Best way to do a clean install of Lion

Bought my Mac Book Pro last year.
It shipped wth Lion. I want to basically re-image it now and start again but was wondering if there is any way around having to download the 4GB install package?
Any tips?
Thanks in advance.

There isn't really an easy way to do what you want.
Since it shipped with Lion, that copy of Lion is licensed to the Mac it is on. To reinstall, you use the Lion Recovery partition or Internet Recovery if your MBP is capable (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4904).
If you completely erase the drive, you will remove the recovery partition and would only be able to recover using Internet Recovery. To just erase the main partition, boot into the Recovery HD (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4718) and Choose Disk Utility from the Utilities menu. From there, you can erase just the Macintosh HD. Then, go back to the recovery HD and install Lion.
If you search the web, you may find ways to save a copy of the installer, but I'm not sure it is possible with a pre-loaded Mac. Regardless, you will have to download Lion somehow, or fork out $69 for the USB stick, but I'm not sure it will work with your Mac.
Now, the $64 million question: Why do you think you need to "re-image" your Mac? It is normally not necessary, and, in your case, a collosal time-waster if you really don't have issues that require it.

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What is the best way to do a clean install

What is the best way to do a clean install? I bought a new iMac and I am giving my old one to my wife. She has an older iMac. I backed up her computer using Time Capsule and just want to wipe out my old computer and hook up the external drive and import all her data straight over.
Joe McGarry

You may just restart your old computer right after/on the startsound press "cmd and r" this shuld get you to recoverymode. Here you can start up disk utilitys, chose your mac HD and press erase. After this close disk utilitys and install OS (you may connect the time capsul already and it will import with the install)

Best way to do a clean install of XP over Vista on x200s

Hi,
Just got an x200s with Vista installed. I would love to do a clean install of XP. I've noticed 2 other partitions. Lenovo describes them as ->
C: is your available file storage space.
S: holds critical start up (booting) information.
Q: contains the critical data needed for system recovery.
Okay. So if I want to do a clean install of XP on my system, are either S or Q needed if I never use Vista again? And what would be the best/safest way to install XP on my machine? I don't want to delete anything that cannot be replaced or is vital to functioning of the machine under XP.
Thanks!

ajdedo wrote:
Hi,
Just got an x200s with Vista installed. I would love to do a clean install of XP. I've noticed 2 other partitions. Lenovo describes them as ->
C: is your available file storage space.
S: holds critical start up (booting) information.
Q: contains the critical data needed for system recovery.
Okay. So if I want to do a clean install of XP on my system, are either S or Q needed if I never use Vista again? And what would be the best/safest way to install XP on my machine? I don't want to delete anything that cannot be replaced or is vital to functioning of the machine under XP.
Thanks!
im not too sure about "S" but "Q" wont be needed anymore if u dont intend to use Vista anymore. "Q" will restore your system to Vista state if you perform recovery. before you start, remember to backup all the stuff u need. If you have a XP disc, just insert it into the drive (make sure your boot sequence is set to detect optical drive 1st) and perform a format on C drive. avoid using the quick format. after formatting it, just follow the instruction on screen and install XP. i doubt there are any safe method to install XP. pretty straight forward thing.
Message Edited by CaptainObvious on 03-27-2009 01:58 PM
Message Edited by CaptainObvious on 03-27-2009 02:03 PM

Best way to do a clean install ?

After having some major issues with OSX 10.8.5 I decided to reinstall OS X. But I’m not sure what I did wrong as I can’t seem to boot into the apple hardware test that should have been on my mid 2011 iMac, the recovery partition seems to be gone also that was listed on the boot screen when you hold down the option key on boot up. And when I try to use the boot camp installer in the utility file to make a boot camp partition like it did before I am not asked how much space I want to allocate, rather it tells me it can’t find a USB drive to install windows to.
I am not sure what the best way is to get the system back to the way it was out of the box? I can seem to find my discs that came with the iMac, but in thinking back I think that it never came with them as I seem to recall something about an internet recovery?
Any help you guys can provide would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks

Use Internet recovery - reboot holding Command Option and R. I'm thinking you you'll be best off to start Disk Utilities and repartion the drive - Select 1 partition. Then download OS X and let the system install itself. Of course before doing this make sure you have a backup so you don't lose all your data.

