Upgrade advice needed

[ghosam]

Hello Folks,

I am a newbie to this forum and also new to apple community. I have just bought a 2nd hand imac 27" (to fiddle around and learn OS X) from a store in Singapore. Originally it was purchased on 17th Nov 2011 and I bought it on 3rd April 2012.

I am surprised to see that imac is running on 10.6.8 as it should be loaded with OS X Lion. I am confused now... How can I upgrade to OS X Lion? Do I have to purchase it from apple store? Or since imac was bought on 17th Nov 2011, I am eligible for a free OS X lion upgrade? if yes then how can I upgrade it?

Folks thanks in advance for your support

 

[All Taken]

Have a look in 'About this Mac' under the top left apple logo on the desktop, see which year Mac it says you have. If it's 2011, indeed it would have shipped with Lion.

If it is a Lion equipped iMac then you can restore it to its former glory by holding down 'alt' on the keyboard at startup, press and hold as soon as you hear the chime. This will take you into a screen with two hard drives on display, choose 'Recovery'.

In Recovery you can choose to restore Lion to the machine, internet access is required and it may take a while but hey presto thats your ticket.

 

[Oldmanmac]

When you "recover" Lion will that erase everything else on the drive?

 

[All Taken]

Yes