-1.5 hours and the ERROR , conecttion lostt .... etc

iam putting it in the connection for the last 3 days i couldnt success

I WILL DO IT NOW , AGAIN

 

[oneMadRssn]

I think some people might be misunderstanding, including myself.

Your internet is too slow and not reliable enough to download lion. Is this correct?
If so... then any download at all is out of the question, correct?

You own a retail lion usb stick installer (this: http://store.apple.com/us/product/MD256Z/A? ), correct?