Best way to do a clean install of SB drivers

The patient=A new, out of the retail box, Audigy Platinum Card with the Front Panel Dri've? Using it in an older P4 PC I built several years ago as a temporary until I build a new box.
Some of the symptoms-Since loading the Dolby Digital Li've Pack it has been slowly deteriorating in performance. Overall sound not as good as when first loaded. ?Some features have decided to quit working. This includes the headphone jack in the Dri've.
Reloaded the drivers several times, No improvement.
Found on the forum a more technical end user had put together his own install for the drivers and applications. Tried it. Worked really well. Some features returned. The card at least sees the headphone is plugged in now. But still not working. Sound in speakers?greatly overall improved.
I would like to try a "clean install" of the card drivers. Have seen numerous suggestions for doing this.
I am thinking of () disabling the card in the device manager (2) manually removing the drivers getting the list from the properties of the driver (3) re-installing all.
Maybe the headphone and all else will work then. Otherwise, I'll get my golden helmet, a lance,?a sword, ?a horse and attack the nearest windmill!

Thanks ViSt--
I took a quick look. The method applies to Vista. I am running an older box with XP Home on it. Still, there are some pretty decent suggestions in there.
On the other hand, getting back to the earlierr suggestion. I tried it and it worked. I never found the CRFxxx folder but did find the interface to remove the drivers in the extracted version of the?Audigy Support Pack. At least the headphones lit right up. ?On the otherhand, I used the Creative Audio Console. As soon as I checked the enhance 3-d effects for the headphones the headphone jack died again. It intermittantly headphone detection still works but no sound.

I wish to do a clean-install of Lion due to abnormal behaviour.

Currently I have Lion on my iMac. I have been having abnormal behavior as of late and I wish to start fresh as I am think a piece of software is causing my troubles. I just cannot pinpoint what it is. So I wish to do a complete erase and refresh of the drive.
I wish to do a backup first since I have applications and other files I do not want to lose.
I have read i could use either Time Machine, CarbonCopy or Super Duper. According to what I have read, CarbonCopy or SuperDuper is favoured because it is easier to restore files. Which method would you recommend?
Once I have made backup, what is best way to do a fresh install of LION. Gues what I want to do is wipe the disk and then install Lion. What would be the best way to do this?
Thanks and I look forward to your reply.
...Bruce

BGmail wrote:
I have read i could use either Time Machine, CarbonCopy or Super Duper. According to what I have read, CarbonCopy or SuperDuper is favoured because it is easier to restore files. Which method would you recommend?
Any of these will work
Once I have made backup, what is best way to do a fresh install of LION. Gues what I want to do is wipe the disk and then install Lion. What would be the best way to do this?
Boot from Recovery HD (Hold ⌘R on Boot)
Select Disk Utility
Erase Macintosh HD
Exit Disk Utility
Select Reinstall OS X Lion

Clean install of Lion in Recovery Mode - Easy?

I've been looking at different ways of getting a clean install of Lion on a machine that:
Has Lion already installed
Can boot into Recovery Mode
Is there a problem with the following, simple procedure:
Boot into Recovery Mode with the usual cmd+R; connect to WiFi.
Open Disk Utilities and erase/reformat the 'main' Partition on the Hard Disk
Once a new, fresh partition has been created, get back into the main Lion Recovery dashboard
Choose the Install Lion option pointed at the fresh partition.
Can someone confirm, please, that this should work, and that I won't be left with an empty partition on which Lion will refuse to re-install....?!
thanks
mark
PS If this makes a difference, I'm likely to need to do this on an iMac that was purchased with Snow Leopard, then updated to Lion in the usual App Store way; it's been reinstalled via Lion Recovery but not a clean install; the problems it has still persisted and I think it's time for a clean slate

