Can I simply clean install lion on a fresh hard drive?

This nonsense: To upgrade your Mac to OS X Lion, you must be running OS X Snow Leopard. If you have OS X v10.5 Leopard, purchase OS X v10.6 Snow Leopard now and install it on your Mac. Then buy OS X Lion as a digital download from the Mac App Store- seems very very un-apple.
So let me get this straight: I have to install an outdated OS (snow Leopard) in order to install Lion. ???
Remember when an OS was self contained, not an add-on upgrade feature?
I am puzzled- I would simply like to boot my mac pro from leopard (current os), and install LION on a newly placed, freshly formatted internal hard drive on
same computer. Why would i need to have the intermediary step?
The folks at apple store couldn't answer- even the genius folk weren't sure- dissappointing at best-
Any help appreciated.

So the workaround is the flash drive?
I'd rather pay more to keep less code written to my machine-
it just makes no sense togo the other route-
I am genuinely dismayed that apple seems to have
hit (past tense) it's heyday, and now i watch as Windows-type logic
slowly infiltrates the once so ultra efficient, no nonsense MCintosh
ideology..........

Similar Messages

Can i clean install Lion into my Macintosh HD drive and leave Bootcamp as it is?

I would like to clean install Lion into my Macintosh HD drive and leave the bootcamp drive without getting affected from it...
is it possible or do i have to do the install on all the drive?

If you have the Lion installer application in your Applications folder, then I suggest you make a copy in your Downloads folder because the installer deletes itself automatically after the installation. By saving it you can make your own USB installer:
Make Your Own Lion Installer
1. After downloading Lion you must first save the Install Mac OS X Lion application. After Lion downloads DO NOT click on the Install button. Go to your Applications folder and make a copy of the Lion installer. Move the copy into your Downloads folder. Now you can click on the Install button. You must do this because the installer deletes itself automatically when it finishes installing Lion.
2. Get a USB flash drive that is at least 8 GBs. Prep this flash drive as follows:
Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, 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. 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.
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.
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.
Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
3. Locate the saved Lion installer in your Downloads folder. CTRL- or RIGHT-click on the installer and select Show Package Contents from the contextual menu. Double-click on the Contents folder to open it. Double-click on the SharedSupport folder. In this folder you will see a disc image named InstallESD.dmg.
4. Plug in your freshly prepared USB flash drive. You are going to clone the InstallESD.dmg disc image to the flash drive as follows:
Open Disk Utility.
Select the USB flash drive from the left side list.
Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
Check the box labeled Erase destination.
Select the USB flash drive volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
Drag the InstallESD.dmg disc image file into the Source entry field.
Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
When the clone is completed you have a fully bootable Lion installer that you can use without having to re-download Lion.
However, if you don't do this you can always redownload the installer by using OS X Lion- About Lion Recovery or by reinstalling Snow Leopard 10.6.8.

If I want to install Lions on a 2nd hard drive in my MacPro Desktop, will it allow me to do so if I have Leopard installed on the boot drive?

I have a blank 2nd hard drive that I am going to install in my MacPro desktop. The boot drive already contains the Leopard operating system. I want to install Lions on the blank hard drive. Will setup in Lions when it comes out, allow me to install Lions onto the 2nd hard drive since it should detect that I have a valid Apple operating system on the boot drive?

You can first install Snow Leopard then re-download Lion. Or you saved the original installer application then created a bootable Lion installer on a USB flash drive or DVD. Or you buy Apple's $69.00 USB flash installer.
You haven't told us what hindrances you've encountered, so you should post your own separate topic related to your problem and not threadjack another person's topic.

I am having trouble installing Lion on a partitioned hard drive. Help?

Aloha:
I am having trouble installing Lion on a partitioned hard drive
I have three internal HD's The first I am running the system on 10.6.8 (which is up to date) , the second I do most of my work on and the third I have partitioned into two and I am trying to install Lion on one of the patitions.
But Lion has decided it will only go on the first HD.
Above is the one I want to put it on, but it's not available and I can't change the partition scheme. None of the things the directions state are usable??
What might I be doing wrong?
Thanks
Dan Page

Thanks again for a rapid responce.
I finally got lion on one partition and my daily "SilverKeeper" backup on the other.
Since the only thing I had on the two partition Hard drive was the back up and since the backup would get put on tonight any way I changed the drive to no partitions. This gave me the ability to choose the GUID option, which I did and then I installed two partitions and successfuly istalled Lion on one of them. I even tied Lion into the iCloud successfuly.
But I am not out of the woods yet! I brought My brand new iPad to lunch and was informed that my iPad was synced to my Lion at home and I was on the cloud. That blew my mind, I was impressed.
I then read the Daily news with out problem, however, when I shut down my iPad, that was all she wrote. I can not get the iPad back on. The best I could do was see the revolving gear start and then freeze. It's on charge now and I can not even get rid of the frozen gear.
Not sure this all has anything to do with the recent installation on my main computer, but it's mighty suspicious.
Need some help!!
Thanks
Dan

How do I install lion and format the hard drive?

