OK, seems simple, but I want too be prepared. I have a MBP that came with Snow Leopard, but I upgraded to Lion. I am getting a new HDD and want to do a new install of Lion. What are the best steps so I don't have to install Snow Leopard first?
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New HDD, reinstalling OSX Lion
- Thread starter jjk454ss
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You need to download Lion from the App Store and put it on a bootable CD or flash drive.
You can go through several steps and do it yourself or click on the link and some dude has written a small program that does it all for you in a single click.
You can go through several steps and do it yourself or click on the link and some dude has written a small program that does it all for you in a single click.
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I think you could just switch the HDD, and then use the Cmd-R-Shortcut when booting (immediately after the sound) to reinstall Lion on the new harddrive.
It will take a tad longer I guess since it downloads the files again instead of installing from the usb-stick/cd.
It will take a tad longer I guess since it downloads the files again instead of installing from the usb-stick/cd.
Thanks
Does this option work if the MB came with Snow Leopard? Or only if it came preinstalled with Lion?
If you updated your Macbook's software, you should be fine.
This link http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4904 allows you to manually download the EFI Firmware update, which enables Internet Recovery if Lion on 2010/early 2011 MBPs.
I've used it with an early 2011 MBP myself since I didn't create a boot cd/stick.
This link http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4904 allows you to manually download the EFI Firmware update, which enables Internet Recovery if Lion on 2010/early 2011 MBPs.
I've used it with an early 2011 MBP myself since I didn't create a boot cd/stick.
Download Lion from the App Store, extract the InstallESD.dmg file from it (two-finger click -> Show Package Contents -> it's in one of the folders you see), and restore it to a USB drive (this will erase the drive) using Disk Utility. Make sure you're using a GUID partition scheme. You can then boot from the drive and install Lion directly.
That's what I did when I swapped out hard drives. It was easy and it makes it nice to have a copy of Lion if I ever need it down the road. I keep it in my MacBook bag for just in case and it hardly takes up any space.
I will say though, that after 6 years with a MacBook I've never needed to have the restore discs in an emergency situation.
I will do this first, just in case the cmd-r doesn't work. Thank you
I somehow corrupted my Mac partition on my hard drive last month. And since I was using FileVault, I didn't know how to recover. I burned a DVD with Lion on my Mac Pro, and installed from that since my internet recovery failed twice.
I now have my laptop backed up with Time Machine to an external drive
I now have my laptop backed up with Time Machine to an external drive