It isn't, and its potentially problem-causing unless you know you've had one good, trouble-free install from that .dmg.
I went that route the first time I downloaded Lion, had troubles with my first install and continued having troubles with every install afterward made from my USB installer. The light finally went on in my head that it was the original .dmg that I'd downloaded and saved to USB that was corrupt.
Another point is that even if you have no problems with that .dmg, you'll be stuck with that version of Lion everytime and have to do laborious software updates. If you download directly you get whatever version is currently in the App store (10.7.4 right now).
The only advantages I can see of doing it Cattus' way is if you either have a cap on your available downloads per month or a slow connection. Otherwise, not worth it, IMHO.

Best way to clean install mountain lion on a new ssd

Am in the process of upgrading my late 2008 MacBook Pro (15"). Have had 8 GB RAM installed for over a year now, as well as Lion, and it's doing fine but want to upgrade it some more to get another couple years out of it. Have ordered a 120 GB SSD and will be installing it in place of the optical drive to speed up boot and programs access. Also would like to upgrade to Mountain Lion IF it'll upgrade performance and add worthwhile features. Assuming that's the case, is it best to do a clean install of Mountain Lion on the new SSD or just clone the existing hard drive? What's the best technique for doing a clean install and for cloning?

Go to the App Store. Sign in with your Apple ID and password. Purchase and download Mountain Lion. It's over 4 GBs so it will take some time to download.
When it finishes the installer will launch automatically and present you with a window for installing. I suggest you quit the installer at this point. Follow these instructions:
Make Your Own Mountain/Lion Installer
1. After downloading Mountain/Lion you must first save the Install Mac OS X Mountain/
    Lion application. After Mountain/Lion downloads DO NOT click on the Install button.
    Go to your Applications folder and make a copy of the Mountain/Lion installer. Move
    the copy into your Downloads folder. Now you can click on the Install button. You
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2. Get a USB flash drive that is at least 8 GBs. Prep this flash drive as follows:
a. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
b. After DU loads select your flash drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left
      side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
c. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one.
      Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the
      partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until
      the process has completed.
d. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side
      list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
e. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, check the
      button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
f. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to an hour depending upon the flash
     drive size.
3. Use Lion DiskMaker 2.0 to put your installer clone onto the USB flash drive.
Note: The term Mountain/Lion used above means Lion or Mountain Lion.
You can then install your SSD. Boot the computer from the Mountain Lion USB flash drive to install onto the SSD after you partition and format the SSD:
Drive Partition and Format
1. Boot from Mountain Lion USB flash drive installer. When the main menu appears select Disk Utility and click on the Continue button.
Boot Using OPTION key:
a. Restart the computer.
b. Immediately after the chime press and hold down the
      "OPTION" key.
c. Release the key when the boot manager appears.
d. Select the USB Flash Drive Installer.
e. Click on the arrow button below the icon.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Apply button and wait until the process has completed.
4. When formatting is complete quit DU and return to the main menu. Select Install/Reinstall Mountain Lion and click on the Continue/Install button.

Bridge crashes on start up, is there a way to do a clean install or properly troubleshoot? (Literally just uninstalled and cleaned computer of Adobe products and reinstalled Design and Web Premium and bridge still crashes..)

Bridge crashes on start up, is there a way to do a clean install or properly troubleshoot? (Literally just uninstalled and cleaned computer of Adobe products and reinstalled Design and Web Premium and bridge still crashes..)
Here is the crash report:
Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
Application Name: Bridge.exe
Application Version: 5.0.0.399
Application Timestamp: 4f5ec62d
Fault Module Name: Bridge.exe
Fault Module Version: 5.0.0.399
Fault Module Timestamp: 4f5ec62d
Exception Code: c0000005
Exception Offset: 003209fa
OS Version: 6.1.7601.2.1.0.256.4
Locale ID: 1033
Additional Information 1: 0a9e
Additional Information 2: 0a9e372d3b4ad19135b953a78882e789
Additional Information 3: 0a9e
Additional Information 4: 0a9e372d3b4ad19135b953a78882e789
Read our privacy statement online:
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=104288&clcid=0x0409
If the online privacy statement is not available, please read our privacy statement offline:
C:\Windows\system32\en-US\erofflps.txt

Have you tried to reset preferences? And no you do not have to start Bridge to do this.,
Hold down the Ctrl key and start Bridge. You should get a reset window with 3 options. Choose all 3.

