How to restore new, clean OS without Install Disc ?

I have bought MacBook Air 2nd hand. How to restore new, clean OS without Install Disc ?

You can purchase the Snow Leopard DVD at the Apple Store. It ships as 10.6.3 so you'll need to do a software update to get to 10.6.8.

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How to restore from Time Machine WITHOUT install discs using a second Mac

It's a question that is asked repeatedly all over the web by Mac users like me that bought in to Time Machine (TM) on the assumption that if their computer died one day it would be a piece of cake to restore from it, only for that day to come and then to be told "ahh, okay the first thing is to get your computers install discs..." (loud crashing sound of world falling around ears).
I've never been able to afford a new Mac and both of my machines were bought second-hand. Neither came with Leopard (both have Tiger and have been upgraded to Leopard via the net). This was never supposed to be a problem as I've been backing up with TM. However it appears that Tiger discs are as much use as an inflatable dart board when it comes to using TM. So I've been faced with the possibility of having to spend £130 (about two hundred Pres Sheets, Yankees) on the Leopard install discs just so that I can have the option of restoring from TM. Bonkers.
However after much nashing of teeth, a very long weekend learning all sorts of things about 'Target Mode', 'Single User Mode', 'Verbose Mode', 'Open Source 9' etc the following solution has worked without the need to go out and buy those over-priced discs...
What you will need:
1 broken Mac requiring restoration
1 second donor Mac running Leopard (or Snow Leopard so long as the broken Mac can run it)
1 firewire cable with the correct fitting at either end to attach both Macs together
1 Time Machine backup
Note: The following is for when you have given up trying to boot from your hard drive. In my case I couldn't boot in to Safe Mode etc. so was forced to format my drive and re-import everything. If you've read this far I'm assuming your at the same point as well and have tried everything else that's out there first.
Also - both my Macs are Power PC's so can't run Snow Leopard, so I can't say 100% this will work with SL (Intel) machines. From what I've read Snow Leopard will work with this procedure too, but if you've found differently please feel free to add your experiences below...
STEP ONE: Format the corrupt Hard Drive or replace with a fresh HDD
*Link the two computers with a firewire.
*If you're replacing your HDD, remove your corrupted hard drive from the 'broken' machine and insert a new one.
*Power up the broken Mac whilst holding down the 'T' key. This will start it up in Target Mode and you'll get a nice firewire symbol floating around that machine's screen.
*Power up the second 'healthy' Mac. This will be our 'donor' machine. When it starts up after a few seconds you will see the hard drive of the broken Mac appear on the donor Mac's desktop.
*Using your donor Mac's 'Disc Utility', format the broken Mac's hard drive (now's the time to partition it etc. if you want to).
STEP TWO: Clone your donor Mac
Your broken Mac is no longer broken and now needs a new OS. But you don't have the discs, right? Well get this... you can clone your donor mac on to your machine, even if they are totally different i.e. a laptop on to a tower.
*Again using Disc Utility, click on your donor Mac's hard drive. The restore tab appears as an option.
*Click on restore and drag the donor Mac's hard drive that contains the operating system in to the Source box.
*Drag the newly formatted hard drive on the broken Mac in to the Destination box.
*Click restore. Your donor Mac's hard drive will now be 'cloned' on to your no-longer-broken Mac. Once this is done, eject the first Mac's hard drive from your donor Mac's desktop. You no longer need the donor Mac.
Ta daa! Your machine now starts up happy and smily again. Time to restore all that stuff that's been sat on your Time Machine drive...
STEP 3: Restore from Time Machine using Migration Assistant
This is the really clever part that prompted me to write this piece in the first place. Time Machine IS accessible without those Leopard install discs you don't have. You need to use something called 'Migration Assistant'.
*Start up your machine as normal and you'll see it is an exact clone of the donor machine. Weird huh?
*Attach your Time Machine hard drive. It will show up as an icon on the desktop and because of it's size, you'll be asked if you want to use it as a Time Machine backup. Err, NO YOU DON'T! Click 'cancel'.
*Open Migration Assistant (if you can't find it just type it in to Finder and click). There are three options, the middle one being to restore from TM or another disc. Yup, you want that one.
*Migration Assistant will now ask you what you want to restore in stages, firstly User Accounts, then folders, Apps etc. It will even import internet settings
And that's you done. Let Migration Assistant do it's thang... altogether I had about 140gb to restore, so it wasn't exactly speedy. This wasn't helped by the fact that my TM hard drive is connected via USB (yes, I know). Just leave it alone and it'll whirr happily away...
Before I go - you don't have an option of when to restore from, and will restore from the last Time Machine save. At least then you should be able to access TM and go 'backwards' if you need to.
Also - for a Mac expert, the above will be up there with 'Spot Goes To The Farm' in terms of complexity. However, for the rest of us the above is only available in fragments all over the net. By far the most common response to 'how do I restore from Time Machine without install discs' is 'you can't'. If I'd found the above information in one place I could have saved a lot of hair pulling and swearing over the last couple of days, so forgive me for sharing this workaround with the rest of the world. Meanwhile your expertise will come in very handy for the inevitable questions that will get posted below, so please feel free to help those people that won't be sure if this solution is the right one for them. I'm no expert, I just want to help people that were stuck in the same situation (and looking at the web, there's a LOT of them).
Hope this is of use to someone, thanks and *good luck*!