How do I install lion and format the hard drive, as though this was a new mac.

If your Mac is a 2011 model and originally came with Lion Pre-Installed by Apple then you can use the Internet Recovery HD system to Wipe/Erase the Complete drive and Re-Install Lion.
If it is an older model, even and early 2011 model, that did NOT come with Lion Pre-Installed by Apple you can not sell or give it away with Lion installed on it. You have to install the original version of OS X on it.

I downloaded and installed Lion on an external hard drive using my laptop which is running Snow Leopard I have now decided that I want to install Lion on my Laptop, but when I go to the App store and click on my purchases it will not download

I downloaded and installed Lion on an external hard drive using my laptop which is running Snow Leopard I have now decided that I want to install Lion on my Laptop, but when I go to the App store and click on my purchases it will not download again

Thanks Dirk,
Tried your suggestion various ways but it had no effect the download button was still greyed out and the install button would not activate will keep trying to find a solution. I dont want to boot from the external hard drive that has Lion on mainly because it is a usb HD and the connection to my wireless modem slows the connection rate and downloading would take about ten hours

Any ideas on how I install Lion on a new hard drive

Any ideas on how I might install Lion on a new hard drive when I purchased the OS online from Apple prior to my hard drive failing? I don't have a disk.

when you install your new drive, what happens? it should boot into internet recovery and you setup from there.
does it not do that?
here is an article about how to force internet recover http://www.cultofmac.com/106669/force-lion-to-start-internet-recovery-on-your-20 11-or-later-mac-os-x-tips/
here is apple literature about the recovery partition (if you had a hard drive) http://www.apple.com/osx/recovery/
here is a do it yourself downloader that makes a usb stick the recovery disk. If you have data on the usb drive I would back it up, as this will erase everything else on the thumb drive. http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1433

Macbook Pro with SSD (optibay) and HDD. Want to clean install with discs and move hard drives.

Hi all,
I have bought a used Macbook Pro 15' i5 Mid 2010 in brilliant condition. It came with original HDD in main Hard drive space and and SSD in an optibay. This all works fine and came with Mavericks already installed.
I want to start using the laptop like from new as there is nothing on there i currently need atm and dont want problems in the future with my apple id not being the original installer of mavericks. (had a similar problem previously on a used macbook white that had lion on)
What i want to do is erase and move the SSD to the main hard drive bay (have read this is preferred) and a clean install using install discs that came with it onto the SSD. Then install the HDD into the optibay or external enclosure and reinstall optical drive, not sure on that one yet.
My main questions are about the process i should use. There is nothing i need to back up or anything as this is effectively a new machine to me. Shall i simply erase the SSD (currently contains the OS) and install it in main hard drive bay and run install discs to install original OS (10.6.3)? Is it that simple? Any tips on erasing SSD would be useful also?
Also as the machine currently boots from the SSD that is in the optibay, is there anything that tells the machine to boot from that hard drive as apposed to the main HDD bay or does it just know? If there is, when i install the SSD into main hard drive bay how do i tell the machine i have done so and to boot from there?
The other thing i may do is buy a new SSD and do a new install on that and leave the current SSD in the optibay and use that for storage. Undecided on that yet.
Any help will be much appreciated. Thanks.
Sam

To do what you want, and the only way to do what you want legally and physically, you will need a set of Original System Reinstall DVD Discs. Without them you can't do what you want as the install of Mavericks that is now on it is TIED to the previous owners Apple ID and can not be transferred and or Reinstalled without knowing that persons Apple ID. And even iof you knew it it would still be TIED to that Apple ID and not yours.
So did the previous owner supply the Original System Reinstall DVD disc Set? If not you will need to order them from Apple.

Can I install windows on a fresh hard drive?

I'm installing a fresh hard drive into a macbook pro, I'm wondering if the hard drive will accept a windows 7 disc to install as OS, or will it only accept OSX, and if I'd have to go through bootcamp.