Clean install of Lion on MacBook Pro

Hello - I have been using Lion for a while now, with no problems, but am now having permission problems with such actions as emptying trash, downloads, upgrading certain apps, using Dropbox, etc. I think it has something to do with my user settings, but have tried in as many ways to repair this, to no avail. I am backing up my files on a Time Capsule - and the only things I am really wanting to keep are my iTunes files and my iPhoto files. (I upgraded from Snow Leopard to Lion.)
My questions:
1. Once everything is backed up to TC, what is the best way for me to do a clean install of Lion?
2. How do I then go about reinstalling my apps/files (iTunes, iPhoto, movie files, documents, etc)?
Also, is there anything one needs to be aware of when installing Lion in regards to user name, administrator, etc?
Thanks in advance.

Game of Thrones wrote:
Hello to everyone.
I am new to the Mac community. Recently i purchased a MBP (and am really happy with it). However i need to make a clean instal of the Lion that it came with. Can somebody help me ?
P.S. I am sorry if this question was asked before. I could not find it.
Thanks in advance !
Reboot holding Command + R and follow the prompts. Backup your system first.
Good Lock
Pete

How to do a Clean Install of Lion

Hope this will help someone.
I recently did a clean install of Lion on my Mac Pro (after doing an earlier Lion upgrade) and the performance difference is absolutely amazing. Before my Mac Pro was laggy and there all kinds of little glitchy bugs (I'm sorry I can't explain it better than that) with a lot of my applications. Since I use that machine to also administer the network, that just wasn't acceptable.
I'm convinced, after this experience, that a clean install of Lion is the best thing for me, so, this morning I decided to do the same thing to my MacBook Air (IMHO the best laptop ever invented).
Here's what I have done.
1. Download and install Carbon Copy Cloner to the laptop.
2. Clone the laptop hard drive to an external hard drive. I have a Seagate 500GB USB drive which had a 500GB partition with Lion already installed on it. There are instructions all over the web on how to install Lion to an external drive. I used disk utility to add a partition, effectively splitting the partition in two with Lion still installed on one of the partitions and the other partition "clean".
3. Donate to Mike Bombich's site. Carbon Copy Cloner is a remarkable program - I've paid a heck of a lot of money over the years for similar programs and they didn't work 1/2 as good.
4. Go into System Preferences, select the "Startup Disk" applet and select your Lion install on the external hard disk drive as the startup disk. I SUSPECT you could also set the cloned laptop partition as your startup disk, but since the Lion install was already on my external drive, I used that.
5. Reboot the laptop
6. Hold down Command + "R" during the startup process to boot to the recovery partition of the Lion install on the external disk.
7. When the menu pops up, select Disk Utility
8. Repartition your laptop hard disk drive. This will also erase everything on the laptop. You can not repartition your hard drive unless you are booting from an external install of Lion. The recovery partition is hidden so repartitioning the drive will fail if you try to do a clean install from your laptop.
9. When the partitioning is finished, quit Disk Utility and return to the previous menu.
10. Select "Reinstall Lion" and select your laptop hard disk drive as the target.
11. You'll have to authenticate to Apple with your Apple ID, so there should be no problem with downloading and reinstalling Lion.
12. Wait for the download and install to finish. The download will take longer than the install.
13. During the setup, use the Transfer Assistant to transfer the cloned drive items to the new Lion install.
When the TA and install is finished, you should be back to where you started with everything intact.
Good luck!

