Can I recover my system by reinstalling Mountain Lion from boot USB on my failed Mavericks OS?

I have an iMac 8.1 with SSD and Mavericks installed.
Upon startup I get the flashing folder with questions mark, that tells me that it cannot boot.
I have a Mountain Lion boot USB, and with that I checked with Disk Utility if my disk can be repaired.
After verifying the disk, it tells me everything is fine with the disk.
So I guess the OS on the disk is damaged.
Can I use the Mountain Lion boot USB and reinstall OS X, and thereby preserve my files (settings are not most important).
I do have most of my data on an external HDD, but would have some valuable files the SSD (photos, documents and bookmarks).

Have you tried booting while holding down the Option key?
Startup Manager: How to select a startup volume

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Will my MacbookPro still be under warranty if i format and reinstall mountain lion from scratch?

Hello everyone,
as in title, will my MacbookPro still be under warranty if i format and reinstall mountain lion from scratch? After the release of mountain lion, bought it and reinstalled it on the previous version,but the system looks slightly slower.So my thought was to format and install it from scratch.But being my computer 1 month old,will this influence my warranty?Thank you for answers.Cheers.M

Reinstall doesn't broke the warranty, so you can reinstall OS X Mountain Lion

How to reinstall mountain lion from snow leopard after disc failure

how to reinstall mountain lion from snow leopard after disc failure

Open the Mac App Store, click Purchases, select ML, then re-download and install. However if your machine has the abillity to run Mavericks I'd just upgrade to that and bypass ML.

I need to reinstall Mountain Lion from a Time Machine backup, but it says that the last backup is 6 months old

Hi, I need to reinstall Mountain Lion on my MacBook Pro, so I made a backup yesterday and today I tried to reinstall everything from that backup.
To my surprise, Time Machine says that the last full backup was made on February!
I've always made regular backups during these months on my Time Machine HD, what can I do to reinstall everything from the backup I made yesterday?
Thank you very much.

Most likely, some folders were inadvertently excluded from your backups, and as a result you can't restore your data in Recovery, Setup Assistant, or Migration Assistant.
Starting from a fresh installation of OS X, set up a new administrator account and log in. Follow the instructions on this page to associate your existing backups with the new installation.
You should now be able to enter Time Machine and restore your user data from a snapshot.* I suggest you do this in two stages. Quit all applications except the Finder before you begin.
Restore all the visible items at the top level of your home folder.
Hold down the option key and select Go ▹ Library from the Finder menu bar. Enter Time Machine and restore all items in the Library folder. Log out and log back in as soon as the restore is complete.
Any other invisible folders or files at the top level of your home folder that you want to preserve will have to be restored separately. For most users, that isn't necessary.
You'll have to reinstall all third-party applications from scratch, or restore them from another kind of backup, if you have one.
*If you don't see any snapshots in Time Machine, exit the time-travel view and then hold down the option key while selecting
Browse Other Backup Disks...
from the Time Machine menu, which has an icon that looks like a clock running backwards. Select the backups of your computer by its previous name. If you don't have the Time Machine menu, open the Time Machine preference pane in System Preferences and check the box marked
Show Time Machine in menu bar

Need to reinstall mountain lion from snow leopard

i was using mountain lion before my hard drive went bad and had to replace it. however, snow leopard is the only OS disc i have so that's what i used to reboot the computer once i replaced it. how do i now reinstall mountain lion back to this computer? thanks.

i updated the snow leopard so i now have the app store but when i go to purchases and hit "download" on my previous mountain lion purchase it doesn't do anything and when i click on the application name it says "The item you've requested is not currently available in the U.S. store."?? and yes, this is the same store i bought it from.

I re-installed Mountain Lion from a USB stick, and now my Apps can't be downloaded. The App store indicates that the Apps are already installed, but that is not the case. Now what :)

I re-installed Mountain Lion from scratch of a USB stick, and now my Apps in the App store ca not be installed, the App store indicates that they are already installed, but that is not the case. Now what?