Most maintenance and repair, restore and install procedures require the use
of the correct OS X install DVD; be it an original machine-specific restore/install
disc set or a later retail non-specific general install disc set.
By having an unsupported system, perhaps installed via an illegal download or
other file-sharing scheme, where no retail official discs are involved and the
initial upgrade was done by other means outside of the License Agreements,
you are asking us to discuss a matter of illegal installation and use of a product.
There are no legal complete OS X system download upgrades online; only bits
that are update segments to a retail or as-shipped machine's original OS X install.
+{Or an installation where a previous owner had correct retail upgrade discs, &+
+chose to not include them with the re-sale of the computer it was installed in.}+
However, to answer the initial question. To get and use an externally enclosed
hard drive in suitable boot-capable housing, and get a free-running Clone
Utility (download online; often a donation-ware product, runs free) you can
make a bootable backup of everything in your computer to an external HDD.
This is the way to make a complete backup to restore all functions to the computer.
The Time Machine has some limits, in that it can restore only that which it saves.
It does not make a bootable clone of your entire computer system with apps and
your files, to an external drive device. A clone can. And some of the clone utility's
settings can also backup changes to an external drive's system; if that other drive
is attached to the computer correctly.
Carbon Copy Cloner, from Bombich Software; and also SuperDuper, another of
the most known software names you can download and use to clone boot-capable
system backups of your computer's hard disk drive contents, are often cited.
However you resolve the matter of the running OS X system in your computer,
derived from what appears to be questionable means, is part of the initial issue.
Since you do need to be able to fix an existing installation by unmounting the
computer's hard disk drive and run the computer from the other (install disc or
system clone) while it is Unmounted; and use the correct Disk Utility version to
help diagnose and perhaps be able to fix it. You can't use a Tiger version Disk
Utility to fix a Leopard installation, and so on.
So, the situation and replies as far as they can go (since the matter does
constitute an illegal system, if it was arrived at without correct discs) is a
limited one. And file sharing of copied Mac OS X (and other) software is
also considered illegal.
And, one way to get odd malware and unusual stuff, is to get an unauthorized
system upgrade from an illegal source online. You never know what's inside it.
The other reply was not a personal attack; the matter is of legal status and as
you have a product with a questionable system, the answer is to correct it.
And if you want to save everything in your computer, make a clone to a suitable
externally enclosed self-powered boot capable hard disk drive. With older PPC
Macs, that would best be to one with FireWire and the Oxford-type control chips.
However that works out...
Good luck & happy computing!

