Hard drive died... How do I reinstall Mountain Lion onto an external drive?

I have Time Machine and two extra external drives but now I cannot boot from the Hard Drive to reinstall Mountain Lion. I have a recovery partition from TechTool but it does not include Time Machine or the App Store. My computer boots into the TechTool disk but my hard drive is not shown. Disk Utility does not see my hard drive either.
Any suggestions?
TIA

Sorry, I'm confused.
The recovery partition from Tech Tool, this is on the internal HD or on a CD/DVD?
Is this the same thing as the TechTool disk that your computer can boot into?
Where is the Disk Utility that cannot see your hard drive? Is it on the Apple recovery partition on your internal drive? Are you saying that Disk Utility on your Apple recovery partition cannot see your boot partition?
It sounds like your internal boot partition won't work, but the internal drive itself is OK (i.e., Disk Utility, on your Apple recovery partition, doesn't see the normal boot partition), or at least OK to the extent that the Apple Recovery partition can run.
If you install Mountain Lion on your external drive and use it as the boot drive for your computer, it will be very slow, and you won't be happy. I'd forget that idea.
Assuming I am thinking correctly about your situation, I would try to repair your HD. Your options would be:
a safe boot Mac OS X: What is Safe Boot, Safe Mode? and then disk utility
boot into single user mode and see if you can repair your hard drive Repair Your Hard Disk in Single User Mode | Everything Macintosh
internet recovery OS X: About OS X Recovery
recovery disk assisant, if you have made one already OS X Recovery Disk Assistant v1.0
If none of that works, then I'd try and wipe the entire drive and start over. I'd try to do that from internet recovery. Hopefully one of your external drives has backups on it.
If that doesn't work, then I'd replace the drive.

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How can I download Mountain Lion onto an external disk?

Hello everyone
My macbook pro hard drive was failing and at a genius appointment the technician said I could either pay for them to do the replacement or do it at home, since it would cost me nearly three times less. I bought the hard drive which is physically installed but my mac was not working before the replacement so I couldnt create any copies of the content, sofware, etc which means that now I have no idea how to install the sofware again... I've read about downloading Mountain Lion off the Apple Store onto an external disk and then rebooting the Mac from the external disk but I cant use my apple ID on any other Mac that isnt mine so I'm totally lost... Any help, please?

I'm assuming the grey disks are installation CDs that came with the mac?
Correct. But since you're trying to get back to Mountain Lion, you don't need them. If you had created a Mountain Lion bootable flash drive from your original download, you could have started up to that and installed ML directly.
Since it appears you don't, than what you do need is a retail Snow Leopard disk. If you don't have one, it can be purchased directly from Apple for $20. Install that and update it to at least 10.6.6 to get the App Store app on the drive. Then you can login to your App Store account and retrieve and install Mountain Lion.

My Mavericks upgrade crashed my hard drive and I had to reinstall Mountain Lion. Now I cannot get any of the apps that I purchased to download. The icons on the launchpad just say "waiting" no matter what I try.

My Mavericks upgrade crashed my hard drive and I had to reinstall Mountain Lion. Now I cannot get any of the apps that I purchased to download. The icons on the launchpad just say "waiting" no matter what I try. My app store ID is fine. What do I do?

Are you now using a different username from the one you used prior to migrating? If so that is the reason for the problem. You might, then, give this a try:
To fix Home folder permissions
Open the Terminal application in the Utilities folder. At the command line prompt enter or paste the following command line:
sudo chown -R `id -un`:`id -gn` ~
Press RETURN. You will be prompted to enter your admin password which will not be echoed.

How do I install Mountain Lion on a thumb drive?

How do I install Mountain Lion on a thumb drive when my computer is running Mavericks? I downloaded the Mountain Lion installer, but when I attempt to run it I get a message that says "You cannot install OS X 10.8 on this computer." I don't want to install it on the computer, I want to install it on the thumb drive—but it won't give me a choice of drives.
The reason I want to do this is I want to be able to boot my iMac into Mountain Lion in order to test a hardware/software combination I suspect might be incompatible with Mavericks.
(Note: there are plenty of instructions online for how to create a bootable thumb drive with the Mountain Lion installer, but that's not what I want. I want to install ML on the thumb drive itself.)

Sure you have a proper installer application. When I start it I get:
Clicking on Continue, then accepting the licensing stuff, gets me to:
If you click on Show All Disks, then all mounted disks will be presented including your flash drive.
Now the above is a Mavericks installer, but it's the same for Mountain Lion.

How do i reinstall mountain Lion after installing maverick. Maverick is not compatible with FileMaker 13 server. Maverick is now objecting to reinstalling Mountain Lion. Where do I go from here? Help?

How do i reinstall mountain Lion after installing maverick. Maverick is not compatible with FileMaker 13 server. Maverick is now objecting to reinstalling Mountain Lion. Where do I go from here? Help?

If you can download the ML installer you can make a bootable install media by using:
http://liondiskmaker.com/
If your Mini came with ML you can also boot to Internet Recovery
OS X: About OS X Recovery
and it will install ML. Make sure you boot to Internet Recovery and not the Recovery Partition. If to the partition you will only get Mavericks.