Yes, it's a complete OS. But if you have an empty HDD to setup you will need to install the original OS X that came on the computer originally. If it came with Lion or later:
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:
1. Select Disk Utility from the main menu and click on the Continue button.
2. 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.
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 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 should restore the version of OS X originally pre-installed on the computer.
If it had an earlier version of OS X:
Clean Install of Snow Leopard
Be sure to make a backup first because the following procedure will erase
the drive and everything on it.
     1. Boot the computer using the Snow Leopard Installer Disc or the Disc 1 that came
         with your computer. Insert the disc into the optical drive and restart the computer.
         After the chime press and hold down the "C" key. Release the key when you see
         a small spinning gear appear below the dark gray Apple logo.
     2. 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 hard drive entry from the left side list (mfgr.'s ID and drive
         size.) Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window. Set the number of
         partitions to one (1) from the Partitions drop down menu, click on Options button
         and select GUID, click on OK, then set the format type to MacOS Extended
         (Journaled, if supported), then click on the Apply button.
     3. When the formatting has completed quit DU and return to the installer. Proceed
         with the OS X installation and follow the directions included with the installer.
     4. When the installation has completed your computer will Restart into the Setup
         Assistant. Be sure you configure your initial admin account with the exact same
         username and password that you used on your old drive. After you finish Setup
         Assistant will complete the installation after which you will be running a fresh
         install of OS X. You can now begin the update process by opening Software
         Update and installing all recommended updates to bring your installation current.
Download and install Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1.

After installing Lion, my iomega ex. hard drive no longer recognized for time machine

Is all my back up gone? Lion does not see the iomega external hard drive. No more automatic backup? How can I restore to Leopard if Lion doesn't recogize the Iomega?

Thank you Jon for your reply.
I forgot to mention that I am actually in the process of becoming a certified apple portable hardware technician. Just started going through the training program.
I've taken many Apple computers apart and replaced most everything in them. I had to replace my original hard drive from Apple a few months ago after it was having serious problems.
I am familiar with DiskWarrior and such programs. But that's just the thing. The Hard drive is coming back with no errors and is working fine when attached to the iBook externally via Firewire.
I was thinking it has something to do with the logic board. But being I am not quite that advanced in my tech training I am unable to answer the problem on my own.

Trying to install Leopard on a fresh hard drive

UGGGH.... Mindbending problem here.
I've got a two year old Macbook. It was acting very strange (total reinstall of Leopard resulted in some random old programs showing up in new OS), and for a variety of reasons Apple told me aI needed a new hard drive. Since it was out of warranty I bought one myself and installed it.
I install it fine, load from a DIFFERENT Macbook's Leopard Install Disc One (I can't find my original Tiger one) and it gets to the install screen. I select English as my language. It says "Installing software" for two seconds before it says "Mac OS X can not be installed on this computer". That's it. It brings be to the normal Leopard install menu. I run Disc Doctor or whatever it's called, it says the hard drive is fine. I formatted it and named it "Macintosh HD". Still doesn't work. Every time I try to boot from this DVD it says OS X can't be installed. Most frustrating error message ever. I have Time Machine, so I connect to my network and try to install from a Time Machine backup, no luck.
What's worse, I have a spare Leopard DVD install disc from when I originally upgraded from Tiger without a problem last year. I put it in the Macbook's DVD drive, hold down C, and it won't boot from it. It just reads the disc, sits there for a second, and ejects the disc. EVERY TIME.
So this Leopard Install Disc One that came with a different Macbook tells me OS X can't be installed. The regular Leopard DVD keeps getting ejected when I try to boot from it.
What the **** is going on with this thing?

you can't use an install disk that came with a different computer. It's hardware specific and it won't work as you've found out. It's also against ULA. You need to use a retail version of leopard DVD. it sounds like the one you've used before is defective. just in case try cleaning the old leopard disk and using it again. also, try cleaning your DVD drive. you can get a DVD cleaner (it's a disk with brushes at the bottom). if all of this fails get a new leopard install DVD.
P.S.since you have access to another macbook, try booting it from your old leopard DVD. If it boots, boot your macbook in target mode, connect it to the other one and install leopard from there.
Message was edited by: V.K.

Install OSX on a fresh hard drive

I have a 2009 17inch Macbook pro and just swapped out the old hard drive for a new 1TB 7200rpm hard drive. How do I transfer the OS from my old drive to the new hard drive on my macbook?

