New HDD, reinstalling OSX Lion

[jjk454ss]

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?

 

[CarcinogenX]

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.

 

[FranzMarc]

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.

 

[jjk454ss]

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.

Thanks

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.

Does this option work if the MB came with Snow Leopard? Or only if it came preinstalled with Lion?

 

[FranzMarc]

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.

 

[iThinkergoiMac]

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.

 

[davidg4781]

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.

 

[jjk454ss]

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

 

[kevink2]

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 🙂

 

[jjk454ss]

Got Lion reinstalled. Actually needed to hold down the "option" key to start Lion Internet Recovery. But it worked great, thanks again for the help.