Re-installing 10.8 Mountain Lion

[Brother Seamus]

After 6 months struggling with a lame Mavericks slowing down my computer, I've just backed up everything to do a clean installation, but since Mavericks isn't even available anymore, I'd like to go back to the high water mark of Mac systems, Mountain Lion.

I'd like to avoid the awful looking Yosemite for as long as possible.
Skeuomorphism rules.

It's still available to buy on the Apple Store, http://store.apple.com/uk/product/D6377/os-x-mountain-lion

But there's a catch.

Your Mac needs:
OS X v10.6.8 or OS X Lion already installed

I have a disk with 10.6.3, not 10.6.8.

Is this going to banjax me?

Am I better off buying a third party 10.8 on ebay?
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/OS-X-Moun...ting_Software_Software_SR&hash=item3ceb637457

 

[gr8tfly]

Just checked my Purchased list in the MAS, and Mavericks is still shown (as is ML).

But anyway, if your machine can run 10.6.3, you should be able to install it, then update it (you can go directly to 10.6.8 with the combo updater).

 

[Weaselboy]

But there's a catch.

That is a bit misleading. What they are saying is that to upgrade to ML in the App Store you need at least 10.6.8 installed.

But in your case, if you DL ML then use that to make a USB key installer with something like DiskMakerX, you will be able to boot directly to the USB key and erase your disk then install ML. The ML installer will not look for or require SL or Lion.