How do I reinstall Lion to sell my Mac?

I have an iMac Mid-2011 model that I bought from the Apple store. The machine came without installation disks, so I assume it had Lion installed when I bought it. I have since purchased and installed Mountain Lion.
I am now selling the iMac, so I have booted to the recovery partition and run Disk Utility to erase the main hard disk.
Now I want to reinstate Lion so that the buyer will receive the computer as if it had come new from the Apple Store.
I tried to reinstall Lion using the Mac OS Utility and it announced that it would install Mountain Lion, not Lion. It then asked me for my Apple ID and password.
What I would like to know is:
1. Can I just put the machine back to its origianl Lion configuration, as if it had just come from the Apple store
2. If I enter my Apple ID and password, when the buyer gets the machine will he be able to continue to use Lion and will my Apple ID and password be at risk?

Follow these instructions step by step to prepare a Mac for sale:
Step One - Back up your data:
If you have any Virtual PCs shut them down. They cannot be in their "fast saved" state. They must be shut down from inside Windows.
Clone to an external drive using using Carbon Copy Cloner.
Open Carbon Copy Cloner.
Select the Source volume from the Select a source drop down menu on the left side.
Select the Destination volume from the Select a destination drop down menu on the right side.
Click on the Clone button. If you are prompted about creating a clone of the Recovery HD be sure to opt for that.
Destination means a freshly erased external backup drive. Source means the internal startup drive.
Step Two - Prepare the machine for the new buyer:
De-authorize the computer in iTunes! De-authorize both iTunes and Audible accounts.
Remove any Open Firmware passwords or Firmware passwords.
Turn the brightness full up and volume nearly so.
Step Three - Install a fresh OS:
  A. Snow Leopard and earlier versions of OS X
Insert the original OS X install CD/DVD that came with your computer.
Restart the computer while holding down the C key to boot from the CD/DVD.
Select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu; repartition and reformat the internal hard drive (optionally zero all data).
Install OS X.
Upon completion DO NOT restart the computer.
Shutdown the computer.
          B. Lion and Mountain Lion (if pre-installed on the computer at purchase)*
Restart the computer while holding down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears.
Select Disk Utility from the main menu and click on the Continue button.
After DU loads select your startup volume (usually Macintosh HD) 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 Erase button and wait until the process has completed.
Quit DU and return to the main menu.
Select Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion and click on the Install button.
Upon completion shutdown the computer
Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet if possible because it is three times faster than wireless.
*If your computer came with Lion or Mountain Lion pre-installed then you are entitled to transfer your license once. If you purchased Lion or Mountain Lion from the App Store then you cannot transfer your license to another party. In the case of the latter you should install the original version of OS X that came with your computer. You need to repartition the hard drive as well as reformat it; this will assure that the Recovery HD partition is removed. See Step Three above. You may verify these requirements by reviewing your OS X Software License.

Similar Messages

  • How can I reinstall Lion after putting in a new hard drive?

    Hi, I recently had a new hard drive put on my imac27. When I rebooted it I noticed that the Apple store had set it back to Snow Leapard. How can I reinstall Lion without making a new purchase, Thanks.

    Log into the Mac App Store with your original Apple ID. The redownload is free.
    (68116)

  • How do I reinstall Lion when I bought it online and I dont have it

    Hi how can I reinstall Lion on my computer w/o installing first SL and then Lion.
    I just want to install Lion.
    The other problem is that I bought it online and I dont have the dmg.
    Cheers

    Boot up holding command-r keys into Lion Recovery Volume.
    The screen should give you these choices...
    Restore from TM backup
    Reinstall Mac OS X
    Get help online
    Disk Utility

  • How can I reinstall Lion on a replacement HD?

    The HD on my Mac Mini [Mid 2009] seemed to be dying.  Disk Utility confirmed that the Drive was on its way out.  So, I did a complete backup to TM, and since the Drive still seemed to be operating, I made a clone of it using Carbon Copy Cloner.
    I had the Drive replaced, and have spent the last two evenings searching for the answer on how to put everything back on my Drive.  I was thinking I needed to reinstall Lion and THEN restore the files from either TM or Carbon Copy Cloner.  The trouble is that the Mini won't boot without Lion [or a predecessor] already installed.
    I THINK I can boot from my external drive -- the one to which I saved the Carbon Copy Cloner backup -- but I'm not sure.  Before trying that, is there a way to reinstall Lion on the Mini?  [Without Snow Leopard on it, I don't have the App Store, so I can't simply D/L Lion again from the App Store.  I saw Apple's KB article which noted: If you happen to encounter a situation in which you cannot start from the Recovery HD, such as your hard drive stopped responding or you installed a new hard drive without Mac OS X installed, new Mac models introduced after public availability of OS X Lion automatically use the Lion Internet Recovery feature if the Recovery HD (Command-R method above) doesn't work. Lion Internet Recovery lets you start your Mac directly from Apple's Servers. The system runs a quick  test of your memory and hard drive to ensure there are no hardware issues.
    Since I "happened" to encounter a situation where I cannot start from the Recovery HD -- and I don't have a "new Mac Model,"  how do I reinstall Lion on my Mini?
    Thanks for your help.