How to install a new hard drive without bootable disc/usb

Hi- my hard drive has totally failed and although I can get into disk utility it won't let me create images and keeps coming up with input/output errors when I try.
I don't have another mac to work from and have no discs whatsoever even for older OS versions
I've ordered a new hard drive(a seagate 750GB 7400rpm one) but how do I get mountain lion on the new hard drive without any discs? If I just put in my new hard drive will it come up with an option? I have a mid 2009 MBP if that helps

I have a mid 2009 MBP if that helps
Here is how it helps:
You need the Utilities from Recovery_HD. Your broken Mac can boot from a Thumb drive.
Use this article to download this Utility to copy the Recovery_HD from your older, working Mac to a minimum 1GB USB thumb drive:
OS X: About Recovery Disk Assistant
Then boot the new mac with the thumb drive by holding down Alt/Option, wait wait wait while it draws an Icon for each bootable Volume, choose the Recovery_HD, choose proceed arrow, and use Disk Utility to erase the drive and create GUID partition Map, 1 partition, Mac OS X Extended (journaled). Then install Mac OS X by download.

Since you can no longer backup to disk, how to restore from external drive without losing all ratings and playlists

since you can no longer backup to disk, how to restore from external drive without losing all ratings and playlists?

My own opinion is that you should install the later appropriate version of Silverkeeper. That said, I would in fact recommend if you can wait a few days for an answer, that you email the La Cie Silverkeeper backup team via the email link on the site at http://www.lacie.com/silverkeeper/
They are careful to say they are not officially providing a backup service, but when I emailed them with a query regarding usage about a year ago after downloading Silverkeeper for myself, I got a reply within a couple of days that cleared up my question.

How to restore a control file without having its backup

Hi,
Can any one please suggest me how to restore a control file without having its backup.
Thanks

To add to what SB said, in years past the instructions for re-creating the control file manually were contained in the DBA Administration manual. It used to be and may still be common to be taking and saving a "backup control file to trace" for this purpose.
If you lost only the primary copy of the control file and it is an OS file then while the database is shutdown you can copy the secondary over the primary and then use if to start the database. If the control file is stored in ASM then there should be a way to perform the copy via ASM.
If you use rman for backups then a copy of the control file should be part of the backup process and you can retrieve it from the backup set then perform recovery using the backup control file though I do note the OP said something to the effect no backup exists. Still, I have knows of instances where the DBA did not realize that the backup set contained the control file and the spfile so I think this is worth mentioning just in case.
HTH -- Mark D Powell --

How to chage Workspace Start Page without installing Reporting and Analysis

Hi:
any one know how to chage Workspace Start Page without installing Reporting and Analysis?
thanks

Not totally sure what you are asking but if you want to change the start page for users/groups have a read of - http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E17236_01/epm.1112/bpmui_admin/frameset.htm?assigning_default_preferences.html
Cheers
John
http://john-goodwin.blogspot.com/

How to chage Workspace Start Page without installing Reporting and Analys?

Hi:
any one know how to chage Workspace Start Page without installing Reporting and Analysis?
thanks

Not totally sure what you are asking but if you want to change the start page for users/groups have a read of - http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E17236_01/epm.1112/bpmui_admin/frameset.htm?assigning_default_preferences.html
Cheers
John
http://john-goodwin.blogspot.com/

MAC OSX 10.3.6 having Boot Problems(Gray Screen with Spinning wheel all the Time) ,How to restore all the files without Mac Startpup Disc,still is not possible i want to download full CD from Apple Site, Is It Possible to Download!

Hi Frnds,Small Favour for me,...
MAC OSX 10.3.6 having Boot Problem(Gray Screen with Spinning wheel all the Time) ,How to restore all the files without Mac Startpup Disc,still is not possible i want to download full CD from Apple Site, Is It Possible to Download!, Windows 7 is working perfectly , can i restore any files in MAC OSX 10.3.6 through Windows 7, or i need the MAC OSX 10.3.6 Bootable Files i need to enter the MAC OSX....

