OS X Lion Recovery, clean install did nothing?

[ttttaylor]

i'm really confused... i just tried to do the Lion Recovery, and chose to "set up a new version of Lion" -- the one where i thought it erased everything and gave me a nice clean empty system.

spent 2 or 3 hours going through the process, and then it boots up and everything is exactly as i left it.

did i do something wrong? shouldn't my system be empty?

 

[Quad5Ny]

You have to erase your drive first. It sounds like you just installed over your current copy of Lion.

The actual install only takes about 20min, the the other 2 hours were probably spent download the files needed to setup Lion (sucks not having Install DVD's/ThumbDrive's anymore ).

How to Clean Install OS X

Part One: Erasing the hard drive

1. Insert the Mac OS X Install DVD into the optical drive, or insert the Software Reinstall Drive.
   • Note that for Lion you don't have to insert any install media.
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2. Turn on or restart the computer.
   
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3. Press and hold the Option key at startup to select the volume containing the installer.
   
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4. If your are using a wireless mouse, a mouse icon should appear asking you to turn the mouse on.
   
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5. Select a language, then press the right arrow key.
   
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6. Click the Utilities menu, the choose Disk Utility.
   
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7. In the box to the left Select a volume to erase (usually called Macintosh HD).
   
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8. Click the Erase tab.
   
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9. Click Erase. (Warning! This will re-format the selected partition and erase any files on it)
   
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10. After the partition is formatted, choose Quit Disk Utility from the Disk Utility menu.

Part Two: Installing the operating system

1. When the Mac OS X Installer screen appears, click Continue.
   
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2. When the license agreement appears, click Agree.
   
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3. Select the volume you formatted (erased). It should now be highlighted with a green arrow.
   
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4. Click Install. A status bar appears on the bottom of the screen while Mac OS X installs.
   • Note that for Lion you will be asked for your Apple ID and Wireless password.
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5. An Additional Information screen appears. Click Continue.
   
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6. An Install Succeeded screen appears. Click Restart.

Original Steps Edited from: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3910

 

[ttttaylor]

You have to erase your drive first. It sounds like you just installed over your current copy of Lion.

The actual install only takes about 20min, the the other 2 hours were probably spent download the files needed to setup Lion (sucks not having Install DVD's/ThumbDrive's anymore ).

[facepalm] of course.

so if i do it right this time (following those directions) will i still have to wait the long time for it to download all that stuff?

thanks for your quick reply!

 

[Quad5Ny]

Probably.

After setup is finished it deletes the installation files. And besides even if it did save them, your erasing the drive they would be stored on.

Two hours isn't that bad, you could always watch a movie.