Hope this will help someone.
I recently did a clean install of Lion on my Mac Pro (after doing an earlier Lion upgrade) and the performance difference is absolutely amazing. Before my Mac Pro was laggy and there all kinds of little glitchy bugs (I'm sorry I can't explain it better than that) with a lot of my applications. Since I use that machine to also administer the network, that just wasn't acceptable.
I'm convinced, after this experience, that a clean install of Lion is the best thing for me, so, this morning I decided to do the same thing to my MacBook Air (IMHO the best laptop ever invented).
Here's what I have done.
1. Download and install Carbon Copy Cloner to the laptop.
2. Clone the laptop hard drive to an external hard drive. I have a Seagate 500GB USB drive which had a 500GB partition with Lion already installed on it. There are instructions all over the web on how to install Lion to an external drive. I used disk utility to add a partition, effectively splitting the partition in two with Lion still installed on one of the partitions and the other partition "clean".
3. Donate to Mike Bombich's site. Carbon Copy Cloner is a remarkable program - I've paid a heck of a lot of money over the years for similar programs and they didn't work 1/2 as good.
4. Go into System Preferences, select the "Startup Disk" applet and select your Lion install on the external hard disk drive as the startup disk. I SUSPECT you could also set the cloned laptop partition as your startup disk, but since the Lion install was already on my external drive, I used that.
5. Reboot the laptop
6. Hold down Command + "R" during the startup process to boot to the recovery partition of the Lion install on the external disk.
7. When the menu pops up, select Disk Utility
8. Repartition your laptop hard disk drive. This will also erase everything on the laptop. You can not repartition your hard drive unless you are booting from an external install of Lion. The recovery partition is hidden so repartitioning the drive will fail if you try to do a clean install from your laptop.
9. When the partitioning is finished, quit Disk Utility and return to the previous menu.
10. Select "Reinstall Lion" and select your laptop hard disk drive as the target.
11. You'll have to authenticate to Apple with your Apple ID, so there should be no problem with downloading and reinstalling Lion.
12. Wait for the download and install to finish. The download will take longer than the install.
13. During the setup, use the Transfer Assistant to transfer the cloned drive items to the new Lion install.
When the TA and install is finished, you should be back to where you started with everything intact.
Good luck!

How to Create a Bootable Flash Drive to do a clean install of Lion. I have tried to use the InstallESD.dmg but it still will not do a clean install so that I do not have to do a reinstall from the Recovery (That just re downloads and takes over 6 hours)?

How to Create a Bootable Flash Drive to do a clean install of Lion. I have tried to use the InstallESD.dmg but it still will not do a clean install so that I do not have to do a reinstall from the Recovery (That just re downloads and takes over 6 hours)?
The system I'm have is a Mac-mini that had SL on it and no SuperDrive. I have also call Apple Support and they have really have not been to much help over 1st did my up grade to Lion and Installed the Lion Server.... it lost my SSL that I paid for and kill almost on of my server setting, plus kill all my web servers (using apache vhosts), and not to say the LDAP will even let remote users login to your laptops.
PS: There is no way that I'm going to buy a Install USB from Apple... They have over billed me over $300.00 because the Apps Store still has bugs (Glad I did not write that App/Service)
If there is anyone that can give in the information to create a USB install stick, I would be very thinkful.