Hi Frnds,Small Favour for me,...
MAC OSX 10.3.6 having Boot Problem(Gray Screen with Spinning wheel all the Time) ,How to restore all the files without Mac Startpup Disc,still is not possible i want to download full CD from Apple Site, Is It Possible to Download!, Windows 7 is working perfectly , can i restore any files in MAC OSX 10.3.6 through Windows 7, or i need the MAC OSX 10.3.6 Bootable Files i need to enter the MAC OSX....

I need to reinstall my original factory disc and reset my computer to the beginning. It currently has lion. Do I need to erase my HD first to clear and make new room for the install disc.

I need to reinstall my original factory disc and reset my computer to the beginning. It currently has lion. Do I need to erase my HD first to clear and make new room for the install disc.

Prepare Your Mac for Sale
Boot from the OS X Installer Disc One that came with the computer. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu. After DU loads select the startup volume from the left side list then click on the Erase tab. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) then click on the Options button. Select the one pass Zero Data option and click on the OK button. Then click on the Erase button.
Note: You can skip the Zero Data option if you are not concerned about removing sensitive personal data from the hard drive. If you choose to skip this part of the process then it is possible for others to recover data from the hard drive. The Zero Data procedure will prevent others from getting access to your personal information.
This process will take 30 minutes to several hours depending upon the size of the hard drive. After formatting has completed quit DU and return to the installer. Now complete the OS X installation. At the completion of the installation do not restart the computer. Instead just shut it off. The next user will be presented with the Setup Assistant when they turn on the computer just as it would if new out of the box.

I purchased Photoshop for mac a few years ago and put it on one of my computers. Since then, I have gotten a new mac desktop without a disc drive. I would like to take my photoshop off of the old computer and put it on the new one. Is there anyone I can d

I purchased Photoshop for mac a few years ago and put it on one of my computers. Since then, I have gotten a new mac desktop without a disc drive. I would like to take my photoshop off of the old computer and put it on the new one. Is there anyone I can download it?

What version?

How do i uninstall Photoshop 9 without a disc. I now have PS 10

How so I uninstall Photoshop 9 without a disc. I now have PS 10

In windows, use control panel. On a mac there's a link to the uninstaller inside the PSE 9 folder in Applications.

How to install Lion OSX on new SSD without install disc

TL;DR
I need a way to install Lion on a new SSD without an install disc, and how to format it without a Mac.
Hello, just yesterday I opened up my MBP 13" Mid-2010 running 10.7.(4/5) (Not sure which it is, but I think it is 10.7.5) and the first thing I saw was Skype tring to sign in. It looked fine, untill I took a second look and I heard a strange clicking noise coming from my computer. The Sykpe signin page said "Disc I/O error" or something like that. I instantly knew there was something wrong with my hard drive. Tried rebooting, grey screen, strange clicking noise like most people with hard drive failure. I was devistated. It has worked minutes ago, then my brother gets off, I open it up,and the hard drive has failed. After I got over the initial shock, I googled "hard drive replacement" after searching for a while, I noticed most sites just showed how to UPGRADE your hard drive, cloning it and all. Well, heres my main problem. I had no time to clone. Luckily, I had started backup up a month ago, and all my data is safe on my external hard drive, but this is only a time machine backup. No OS. Now, most people can just put in their install disk and voila! But, I, sadly, do not have my install disk. No idea where it went, I just don't have it. So, I was wondering if there was any possible way to make a bootable USB or disk without having acsess to a Mac, or having to buy a disc. I bought Lion, and I'm hoping that there is a way to download this and put it on a USB, then boot my computer from it. Now, my second problem is formatting. I have no idea how to format my SSD, let alone without a Mac. If there is some way to format an SSD so that it will work with a MacBook Pro, that would be great.on a PC
IMPORTANT: No, I don't have ANY install discs, the only one I had, for Snow Leopard, is gone. And no, I don't have access to ANY Macs to format the SSD. Finally, I would really love to be able to do this all cost-free, as I have already purchased the Lion, and dont feel like buying a disc for it again.