Installing Mountain Lion onto an external hard Drive

Hi
I am running snow Leoprd and what to keep this as my main OS on my internal HD due to work, I want to install Mountain Lion onto an external Hard Drive and boot and run from an external HD as opposed to my internal
I will be likely to be using a thunderbolt connection for the external HD
Has anyone had any experience with this and any tip or faults?
I will be using Logic mainly]

Works just like installing on an internal drive. Just be sure to choose the correct target before clicking on the Install button.
If you have sufficient space on your internal hard drive you could also make a partition on it in which to install Mountain Lion. This will be faster and more convenient that an external drive.

How do i reinstall mountain lion on fairly new machine i have really messed it up i have no key or original login do ihave to to pay

how do i reinstall mountain lion on fairly new machine i have really messed it up i have no key or original login do ihave to to pay

You never have to pay to reinstall a Mac's original OS. If that was Snow Leopard or earlier though, you need its original discs.
If the Mac was built after Lion was released, about August 2011, boot OS X Recovery - using two fingers hold the ⌘ and R keys while starting your Mac. When the Mac OS X Utilities screen appears, select "Reinstall Mac OS X".

Hi, I have a late 2008 iMac with a new hard drive. How do I install Mountain Lion from my bootable USB flash drive.

How do I install Mountain Lion to a new hard drive without having the recovery partition on it.
I have the USB flash drive with software on it but when I switch my Mac on all I have is a white screen & a flashing question mark.
ATB,
Steve.

Did you use LionDiskMaker or DiskMaker X?
Boot the machine with the option key down until you see your bootable USB stick. Select the latter, and reboot.
When the installer boots up, you will first need to choose Utilities and Disk Utility. Select the target HD device name and then the partition tab. Select 1 partition, name it Macintosh HD. Format is Mac OS Extended, and option is GUID. Apply. Exit Disk Utility and return to the installer, which will now show your newly partitioned HD as available for install.
When OS X is installed and all updates applied, press shift+command+U and run disk utility again. Verify/repair permissions and verify the boot disk.

How do I download mountain lion onto new hard drive

My IMac 2.4 mid 2007 was starting to get very slow in opening applications. I rebooted the machine, it displayed the apple and then a circle with a line through it and would go no further. I have put it down to the hard drive, and have purchased a new one. My question is, how do I install mountain lion that I have already purchased to the new hard drive. I would appreciate any help on the matter

You need to get your computer up to at least 10.6, using the original installer for your Mac, or a retail copy of 10.6.3. Then update to 10.6.8, and using the App Store, sign in with your AppleID, go to Purchases, and re-download and install 10.8.
Matt

How do I download Mountain Lion to a flash drive after hard drive failure?

My hard drive failed and I have purchased Mountain Lion, but do not have a way to get back to the app store to download to a flash drive to install on my new hard drive. How can I go about getting a copy?

Install new drive, insert OS X DVD disc in DVD drive and then start the system. Hold down either the C key or the option key. C key will boot the system from the DVD drive, Option key will bring up a boot selection screen and then give it about 30+ second to read the DVD disc and select that.
Once the OS X install disc loads select Utilities from the menu bar nd then Disk Utility. In disk utility select the drive model number and size entry, the top most entry, on the left and the partition tab. In the partition tab select One partition from the partition layout area and then give it the name Macintosh HD, Format Mac OS Extended and then click the Options button and make sure it is set to GUID as the partition table. Once that is done close the Options screen and click the Apply button.
Once that is finished exit disk utility and proceed with the install of OS X.
Once that is all done the system will reboot to OS X on the internal drive. You then insert the Applications DVD and install all of those or the ones you want leaving out the ones you don't want.
Once that is done run Software update under the Apple Logo icon in the menu bar. If you have any problems with installing the iLife app from the Applications DVD you might need the installer update which should be available from running software update first.

How do I reinstall Mountain Lion in English on a system that was originally in Chinese?

I'm trying to help a friend who was given a used 13" MacBook Air (A1369) by the Chinese exchange student staying with him. It needed a screen repair, which was done, and we were able to change the display menus to English which is fine for general use. BUT... The previous owner had all kinds of Chinese games and programs as well as a partitioned HD. The plan was to just erase and reinstall Mountain Lion (which it came with, we THINK) and he'd have a fresh start.
Using the Recovery system would be great, except that since the comp was from China, and the ID associated with it is in Chinese, all of the instructions, menus and EVERYTHING are in Chinese. We can get online fine, and tried booting from a USB drive but everything is still in Chinese. We got as far as making a bootable USB and it looked like everything was OK, and started the erase/restore process but it got stuck in Chinese instructions and menus!!!
Is there a way to buy new copy of Mountain Lion with a new Apple ID that will be in English and then install it on a computer that was already running Mountain Lion? It seems I should be able to DL the OS to a USB drive and then just boot and install from that. But I'd have to DL on another Mac with its own ID running Lion. (Or use a Linux PC which seems like an even worse option.)
Any ideas? Suggestions? Laughter?

