Reinstalling Mountain Lion

[archylius]

Hello everyone,

I have a huge problem. A week ago I have formatted my wife's macbook pro by mistake and she got ML on her pro from a friend so obviously we don't have an apple id to reinstall it again. Now I got a bootable ML dvd and I got my wife's old original Tiger dvd but non of them can be booted on ML. Simply, whenever I try to boot or anything else to reinstall my OS it puts me in a screen where I can choose 4 different way to install my OS and non of them works for me. You can check my photo about that screen. I am really in trouble my wife's work is gone and worse, she can't continue on working cause the laptop is totally dead except for that utilities screen. If there is a way to format it again with ML dvd or downgrade it to Tiger I would be really happy. Thanks.

Archy

Edit: Sorry about wrong section. Should have put it into Notebooks MacBook Pro section.

 

[justperry]

You did not even say which MBP model you have!

Is the MBP that old that it can run tiger?
Booting Tiger on ML

 

[eawmp1]

If you formatted the MacBook Pro, you lost the data (unless you wants to spend $ to a data recovery company).

Assuming the MacBook Pro came with Tiger insert DVD and start up holding the C key. Should boot off the DVD and allow an erase and install.

 

[archylius]

Sorry about that, its 2010 MBP and it's not bad cause the notebook includes a good GPU from Nvidia and a Core2Duo intel CPU. It run ML perfectly but I ruined it like I mentioned. It does not boot from any kind of DVD.

 

[eawmp1]

Sorry about that, its 2010 MBP and it's not bad cause the notebook includes a good GPU from Nvidia and a Core2Duo intel CPU. It run ML perfectly but I ruined it like I mentioned.

Can't run Tiger (officially) on 2010 because Tiger last shipped in 2007.
Sorry. You will lose data. Did you have a Time Machine backup?

 

[James_C]

First we need to know what the spec of the MacBook Pro is, because your data does not appear to be correct.

If the original DVD that came with your wife's MacBook Pro was indeed OS X 10.4 Tiger (released in April 2005), then the machine is too old to be able to have Mountain Lion installed on it. So either you have the wrong disks for the current machine you have, or your wife never got as far as Mountain Lion. The earliest MacBook Pro that can run ML is Mid/Late 2007 or newer.

Ah was a little slow in Posting reply - I see that you have a 2010 MBP - You need to find the correct disks for the laptop as clearly the Tiger DVD's are the wrong ones. You will need to purchase a copy of Snow Leopard which is the version of OS X that came with these machines. You can buy a copy by contacting Apple directly. There is no way of purchasing a new copy of ML from Apple, until you have Snow Leopard back on the MBP.

I am not sure how valuable your wife's work is, but depending how you formatted your Wife's MBP it may be possible to recover the data, by taking into a special Data recovery centre - but be warned it will be expensive. If you want to explore this option, do not mess about with the laptop or try and install anything or it will be much less likely that they can recover the data.

 

[justperry]

Sorry about that, its 2010 MBP and it's not bad cause the notebook includes a good GPU from Nvidia and a Core2Duo intel CPU. It run ML perfectly but I ruined it like I mentioned. It does not boot from any kind of DVD.

You can get an Apple ID and buy Mountain Lion, it's not that much as far as I know.
Just checked, it's 17.99 Euro so I think it's $19.99.
But, the Data is gone, at least if you are not going to recover it, there are programs for it.

 

[archylius]

I checked the DVD it says 10.5.7 (2009) but its 2010 model and like I said the specifications are good for ML. And it was running on ML for more than 4 months I believe. Everything was perfect. By the way we don't care about data anymore we just want to run it on Tiger or ML again after that I can go on and buy ML on my wife's apple ID.

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You can get an Apple ID and buy Mountain Lion, it's not that much as far as I know.
Just checked, it's 17.99 Euro so I think it's $19.99.
But, the Data is gone, at least if you are not going to recover it, there are programs for it.

Well that's the problem we are living in Thailand (Bangkok) at the moment and we don't have any friend that owns a mac. I went to some apple shops around they ask around $60 just to reinstall it which is stupid to pay when I can buy it for 19.99 .

 

[xlii]

Do you have a backup of your wife's mbp? If yes you can restore from that.

If no run disk utilities (last option on your 1st post screen shot) and check the disk for errors. If errors try to repair.

If you have access to another mac you can make a bootable copy of mountain lion and following the directions in this link you should be good to go.

http://www.cultofmac.com/180925/how-to-make-a-bootable-disk-or-usb-drive-of-os-x-mountain-lion/

PS: posts overlapped so I didn't know you lived in Thailand and don't have access to another Mac

 

[justperry]

I checked the DVD it says 10.5.7 (2009) but its 2010 model and like I said the specifications are good for ML. And it was running on ML for more than 4 months I believe. Everything was perfect. By the way we don't care about data anymore we just want to run it on Tiger or ML again after that I can go on and buy ML on my wife's apple ID.