First of all, if you have not got one, get a USB to SATA adapter. This will allow you to connect the old hard drive to one of the USB ports of your computer.
Then, after connecting it, your Mac should start up from the old hard drive automatically. If not, hold the Option (Alt) key while your Mac is starting up and choose your old hard drive (probably labelled as "Macintosh HD").
After starting up, open Disk Utility (in /Applications/Utilities) and use it to format the new hard drive with a GUID partition table and "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" as "Format" > http://pondini.org/OSX/DU1.html
Finally, Disk Utility provides you a feature that allows you to clone partitions to another drive, so you can use it to transfer your files to the new hard drive > http://pondini.org/OSX/DU7.html Choose your old hard drive as "Source" and the new hard drive as "Destination".
When you have finished, turn off your Mac, unplug the old hard drive and turn your Mac on

I work for a university and we have a legal apple vendor.Can we re-install macosx for a replacement hard drive for a old macbook?Just one example.

I work for a university and we have a legal apple vendor who we get to buy all our Apple products from.Can we (university) re-install macosx for a replacement hard drive once the hard drive gets replaced? How can we as the university IT department legally re-install macosx on a imac,macbook, macbookair etc. We would like to load customized macosx imaging software onto the mac machines(imac, macbook, etc ). The university has its own IT workshop and we would like our users to get their laptops back in the shortest turnaround time.

We're not "Apple Inc." here, just users like you.
So whatever we say is not an official statement, nor does it in any way, shape, or form represent the official or unofficial policies or opinions of Apple, Inc.
But I'll offer my quick opinion, having worked in information-systems and technology support in a wide variety of environments over many years.
Question #1. "NO!"
No tech support nor repair facility, even if "Apple-authorized", is automatically empowered to install or upgrade OS X on a replacement hard drive just because it is more convenient or time-efficient. When the repair is complete, the student should be expected to (re)install the operating system themself*!
Nurturing students (and occasionally dragging them, screaming and kicking!) as budding computer-, tablet-, smartphone-users to become digitally self-sufficient is a worthy goal that any institution of higher education must pursue.
Making students totally dependent upon "Mother Support" for every little thing about their personal digital devices is a grave disservice to both the students and the people who provide the support. Support-mothered students do become life-long digital dependents, instead of taking the required time to learn enough about the care and feeding of their digital "pets" to sustain them. Entreprenurial students may choose to become 'experts' and actually help each other with their devices, and even make money doing it. Some students may even be inspired/coerced to pursue a career in tech support!!!
*By all means, if the student requests additional help (re-installing the OS), then the University should charge the student a fair price for the service, provided that the user provides the OS on original or upgrade media, or in the case of the 'digital download' upgrades (for OS X 10.7 and 10.8) provides proof of purchase for the OS upgrade, or the original purchase receipt or other recognized documentation for the purchase of the computer showing the version of OS installed when purchased. Students need to learn about personal responsibility, economics ("What is MY time really worth"?), and proper record-keeping too!
Question #2. Regarding the customized imaging software, provide it on media or a link for students to download and install it. Make it their responsibility!
Message was edited by: kostby

Clean Install Lion Dsik Mount Problem - "(Illegal Seek)"

I'm trying to create a bootable USB so I can clean install Lion on my mac. However, when I try and burn the .dmg file onto my USB I get an error message along the lines of "Unable to create "installesd.dmg - (Illegal seek)".
The USB (4GB) is Mac formatted. I have tried using my Mac formatted iPod (60GB) as well but that doesn't work either.
Does anyone have any ideas?
Thanks

Hi Arun, have you migrated any data into your clean Lion installation yet? I'm curious to learn about the startup speed of such a clean installation.
While i simply updated from Snow Leopard i'm experiencing a significantly slowed-down startup. I wonder whether it's worth to start from scratch and first update to Lion and then manually install all my applications and data.
Thank you.

Clean install lion when already on Lion?

How do I clean install lion when i'm already on lion?

Your best bet would be to create a Lion Boot Disc which is actually quite easy with the OS X Lion installer and Disk Utility. The problem is that since your are already running Lion, I don't think it will allow you to re-download it to make the boot disc. One option would be to clean install Snow Leopard, download the OS X Lion installer from the Mac App Store and make the boot disc. It would be easier to use another computer that already has Snow Leopard installed and fully updated to make the boot disc. All you would have to do is sign into the App Store on the other computer and Lion should be under purchased, just don't forget to log out if the other computer is not your own. Regardless, here are the instructions on making a Lion Boot Disc:
Performing a clean install of Lion is easy once you create a Lion Boot Disc. How do I create a Lion Boot Disc, you ask? That's easy too! Just follow these instructions: http://www.macrumors.com/2011/07/18/make-an-os-x-lion-boot-disc/
The fact is that the Lion installer is packaged around a bootable disk image that can easily be burned to a standard 4.7GB DVD. With the boot disk you can run disk utility to erase your Mac, and then clean install just like you could with every other version of Mac OS X. Just don't forget to backup all your data!!!

Can I simply clean install lion on a fresh hard drive?

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