Try posting again in the forum for ML, since it hardly seems to have anything to do with your hardware.
https://discussions.apple.com/community/mac_os/os_x_mountain_lion

How do I Reinstall Mountain Lion on a used Macbook Pro?

So I just recently purchased a 2011 Macbook Pro off of Craigslist. A friend picked it up for me, installed an extra copy of Windows 8 he had for me under my name, and made sure the OSX Mountain Lion side worked fine. Somehow, after the first time I restarted OSX it would no longer boot up, but Windows worked fine. So I booted up in the recovery partition, reformatted the OSX partition, and attempted to install Mountain Lion.
The problem is that I don't have it listed under my Apple I.D. as purchased, which makes sense because the last Macbook I bought came with Leopard. I tried to buy it on the Windows side through iTunes, but I'm not able. So my question is can I just buy Mountain Lion on someone else's Mac through the App store under my I.D., and will I then be able to reinstall Mountain Lion through the recovery partition?
Or will I have to resort to resetting my Macbook Pro to factory defaults, losing the copy of Windows 8 I was given, and reverting back to the original OS, which I'm guessing is Lion?

Well, you need to log in to the App Store on a Mac, using your AppleID, and purchase Mountain Lion. Then, on the konked out Mac's Recovery Partition you'll be able to sign in with the same AppleID and download the ML installer you are now eligible to use.

How do I download Mountain Lion onto my other iMac, after the initial install?

I am wondering how to download Mountain Lion onto my second iMac, after the initial install. I understand the purchase is for multiple computers, but I have completed the install on my first iMac.

Once you’ve purchased Mountain Lion, find the installer on your Mac. It’s called Install OS X Mountain Lion.app and it should have been downloaded to your main Applications folder (/Applications).
Right-click (or Control+click) the installer, and choose Show Package Contents from the resulting contextual menu.
In the folder that appears, open Contents, then open Shared Support; you’ll see a disk image file called InstallESD.dmg.
Launch Disk Utility.
Drag the InstallESD.dmg disk image into the bottom (empty area) of Disk Utility’s sidebar (on the left).
In Disk Utility, select InstallESD.dmg in the sidebar, and then click the Open button in the toolbar to mount the disk image’s volume in the Finder. The mounted volume is called Mac OS X Install ESD, and it also appears below InstallESD.dmg in Disk Utility.
Select Mac OS X Install ESD in Disk Utility’s sidebar, then click the Restore button in the main part of the window.
Drag the Mac OS X Install ESD icon into the Source field on the right (if it isn’t already there).
Connect to your Mac the properly formatted hard drive or flash drive you want to use for your bootable Mountain Lion installer.
In Disk Utility, find this destination drive in the left-hand sidebar and then drag it into the Destination field on the right. (If the destination drive has multiple partitions, just drag the partition you want to use as your bootable installer volume.) Warning: The next step will erase the destination drive or partition, so make sure it doesn’t contain any valuable data.
Click Restore, and then Erase in the dialog box that appears; if prompted, enter an admin-level username and password.
How to make a bootable Mountain Lion install drive
https://www.macworld.com/article/1167857/how_to_make_a_bootable_mountain_lion_in stall_drive.html

I want to install mountain Lion on an external drive without uninstalling Maverick from my computer

When I want to get mountain Lion, apple store telles me that I have Maverick installed. How can I charge the M Lion version to install on an external drive?

You would need to download a copy from the Mac App Store or already have a copy of the installer. Then you can make a bootable USB drive using DiskMaker X (http://liondiskmaker.com). Once you created the USB disk, you can boot from that and install Mt Lion on the external drive.

How can I reinstall Mountain Lion on new hard drive?

I've had to install a new hard drive as old one was failing.
Have loaded Snow Leopard from disc onto the new drive but can't install Mountain Lion which I was running prior to drive failure; very frustrated.
Have tried several options.
1. Tried to reboot from OS X Utilities but whenever I restart, holding the cmd + R keys, I can only ever get the standard screen. I've tried pressing keys early in restart, later in restart, keys on either side of the keyboard, cmd + alt/option + R but still can't get to the OS X Utilities.
2. Having given up on 1 I've tried to download ML from my purchase history in iTunes. I can see the purchase recorded but there appears to be no way to get to a reload option - at least not in the iTunes loaded from Snow Leopard
3. I tried downloading ML updates, hoping that might allow me to bypass 1 and 2. The download wasn't recognised by my machine.
4. I've be willing to just buy the **** OS again from scratch but iTunes won't allow me to do that either, at least not using my current Apple ID.
Does anyone have any bright ideas? I hate bloody computers.
Mike

enigmatix wrote:
Csound,
Do you have any suggestions why I can't open OS X Utilities.
Thanks,
Mike
How old is your Mac, if it came with 10.6 installed it is too old to have Internet Recovery (command-option-R) And as it has a new hard drive you won't be able to use Recovery (command-R) either until a new copy of Mountain Lion is installed and ceates a recovery partition on the drive.

Hard drive died... How do I reinstall Mountain Lion onto an external drive?

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