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Well that's the problem we are living in Thailand (Bangkok) at the moment and we don't have any friend that owns a mac. I went to some apple shops around they ask around $60 just to reinstall it which is stupid to pay when I can buy it for 19.99 .

$60 in Thailand,I am in Asia as well(Indonesia) and by no way they will charge me that much, I think I can get it for $5 here installed.
The problem is similar to mine, I just bought a mini but after importing lots of crap from my old PPC it does not work well and have to download/reinstall with internet recovery, now I can get a package for Nighttime-8 GB so I probably end up doing just that.

The DVD you have is probably not bootable on your system because they are not universal as they were before.
Start up in verbose mode and see where it gets stuck, it might say something like CPU not supported or the like.

 

[archylius]

Do you have a backup of your wife's mbp? If yes you can restore from that.

If no run disk utilities (last option on your 1st post screen shot) and check the disk for errors. If errors try to repair.

If you have access to another mac you can make a bootable copy of mountain lion and following the directions in this link you should be good to go.

http://www.cultofmac.com/180925/how-to-make-a-bootable-disk-or-usb-drive-of-os-x-mountain-lion/

First problem about this : I can't buy ML at this state I gotta run the notebook first to get app store on, so that I can buy ML. Second problem: That link and many kinds of it out there are only for ''upgrade'' not reinstall. So I have already ML installed and it stuck me in ML's new reinstalling system which does not let you reinstall the OS without having an apple id that bought ML before.

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$60 in Thailand,I am in Asia as well(Indonesia) and by no way they will charge me that much, I think I can get it for $5 here installed.
The problem is similar to mine, I just bought a mini but after importing lots of crap from my old PPC it does not work well and have to download/reinstall with internet recovery, now I can get a package for Nighttime-8 GB so I probably end up doing just that.

The DVD you have is probably not bootable on your system because they are not universal as they were before.
Start up in verbose mode and see where it gets stuck, it might say something like CPU not supported or the like.

Maybe it's because I am a foreigner here. I really don't know but I went 5 - 6 shops around my area in Bangkok and they charged me that much. At least if they could let me use one of the computers there to buy ML it would be amazing and I asked them about it but they don't let me do it. By the way it does not boot from any DVD not the old one and not the new. I think it's new system that blocks any kind of installation other than online.

 

[justperry]

First problem about this : I can't buy ML at this state I gotta run the notebook first to get app store on, so that I can buy ML. Second problem: That link and many kinds of it out there are only for ''upgrade'' not reinstall. So I have already ML installed and it stuck me in ML's new reinstalling system which does not let you reinstall the OS without having an apple id that bought ML before.

But, did you try to repair the disk first, it's actually unclear what you did from your first post, if you just got into trouble do what the below post says instead of reinstalling, you can do so by starting up from recovery and then choose Disk Utility from the Menu.

Do you have a backup of your wife's mbp? If yes you can restore from that.

If no run disk utilities (last option on your 1st post screen shot) and check the disk for errors. If errors try to repair.

If you have access to another mac you can make a bootable copy of mountain lion and following the directions in this link you should be good to go.

http://www.cultofmac.com/180925/how-to-make-a-bootable-disk-or-usb-drive-of-os-x-mountain-lion/

PS: posts overlapped so I didn't know you lived in Thailand and don't have access to another Mac

 

[James_C]

I checked the DVD it says 10.5.7 (2009) but its 2010 model and like I said the specifications are good for ML. And it was running on ML for more than 4 months I believe. Everything was perfect. By the way we don't care about data anymore we just want to run it on Tiger or ML again after that I can go on and buy ML on my wife's apple ID.

----------



Well that's the problem we are living in Thailand (Bangkok) at the moment and we don't have any friend that owns a mac. I went to some apple shops around they ask around $60 just to reinstall it which is stupid to pay when I can buy it for 19.99 .

OK the version of your OS Disks is OS X 10.5 Leopard. Your Laptop is the 2009 release of MBP, as the 2010 models were released with OS X 10.6, but you may well have purchased the machine in 2010 before the 2010 MBP were released. Yes this MBP can run mountain lion.

You should be able to reinstall your system from this disk. You will need to put the disk in, then restart the machine and keep the C key pressed down to boot up from the startup DVD. However see my prior post about recovering your wife's files before you start to do this.

 

[archylius]

But, did you try to repair the disk first, it's actually unclear what you did from your first post, if you just got into trouble do what the below post says instead of reinstalling, you can do so by starting up from recovery and then choose Disk Utility from the Menu.