Here you are bro, courtesy of "softpedia.com"....brilliant site!!!
If you ever had problems with your Mac OS X installation you know that the first thing you should do is to check the startup volume using Disk Utility.
After the check has ended and, if the errors exceed a certain level of seriousness, the Disk Utility application will require you to restart your Mac and use its Mac OS X Install disc counterpart.
Other users may have to reinstall OS X altogether, but will find, or already know, that their SuperDrive (a CD/DVD reader and write combo drive) is not functioning properly and it will not be able to read the Install disc.
Although this might happen to Mac OS X Leopard users due to faultyhardware, the vast majority of problematic SuperDrives will be encountered inside Snow Leopard running Macs.
This is due to the updated SuperDrive firmware included in either the Install disc or the software updates one has to install to reach the latest version of OS X, namely 10.6.6.
This can be fixed by flashing the SuperDrive’s stock firmware using free command line tools that one can find for free online (I will write about this process also, but at a later time because this article only focuses on allowing you to create your own alternative USB boot disc).
If you are reading this last bit of information with skepticism, than you should know that it happened to me too. Despite all my tries to make it work properly, the SuperDrive kept on munching any inserted DVDs and just popped them out in about twenty seconds.
The workaround to this issue was to create my own Leopard bootable USB memory stick. I am not suggesting a Snow Leopard bootable stick mainly because there are lots of users that have decided to buy the cheaper, Upgrade version, which I have not tested and, therefore, I’m not sure if it will work properly once written to a USB disk.
And now, here are the exact steps you should follow in order to obtain a fully bootable Leopard (or Lion) Install disc.
Step 1 (If you already have the Leopard install disc DMG file you can skip to Step 2)
Launch Disk Utility (you can find it inside /Applications/Utilities). Here select the Leopard Install disc in the list of drives on the left and click on the New Image menu entry at the top of the window. A save message will appear where you will have to select the Desktop as a destination.
Step 2
After Disk Utility has finished creating the Leopard DMG, insert your USB stick and erase all data and reformat the disk. To do this select the USB in the list of drives on the left and, after clicking on the Erase tab on the right side of the window, choose the Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format and click the Erase button beneath.
Step 3
After the USB has been reformatted, download the SuperDuper app from HERE and launch it. Once SuperDuper starts, you will only have to select the DMG in the Copy drop-down menu, your USB memory stick on the right and hit the “Copy Now” button.
One can also use Disk Utility for this task but creating a bootable USB stick failed 2 out 4 times when copying the DMG to the stick (with the exact same settings each time). Creating the bootable stick using SuperDuper proved to be the perfect way to do it because it worked each of the 4 times I tested it.
The steps above can also be used to create a bootable Mac OS X Lion USB by using the InstallESD.dmg image you can find inside the Lion installer (named “Install Mac OS X Lion.app”) downloaded from the Mac App Store in the /Applications folder.
To locate the InstallESD.dmg right click the Lion installer, select the “Show Package Contents” entry, go inside the “Contents” folder, and from there into the “SharedSupport” folder. Inside this folder you can find the InstallESD.dmg you can use to create your own bootable Mac OS X Lion USB stick. To do so, go to the third step described above and use the InstallESD.dmg as the DMG to be copied to your USB disc.
That’s it! Once the process ends you will have a fully bootable Leopard (or Lion) USB disk that you can use as an alternative to the Apple’s DVD Install disc that comes bundled with all Macs.
To use your newly created bootable disk you will have to restart the Mac, press and hold the OPTION key until the StartupManager appears. Here, select the Mac OS X Install disk using your keyboard arrows and press return to start from the selected drive.

How can I restore my contacts from a snow leopard time machine to clean instal of Lion

I recently did a clean instal of Lion (which was wayyyyy to difficult by the way--why this wasnt an easy option to begin with I do not know and am not happy about).
In my sleep depravation from the previous problem I accidentally synced my contacts from mobile me to take my computer contacts (deleting all my contacts from my phone and computer).
Fortunately I have a back up on my time machine from my previously installed Snow Leopard.
I tried to restore these files, but they seem to not be compatible.
Steps I took:
1.) -Opened Address Book in Lion
-Opened time machine
notes: i could not go backward in time with lion address book
2.) -Copied files from time machine address book to desktop
-completely unable to open files.
I do not want to use migration assistant because it seems to want to take ALL my files over and frankly thats not what I want to do at all.
PLEASE HELP!

Hi,
See this Excellent Link by Pondini on TM:
http://web.me.com/pondini/AppleTips/Index.html
May be Helpful...

