Clean install Moutain Lion

Hi,
I just bought a 15" Macbook Pro, and I want to change my HDD for an SSD. I have seen tutorial where people use the installESD.dmg file to create a bootable partition on a USB drive, but since Mountain Lion came with my Macbook, I don't have this file. How could I do this?
thank you!

genevievefromlaval wrote:
I have seen tutorial where people use the installESD.dmg file to create a bootable partition on a USB drive
You don't do this, this is for people who have upgraded from 10.6 and thus downloaded the file from the AppStore.
If you switch your boot drive for a SSD, Internet Recovery will kick in and reinstall OS X for you, as you just have purchased a new 15" machine.
However you need to setup your new Mac with WIFI and AppleID etc. on the original drive I beleive, because Internet Recovery is ran from firmware, downloaded from Apple's servers and with the SSD being blank, that WIFI info has to get into firmware somehow.
Not sure, but that's how I would go about it.
https://support.apple.com/kb/HT4718
Now if you've already set up your machine and have programs, files etc., on it and want to image that, then you will need a external drive and Carbon Copy Cloner, which you will be able to hold the option key and boot from the clone drive and use CCC to reverse clone onto the Macintosh HD partition once Internet Recovery has done it's thing first.
Most commonly used backup methods

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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!

I need to do a clean install with Lion. How do I do this. I can't find any doc. to tell me the procedure.

I need to do a clean install with Lion. How do I do this. I can't find any doc. to tell me the procedure.

Follow the instructions at the link I posted
have a lot of old stuff transferred from Mac to Mac to Mac that is slowing down everything
If that included Power PC apps, read here > Lion upgrade questions and answers: Apple Support Communities

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.

Can I do a clean install of Lion, onto my Mac Book Pro4,1, that is currently running 10.5.8? I have seen U-tube videos on how to do a clean install to Snow Leopard, and another from SL to Lion, but can zero out my HD, and do a clean install to Lion?

Can I do a clean install of Lion, onto my Mac Book Pro4,1, that is currently running 10.5.8? I have seen U-tube videos on how to do a clean install to Snow Leopard, and another from SL to Lion, but can zero out my HD, and do a clean install to Lion?

See this article.

Is it possible ro clean install Mountain Lion over Mavericks on a brand new mac mini

Is it possible to "clean Install" mountain lion over mavericks on a brand new mac mini

Actually evrything I can find states that the last mini to run SL was 2010.
It appears that the 2012 mini's shipped with Mountain Lion and later Mavericks. Link
Also why would the OP need a bootable SL installation media when they want to install ML?

My Contacts, Calendars are NOT syncing on a Clean Install of Lion

I did a Clean Install of Lion Yesterday and for some reason, my Contacts and Calendars are NOT syncing into my laptop.
Am I missing a setting somewhere?

I forgot to mention, the ODD thing, my bookmarks DID sync into Safari.

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...

How do I do a clean install from Lion download

how do I do a clean install from Lion download ?
My old tower will only stretch to Lion which I have had to download and installed it following the instructions.
My local Applestore genius has told me to do a clean install but I don't have or can't find a copy of the Lion osX to use.
Applegadge

Welcome to the Apple Support Communities
If you are already using OS X Lion, use OS X Recovery to reinstall OS X and erase the disk. See > http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4718
Follow these steps:
1. Make a backup of the data you don't want to lose after erasing the hard disk.
2. Start your computer holding Command and R keys to start in OS X Recovery, and open Disk Utility.
3. Choose "Macintosh HD" or the OS X partition in the sidebar, go to the Erase tab and erase the disk.
4. Close Disk Utility and reinstall OS X

New boot drive and a clean install of Lion

I have a Mac Pro with multiple internal hard drives. My Lightroom catalogs are on one disk, my actual photos are on another, and my OS is on a 3rd. I recently decided to upgrade my 7200rpm SATA boot drive to SSD. In the process, I also did a clean install of Lion. None of my data was moved, as it was all on separate internal drives.
I have the new OS installed, and I reinstalled Lightroom 3. I should also mention that whenever I import files from CF cards (using a card reader), I import as DNG. I only shoot RAW.
When I launch Lightroom and look at my previous work, or the shoot that I was working on prior to the upgrade, I notice that (at least) the following is missing: flags, ratings, edits. I think I can live without the flags and ratings (though I would love to get them back), but I thought the whole idea of DNG was to store the sidecar "edits" file with the RAW file in one package. Shouldn't I be able to see my crops, treatments, localized brush edits, etc.?
What am I doing wrong and what can I do to remedy the situation?
Thanks very much in advance.

You need the original catalog file. You should have copied this over to your new instillation and then just opened it, rather than reimporting files.
If, as you seem to be saying, your catalog is not on the OS disk then all you need to do is open this after reinstalling LR, rather than creating a new catalog as you seem to have done. Just find the original catalog and open it from LR, or double click on it from Finder when LR is closed.
If you have not kept a copy of the catalog file, then you could use your most recent back up of the catalog, hopefully you made regular backups using LR's backup system and did this to a separate drive.
However if you have re imported the files then any edits that have been actually saved to the files will be read by LR. You do have to actually write the edits to the files, either by choosing to do this automatically in LR's preferences or by clicking on the update metadata in LR, otherwise these edits are not written to the files (or as xmp files when using propitiatory file types. If you didn't write the changes to file then LR has nothing to read.

How can I wipe my hard drive and clean install Mountain Lion?

Hi I have a 21.5 inch mid 2011 iMac running Mountain Lion, I want to wipe my hard drive and clean install Mountain Lion. I dont want all my stuff back, just photos and music, the rest I'll reinstall my self. I also dont have a exteranl harddrive. only two USB's one 2 GB and the other 8 GB. How do I do this? And I dont want to pay for mountain lion again. Thanks!

I made my partition and am currently reinstalling mountain lion to put on my flash drive. I'm using Lion disk maker 2 thats compatible with mountain lion. I'm doing it right, correct?

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.

Reinstall Apple software after clean install of Lion on 2009 IMac

Completed a clean install of Lion on 2009 IMac, which initially reacted poorly to an upgrade (my first attempt to move to Lion). How do I reinstall iPhoto, Garageband, Aperture, Final Cut Express, iMovie, Logic Express? These were all preinstalled with original purchase. How would I find the serial numbers that will inevitably be asked for? The App store wants to charge for these items, and other non-Apple software I've purchased for the App store won't download again. Multiple issues! Any suggestions?

You'll need to use the DVD's that should have accompanied your system when you bought it.
Prior to the App Store when you purchased a system from Apple that included installed software such as iLile or Final Cut the DVD's were always included in the box. The serial numbers will be on the DVD boxes or DVD's themselves.
regards
Concerning the App Store purchases if you long into the APp Store using the same Apple ID you used when you bought the software you should be able to download again without charge. At least this is how it works for Apple software don;t know if 3rd party stuff has different rules

Clean install of Lion from USB/DVD

When i try to make a clean install of Lion on my imac late 2009 and my macbook pro 2010, it hang when it comes to registration of apple id. Nothing happen. I also tried to skip the register prosess with cmd+Q but no luck... This is very strange because it happens on both my mac? When i install orginal DVD first and uppgrade to Lion, there is no problem at all?

Download only.

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.

Clean install Moutain Lion

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