    Thank you for the response.
    That's exactly what I did -- down to the finger crossing.  Unfortunately, no joy --despite the season.
    Despite several other Macs around the house we apparently don't have a Stand Alone copy of Snow Leopard, which would at least let me re-download Lion.  I DID find a boxed Vers. of Leopard, which is how I got the Mini to boot in the first place.
    The Mini will boot off of the external, and all my files appear to be there and working.  But despite having copied it all over to the Mini, it won't boot -- it just hangs at the Gray Boot-up screen.
    This sure would be a lot easier if I hadn't bought Lion off of the App store.  Without discs to work from I'm having a hard time recovering from a dead HD.
    Thank you, again for the help.  Merry Christmas!

  • Is there a fix for the WIFI problem with Lion? How can I get Lion off of my Mac?

    Is there a fix for the WIFI problem with Lion? How can I get Lion off of my Mac?

    gmiller0 wrote:
    My mac has 10.7.3 and will not connect to wifi after it wakes up. Have contacted AppleCare but the problem cannot seem to be resolved.. I guess this is a major issue with Lion:(
    What model of Mac?  I have a MBP running 10.7.3 and do not have that issue.  From the other couple of posts I've seen about it, it seems to be maybe an issue with some iMacs?  Have your tried searching the Lion or iMac forums for similar issues, just to see if anyone has hit on why it is happening?

  • How do I reinstall Lion?

    I just installed lion but I had some problems. The thing is that I had a lot of applications in folders in the applications folder. And the ones in the folders are still there even though I have got new ones. For exampel are there now two iCal, Safari, Mail, App Store and so on. I can remove some by dragging it to the trash can, but not all of them dissappears when I empying it. So I'm thing about reinstall Lion so all of the duplicaties dissappears. So, how do I do?

    BackupLion Bootable 10.7  Disk
    Purchaseand download Lion from the Mac App Store on any Lion compatible Macrunning Snow Leopard.
    Right click on “Mac OS X Lion”     installer and choose the option to “Show Package Contents.”
    Inside the Contents folder that     appears you will find a SharedSupport folder and inside the     SharedSupport folder you will find the “InstallESD.dmg.” This is     the Lion boot disc image we have all been waiting for.
    Copy “InstallESD.dmg” to     another folder like the Desktop.
    Launch Disk Utility and click the     burn button.
    Select the copied “InstallESD.dmg” as the image to burn,     insert a standard sized 4.7 GB DVD, and wait for your new Lion Boot     Disc to come out toasty hot.
    With this disc you can boot any Lion compatible Mac, and install10.7 just like you installed previous version of Mac OS X. You caneven use Disk Utility's Restore function to image your Lion boot discimage onto a external drive suitable for performing a clean installon a optical-drive-less MacBook Air, or Mac mini server. Cleaninstalls with Lion are easy once you find where Apple has hidden theboot disk.

  • So...how do I reinstall Lion?

    Let's say my hard drive completely fails. Or that i want to replace my MacBook's hard drive and I want to reinstall Lion on the new one. How can I do that if I haven't received any installation CD? I just bought my new MacBook Pro a week ago.

    As you have one of the recently released Mac's you use Internet Recovery
    You could also create a Recovery USB with Lion Recovery Disk Assistant

  • How do I reinstall Lion if I bought it on-line.

    I have just erased my HD & reinstalled the last dics I have , Snow L, but can not figure out how to reinstall Lion. I assume it is in my iTunes account somewhere.

    Hello:
    If you go to the App store, your purchase should be listed there.
    Barry

  • How do I reinstall Lion 10.7.5 from scratch?