I can get there but the system files are gone I can't repair it in that way.

 

[justperry]

Maybe it's because I am a foreigner here. I really don't know but I went 5 - 6 shops around my area in Bangkok and they charged me that much. At least if they could let me use one of the computers there to buy ML it would be amazing and I asked them about it but they don't let me do it. By the way it does not boot from any DVD not the old one and not the new. I think it's new system that blocks any kind of installation other than online.

No, Tiger is too old for your machine and the DVD you got is most likely only for a different model like an iMac or so, if that is the case it will not boot and that's why I said to boot verbose, it will hang at some point and you can see what the cause is.

 

[archylius]

No, Tiger is too old for your machine and the DVD you got is most likely only for a different model like an iMac or so, if that is the case it will not boot and that's why I said to boot verbose, it will hang at some point and you can see what is the cause.

and how to do it?

 

[eawmp1]

You should be able to reinstall your system from this disk. You will need to put the disk in, then restart the machine and keep the C key pressed down to boot up from the startup DVD. However see my prior post about recovering your wife's files before you start to do this.

OP, did you actually try this (which I suggested before)????

 

[archylius]

OP, did you actually try this (which I suggested before)????

When I do this it takes me to that screen which I included the picture at my first post. And I tried that with 2 different DVDs.

 

[justperry]

and how to do it?

That is actually a good question, normally you can do so inside the OS by adding an entry in the boot.plist file or using a program like Tinkertool System, but since you can't it is more complicated.
Normally you could also hold the Command -v at startup, but this will not work since you have to hold the C key at startup to boot from CD/DVD or hold Option at startup to get into the boot manager and choose the CD/DVD from there, in both cases the Command -v does not work.
I know on an older machine you can do so by getting into Open Firmware and using a command there to add it into the PRAM.

I know the command is setenv and then the parameter to add it to is bootarg.

I think it's something like this

setenv boot-args -v

but I am not 100% sure.

 

[James_C]

OK after doing a little more research, it looks like you need to reformat (wipe) your Hard Disk before you can install Leopard. I know you said that you have formatted the disk, but it is possible that you did not remove the ML recovery partition that is normally hidden.

However before you do this make sure you do not want to try and recover your wife's files by using a data recovery specialist. Once you wipe and reinstall you will also destroy any chance of getting your wife's data back.

Reboot from the Leopard DVD as you have done before and when you get to the screen that you linked above, choose the Disk Utilities.

Then select the hard drive to delete

Select the erase tab and click the erase button

Then one of the options next to the  logo at the top should take you back to Recovery HD

Once there you should have an option to install a new OS

 

[justperry]

OK after doing a little more research, it looks like you need to reformat (wipe) your Hard Disk before you can install Leopard. I know you said that you have formatted the disk, but it is possible that you did not remove the ML recovery partition that is normally hidden.

However before you do this make sure you do not want to try and recover your wife's files by using a data recovery specialist. Once you wipe and reinstall you will also destroy any chance of getting your wife's data back.

Reboot from the Leopard DVD as you have done before and when you get to the screen that you linked above, choose the Disk Utilities.

Then select the hard drive to delete

Select the erase tab and click the erase button

Then one of the options next to the  logo at the top should take you back to Recovery HD

Once there you should have an option to install a new OS

You know what is odd about the recovery partition, I have one on my 2012 Mac Mini and want to start clean again, I thought it would be a complete install from there but it needs the internet, the recovery HD is more or less like 1 GB and that by itself is not even 25% of the whole install.

 

[James_C]

You know what is odd about the recovery partition, I have one on my 2012 Mac Mini and want to start clean again, I thought it would be a complete install from there but it needs the internet, the recovery HD is more or less like 1 GB and that by itself is not even 25% of the whole install.

Yep, the recovery partition does not contain all the source files, which you have to download from the internet, and as the OP did not buy ML under his ID, that is not a valid option. His only way forward is to reinstall the original OS. I have created a USB Boot Disk of my Mountain Lion installation, so if I need to reinstall I don't have to download a copy from Apple's servers.

 

[archylius]

Yep, the recovery partition does not contain all the source files, which you have to download from the internet, and as the OP did not buy ML under his ID, that is not a valid option. His only way forward is to reinstall the original OS. I have created a USB Boot Disk of my Mountain Lion installation, so if I need to reinstall I don't have to download a copy from Apple's servers.

Hello there peopl, sorry I couldn't write cause I was really busy with work. I can't boot from any DVD and I can't delete that partition. Simply, whatever I try to do it takes me to that menu which I included a sample picture of it. And I thought of an idea but I really don't know if it's going to work. I have just found a friend who owns a MBP. So, what if I use his MBP to buy a ML with a new apple id and than use that apple id to download the ML through recovery partition?