Yes. See below:
Drive Erase for Lion/Mountain Lion
1. Wait until the Main Menu appears. This could take quite some time because you are doing all of this over an Internet connection. You should use Ethernet if possible. It's much faster than wireless. Select Disk Utility from the Main Menu and click on the Continue button.
2. After DU loads select the SSD main entry (mfgr.'s ID and size.) Click on the Partition tab in DU's main window. Select One partition from the dropdown menu under Partition Scheme.
3. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
After the above has completed quit DU and return to the Main Menu. Click on the Install/Reinstall OS X option then click on the Continue button.
You should be all set if there are no glitches.

My computer locked-up, and when rebooted, my itunes library was gone, replaced with a brand new library. Fortunately, my 450 GB iTunes library is still on the computer. Question is how do restore my original library without having to reload folders? Tks

Help! My computer locked-up and had to be rebooted. However, when I restarted it and hooked up my iPod, I noticed my existing iTunes library (all 450 GB of it) was GONE and was replaced by a brand new library. Fortunately my old, 450 GB library is still on my hard drive under iTunes in Windows Explorer. How or why could this have happened, and most importantly how can I restore my old libary without having to manually import allow of my music and hundreds of Podcasts and 16000+ podcast files?
Thanks for any help....

What you're describing is the expected behaviour. I believe though that is also is the easiest way to have all the contents available to both of you at all times. If you have a spacious hard drive you should probably allow this to happen as anything else will be harder to manage.
My suggestion would be the following if you want to try something different.
Store all your music at a location that is accessible by both of you — an example would be to use your Public Folder as the locations where iTunes will go and look for all the media files—. Your wife does have access to it.
In the Finder you will need to move the folder name iTunes Music to the location in your Public Folder (see above). Once that's done, you and your wife will have to go into the iTunes Preferences > Advance Preferences and un-check Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library. From this point on, you can continue to use iTunes as usual. You'll need to tell your wife what has been newly downloaded/imported into your iTunes so she can manually go look for those items in that Public Folder iTunes of yours and import them into her iTunes. She will not duplicate by doing that, but, like I say this is an all-manual work.
She can do the same, so you have access to contents she imported herself. One more downside of this is that both usernames have to be active in your iMac. If yours isn't, she won't be able to access any item (song, book, app) located in your Public Folder's iTunes.
I'm sure there's a way, if you have an router with external hard drive conectivity, for both of you to be able to access —independently— the iTunes Media at all times but I was just reading at another post that doing so can further complicate things.
Hope this helps. Please let me know what you think or decide to do.
Jorge...

How to reinstall snow leopard without install disc

Hi guys,
I recently took my computer in to an authorised repairer (MyMac Flinders St., Melbourne Australia) to get my LCD screen replaced under warranty, as it had developed a yellow line running down the right hand side of the screen. Whilst it was in the shop I decided to have a new 1TB hard drive put in, and get the OS updated to Snow Leopard (they loaded it up, I did not get install disc). Since then, I have had massive problems with my computer. The computer sometimes would not turn on, turn off, or simply freeze. I took the computer back in and was told it was a software issue, so they did a format reinstall, and told me the problem was fixed. Within hours of getting the computer home, the same problem occurred. I took it back, was told the same thing, and with the same end result (computer not working). I then took it into the Apple store in Chadstone Melbourne, and was told it was the hard drive that was at fault, and not the software at all. I then tried to get the hard drive replaced through MyMac Flinders St., as I now thought it might be the hard drive that was the problem, and with great reluctance and many minutes on the phone they finally agreed. I had big problems getting this agreed to, because my computer was now out of warranty. So, I guess this is a two part question:
1. I've got the computer back now, with the new hard drive, and it seemed to be working fine, but i've since discovered my phone was not syncing up correctly, and was told by Apple support to check my iSync.. to which I was greeted with the error message "iSync can't be launched iSync Manager not available" to which Apple support gave me a step by step instruction download to fix:
In the Finder, choose Utilities from the Go menu.
Open Terminal.
In the Terminal window that opens, type or paste the following command on a single line:
/System/Library/Frameworks/SyncServices.framework/Versions/A/Resources/resetsync .pl full
Press Return.
When the operation is complete quit Terminal
The only problem being.. the Apple Terminal was missing. The program logo was there, but unable to launch. I figure my best bet will be to do a reinstall of Snow Leopard, but I am unsure of how to do this without the physical install disc. I have a backup on an external hard drive.
2. With my computer being now out of AppleCare warranty, I would like to know my options if this problem is unfixable, as my computer was fine before I took it into the authorised repairer, and also in warranty. I don't think I should wear the financial costs of replacing this computer.
Your help would be greatly appreciated.
Steve