Ok, this is somewhat of a better work around I've found:
Starting in the Australian iTunes store, I go through the process of signing into the UK iTunes store up until the point it asks for my credit card information.
I then click the 'X' in the top left of iTunes to exit the store.
Now when I click on my Apps Updates button it shows me what UK Apps I have that are available to update.
You can't download these as at this point I've changed the store I'm viewing, but haven't officially switched accounts. Not to worry.
I write down the names of the UK Apps to update.
Then, use the 'search store' field in the top right of iTunes to search for one of the Apps.
Once you've found it, click to buy it / download it.
iTunes recognises that the App is already in your account and downloads it again for free….
… now I'm HOPING that that App is now fully within my Australian account… unfortunately only time will tell once there is a new update for it.
I'll let you know.

Please help me install Mountain Lion from my USB on my ERASED Macintosh HD partition.

Hi, So my Macbook 7.1 (running macosx 10.6.8) was running really slow due to poor user maintenance. I decided that i should purchase Mountain Lion and install it over the 10.6.8 version. That worked but my computer turned SUPER SLOW. So i decided to completely startover and erase the partition, and install from the USB. Unfortunately for me this is where my skillset ends, and I need help.
After erasing the Macintosh HD, i created a new GUID partition, and then clicked Restore. I dragged my USB drive under the "source", and dragged my new partition under the "destination". That didnt work so i erasaed the partition again. At this time, i got an error message saying that i cant erase the partition because its not unmounted.
So thats where Im at. I guess i need to know how to unmount the drive, then how to erase it, then partition it, and then install Mountain Lion from the bootable USB.
Appreciate your help!
Nick

I did the erase from Disk Utility. At the time I had started the computer by holding down Ctrl+R, so i am not sure which recovery drive it used. I can say however that I do still have the recovery partition.
Im a bit dense when it comes to Apples. How do i go about re-installing from the recovery? Also, how do i get around the unmouting issue?

Where can I find user system files in Mountain Lion?

I'm testing Mountain Lion on a separate drive at the moment. Can anyone explain to me how to find the system files in User> (name)> Library> Application Support? Or any of the system files at all? What happened to them?
I've always used this folder (in SL) to get to some specific files that I need to share with my wife.
Any help much appreciated. Thanks.

Press Option key and select Go > Library in the menu bar. To show that folder, open Terminal and copy:
chflags nohidden ~/Library

Unable to reinstall Mountain Lion from recovery partition

Hi there,
   I have formatted my main HDD partition and then boot from recovery partition. I have a MacBook Pro 2011 series. I have reinstalled my Mountain Lion following on screen instructions. But when It's says is OK and 100% installed and begin restart the system, it is unable to boot and automatically boot from recovery partition again.
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   Thanks in advance.
   vzuritae.

Why did you start this process in the first place? Was there something wrong with the original install of Mt Lion? Like your system wouldn't startup anymore?
I suspect it is a hardware problem and may be the drive is failing.
Is your Mac a Early or Late 2011 model. Did it come with Lion Pre-installed?
If it came with Lion Preinstalled then you can use the Online Internet Recovery system to first reinstall Lion. At startup hold down the Command+Option/Alt+r keys until you see a spinning globe in the center of the screen. From that screen select Disk Utility and Re-Partition the drive as One partition. Then close DU and select Reinstall Mac OS X. If after the install of Lion is downloaded and finishes the install your system still refuses to boot up properly then you have a hardware problem and only Apple can fix a hardware problem.

Reinstalling Mountain Lion from recovery partition

Hi,
I am trying to reinstall the Mountain Lion OS from my recovery partition. I have already erased my drive and attempted to reinstall like I have always done. This time though it is asking for an apple id that was used to purchase lion. However I went from snow leapord to Mountain Lion, and am trying to reinstall my mountain lion.
I have done this before countless times and it has always worked, but now its not. I can not make a bootable flash drive to use as I already erased my hard drive and this is the only mac I have.
Any help would be appreciated.
Thank you,
Jeff

These are the instructions:
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH11273
Can you start up your MBP holding down the OPTION key ands access the Recovery partition?
What model MBP do you have? Did it come with installation disks? You may have to use those first before you can install Mt. Lion.
Ciao.