New hard drive, clean install of Lion, but MacBook Pro is still freezing

Hi everyone,
Even the folks at the Apple store don't seem to know what's going on with my MacBook Pro.
My hard drive crashed a few weeks ago. I bought a Western Digital Scorpio Blue and replaced it myself. The MacBook didn't seem to like it (lots of freezing, going really slow, etc) and so, after reading online that many MacBook Pro users did not like the WD Scoprio Blue, I returned it and bought a 320 GB Hitachi. Before replacing the WD drive with the Hitachi drive, I used SuperDuper! to make my external hard drive a clone of the WD hard drive. I replaced the WD with the Hitachi, booted from the external, and then restored all my stuff to the Hitachi. The computer still didn't work so well, so I did a zero-out erase and a clean install of Lion. I dragged my files over individually (only about 100 GB of word documents, music, and photos). For the first two days, everything worked perfectly. Then I started getting these error messages:
Word: Word cannot save or create this file. The disk may be full or write protected. Try one of the following. *Free more memory. *Make sure that the disk you want to save the file on is not full, write-protected, or damaged.
Chrome: Your profile could not be opened correctly. Some features may be unavailable. Please check that the profile exists and you have permission to read and write its contents.
Dragging files to trash: The operation can't be completed because an unexpected error occured (error code -50).
Fireforx: Close Firefox. A copy of Firefox is already open. Only one copy of Firefox can be open at a time.
In addition, the computer kept freezing. I also had problems with Mail and iTunes. Disk verify, permission verify, S.M.A.R.T. utility all said that the hard drive was working fine though.
So, I brought the computer to Apple. They did a zero-out erase, reinstalled Lion, and did what they called a "software repair". They said it should work fine. I just got home from the store, booted up the computer, and it's barely working. All sorts of error messages, safari won't work, it keeps freezing, and I was only able to open disk utility once. I verified disk, and it came up with no problems. I verified disk permissions, and when I tried to repair disk permissions, it kept saying it was "unable" to.
I don't know what it could be. It's not the hard drive...I've run disk utility, S.M.A.R.T., and an app that checks the hardware associated with the drive. All of these programs say the hard drive is absolutely fine. I've also reset PRAM. Another thing worth noting is that I'm currently booting/working off of my external, and it works absolutely perfectly.
Any ideas? One of my friends suggested I go back to Snow Leopard, but I don't see what difference that would make. Please help! Anything would be very much appreciated! Thanks!!

The theory is that you have a weak bit in one of the modules, and sometimes (rarely) it flips over. The trick is to try and catch it.
If you move the modules, the weak bit will be at a different Address in memory. Different things will be loaded into the word with the weak bit, and the symptoms may be different.
It may not do anything at all. But it is so easy to try, it is worth a shot.
On a multi-module memory, you need to keep your wits about you when doing this, or you put them back the way they were originally. So you should pick a direction and always move them your "regular" direction.

I have just made a clean instalation of Lion, with a bootable disk, and I planned to restore my files (music, photos, etc.), but Lion doesn't find my backup files. So, I'm about to loose all of my iTunes library, work docum The installation run perfectly,

I have just made a clean instalation of Lion, with a bootable disk, and I planned to restore my files (music, photos, etc.), The installation run perfectly, but Lion doesn't find my backup files. So, I'm about to loose all of my iTunes library, work documents (I'm a lawyer!!), my kid's photos.... How can I restore my files?? Help!!

Since you seem to be using a new disk for Lion, Time Machine will consider previous backups to be for a "different" computer. Try doing a control-click or click-and-hold on the Time Machine icon in the Dock, then choose "Browse Other Time Machine Disks". This should allow Time Machine to see the previous backups.
In the worst case you should be able to open those Time Machine backups and copy your documents from there to your home folder.
By the way, you've been misled by poor field labeling on this forum into typing a large part of your message into the field intended for the subject. In the future just type a short summary of your post into that field and type the whole message into the field below that.

Best way to do a clean install of Lion

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