I assumed it was normal to load up an OS without giving the disk..
Absolutely not.
Are you 100% sure they have acted outside the law here?
If you are absolutely sure that they didn't give you a disk, then yes, what they have done is essentially software piracy. Of course, it could simply be construed as a mistake. It is not unusual, however careless it might be, for repair folks to assume you were running SL when they reinstall your system.
However, if you specifically asked them to upgrade you to SL, as it sounds like you did, and they charged you a fee for that upgrade but didn't give you a disk, then that's theft pure and simple.
Oh, and that link you sent for AHT.. It's telling me I'd have to have the install disk to run the hardware test. Is there a way to do it without the disk?
It requires one of the gray disks that shipped with your machine, not the retail SL disk that you don't have. If you have misplaced those disks, then you're a bit hosed... Apple will replace the gray disks for a small fee, and that's the only way you're going to get AHT.
Newer machines apparently have a small hidden partition with the AHT boot system on it, but if your machine didn't ship with SL, I don't think it'll be one of those.

Restore without install disc?

Hi so I'm wondering if there is a way to wipe my macbook clean and put it back to factory settings without an operation system install disc? I'm trying to make it run smoother and clean out the memory. I only have snow leopard on my computer and it never came with an installation disc, the snow leopard set up was an automatic set up procedure when I got the computer so i didn't have to insert any disc. Where ever I look you need the installation disk if you want to restore you computer for earlier mac versions. (i have version 10.6.8). My mothers computer didn't come with one either as it was also an automatic set up. WHAT DO I DO?! I don't have the money for an installation disc
Also.....there is not enough memory on my computer to install Mavericks to avoid needing installation discs.

In order to restore, repair, replace, reformat, and reassign ownership in
certain vintage machines, and also after upgrading past the DVD install
era, these machines require the Snow Leopard OS X 10.6 retail install
disc -- unless they shipped with a machine series specific gray label one.
In which case, a replacement of the correct gray label install-restore
disc would need to be purchased (or perhaps a retail one, depending on
vintage of the computer in question, and what it shipped with) from Apple
and the use of the computer Serial Number is a necessary identifier to
help you communicate the model build year to the Apple people when
the correct replacement or latest Snow Leopard DVD installer is bought.
There is no download of this, that can correctly boot the computer, and
perform the reset of the computer as needed if it is sold or traded away;
the software should be included with the computer, as an essential part.
Same as the power adapter, & electricity to run it. The DVD is also a tool.
A machine build specific Apple Hardware Test is included in the original
DVD software kit for the computer, so a replacement Snow Leopard 10.6
install disc may not include that; it would be on a gray label original disc.
So the best bet is to contact Apple (see online store in your region, if not
in the US, or contact a local Apple Store if you have one within reason)
http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC573Z/A/mac-os-x-106-snow-leopard
and order the Snow Leopard DVD. The cost is about $20. plus shipping.
Also, to correctly and properly identify the computer build model is an
important aspect of using database information to update or upgrade
a computer or any complex electronic device that runs software.
PS: the computer may require other hardware upgrade prior to being
able to run Mavericks OS X 10.9.4 adequately; a larger hard drive
with more storage and work capacity; and more chip RAM installed.
Good luck & happy computing!
edited

How to restore new, clean OS without Install Disc ?

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