Reinstall Mountain Lion from App Store

Okay, so I got over-excited, and upgraded from Snow Leopard to Mountain Lion
To cut a long story short, I need to go back to Snow Leopard to run a couple of programs that won't work with Mountain Lion (logic 8 to be one), save/finish some files/projects (providing my old busted hard drive can be restored from the recovery company). My question is, as Mountain Lion will be in my App Store, will I be allowed to re-install it without having to pay for it again?
Cheers, Chris.

Yes, if you are able to get the install to actually work. After purchasing and installing on my Macbook Pro I have been waiting for 2 days for the install to start on my IMAC.
Any software that you have purchased through the MacStore will be there in the future for you to reinstall on any Mac that runs with your apple ID. Apple kindly let you pay for a license of software an run it on all the apple products you own.
best of luck queing for the install again

Performing an upgrade install of Mountain Lion from a USB drive

Hi.
I performed a clean install of Mountain Lion on my MacBook Air a few days ago, and made a ML boot disk to use with my other Macs. I was wondering whether it is possible to use that boot disk to perform an upgrade (not clean) install on a MacBook Pro with Lion.
Thanks.

VictorT wrote:
Hi.
I performed a clean install of Mountain Lion on my MacBook Air a few days ago, and made a ML boot disk to use with my other Macs. I was wondering whether it is possible to use that boot disk to perform an upgrade (not clean) install on a MacBook Pro with Lion.
Thanks.
Did you save the Mountain Lion Installer application? That's what does either an upgrade or a full install; a ML boot disk is just another bootable disk with ML already on it.

Reinstalling mountain lion from App Store

My 2009 MacPro crashed badly, require a complete reinstall (reformat hard drive).
It was running MountainLion.
I have the Snow Leopard OSX disc, but bought the upgrade online.
How can I upgrade the OSX again?
Ultimately I want to restore from my Time machine backup.
Thanks,
Chris

If you purchased ML from the Mac App Store, and installed on your machine, restart holding the Command and Option and R keys and you should get the drop down with the choice to reinstall Mac OS.

How to reinstall mountain lion from another mac through time machine ?

Hi guys,
My MBP 15" 2012 running an older 10.8 has crashed.
i also run the latest 10.8.4 on my iMac 21" and have a time machine backup and have excluded the following
couple of questions:
1 - Is it possible to use this to restore my MBP using iMac's time machine backup. ?
2 - 22.77GB is way more than the OS itself so what else is in that 22.77GB of data ?
3 - i'm planning to give the MBP to my younger brother and would like none of my personal data.
Thanks in Advance

Information. Also applies to giving a computer away as babowa stated.
Selling old Mac
Selling old Mac (2)
Selling old Mac (3)

Will reinstalling mountain lion fix image retention

After installing mavericks i started getting image retention so i was wondering if reinstalling mountain lion will fix my problem.

It's unlikely that has a thing to do with OS version. But it you wish to reinstall Mountain Lion:
Erase the drive.
Reinstall Mountain Lion from a backup.
Since your computer can run Mavericks you will no longer be able to re-download Mountain Lion. However, if Mountain Lion was pre-installed on your computer, then you may be able to reinstall it by going through an Internet Recovery:
Install Mavericks, Lion/Mountain Lion Using Internet Recovery
Be sure you backup your files to an external drive or second internal drive because the following procedure will remove everything from the hard drive.
Boot to the Internet Recovery HD:
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND-OPTION- R keys until a globe appears on the screen. Wait patiently - 15-20 minutes - until the Recovery main menu appears.
Partition and Format the hard drive:
Select Disk Utility from the main menu and click on the Continue button.
After DU loads select your newly installed 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.
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 Partition button and wait until the process has completed. Quit DU and return to the main menu.
Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion. Mavericks: Select Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion, Mavericks and click on the Install button. Be sure to select the correct drive to use if you have more than one.
Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet if possible because it is three times faster than wireless.
This may restore the version of OS X originally pre-installed on the computer.

Can I recover my system by reinstalling Mountain Lion from boot USB on my failed Mavericks OS?

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