    I was running 10.7.5 Lion on my non-retina 2012 Macbook Pro (MacBook Pro 9,1).
    I want to format the hard drive and reinstall the whole OS back to 10.7.5
    Tried using purchased USB Lion installer. When I hold option on boot, then select the lion USB installer from the drives shown on the screen, I get the circle-slash symbol.
    Tried internet recovery. When I held cmd-R on boot, it went into Internet recovery mode, and took about 30 minutes for the progress bar under the 'spinning' globe to complete. After that, I went to disk utility and formatted the Hard drive. Then, I went to re-install the OS, but it wants to install Mountain Lion. I don't want Mountain Lion, I want Lion 10.7.5 -- we're using some legacy video software, which works much better with 10.7.4 or 10.7.5 than anything newer.
    How do I reinstall my machine back to 10.7.5?

    Command + option + R
    After 15 minutes of downloading from the web, it seems to do the same thing as:
    Command + R
    in other words, it still wants to install Mountain Lion and not Lion.
    Any other thoughts?

  • How do I reinstall Lion using Lion Recovery but bypassing the Apple ID?

    Okay, so I've sorta had this done before at a Genius Bar on another coputer.
    My friend (who has a MacBook, like me) bought Lion and gave me and my girlfriend (who has a MacBook Pro) a copy of it using my USB drive. My gf started having trouble with Lion so I took her Pro to the Apple Store. The guy said it was acting funny because the drivers on a Pro are a little different than those on a regular MacBook. The Apple Store employee showed me how to reinstall Lion so that all the drivers would match up with her computer.
    We restarted the computer and held down Option to begin the Lion Recovery. From there we followed instructions to reinstall Lion from the cloud (Apple Servers, right?). When we got to the part where it asks for an Apple ID, well I don't remember exactly how he did it but he must have bypassed it somehow because I don't know my friend's Apple ID and I never asked him for it. From there it was super simple and everything went smoothly; Lion installed and started up like a whole new computer. Now I want to do all this at home with my laptop but I don't know how to bypass this. I can't ask my friend for his Apple ID and obviously mine won't work cuz I never bought Lion. Does anyone know how to bypass this?

    We are not intending to help you. We are intending to shame you for stealing copyrighted software that only costs $19.99 (Mountain Lion is the only version now available). It seems no matter how cheap the price, people still want to steal it, and then ask for help right here on Apple's forum when they can't get it to work.
    As for the Apple Store employee, he used his own Apple ID and should be fired for doing that, since he admitted to you that the trouble came from copying an installed system rather than buying the installer and installing it properly.

  • HT201250 How can I reinstall Time Machine on my Mac? I just put it on my back up and all its content has disappeared.

    Could someone tell me if I can reinstall Time Machine on my mac? My back up has all my photos on it and time machine has deleted them all.

    Go to the Time Machine Preferences window and turn the big slider to OFF.  You might also select the "None" disk as a destination.
    Then erase or reformat the disk.  See Using Disk Utility if you're not sure how.

  • How do I reinstall Photoshop CC on my MAC?

    Ho do I reinstall Photoshop CC on my MAC?

    Run the cleaner tool and reinstall.
    Use the CC Cleaner Tool to solve installation problems | CC, CS3-CS6
    Mylenium

  • HT201272 How do I reinstall Lion on a new hard drive?

    My hard drive crashed on my mid 2009 Macbook Pro a few months ago.  I've since upgraded to a new Macbook Retina for use as my main computer.  Yesterday I fixed the hard drive in the Mid 2009 but I would really like to reinstall OSX Lion.  How do I do it?  I purchased Lion from I tunes on the computer that I would like to reinstall it on.
    All the best. 

    Hey Old TIme
    You should be able to do this if you have the Mac App Store on your computer. Just go there and check your purchases. So as long as you are running 10.6.8 you should be able to get this done. If you do not, you can create a Recovery Disk Assistant on a USB Drive from your MacBook Pro Retina. The steps are outlined in the article below.
    OS X: About Recovery Disk Assistant
    http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4848
    Thanks for using Apple Support Communities.
    Regards,
    -Norm G.

  • How do i reinstall Lion OS from App store?

    I needed to reinstall a new harddrive and i only have snow leopard on my macbook pro now. i had previousy downloaded Lion from the app store but cant find it on there now. how do i re download Lion OS?

    Use the same Apple ID and password as you used to download it. It should be under "Purchases".

  • How do I reinstall Lion since I downloaded the software online?

    Would like to do a clean/erase install of lion to give my MBPro to a colleague at work. I purchased the Lion upgrade online so I don't believe I have any discs. Not sure how I would accomplish this? A first for me ...
    Any help???
    Thanks!

    If you do that, your colleague will need to have your AppleID to reinstall. You can't transfer your Lion installer to him. Wipe the machine with the Snow Leopard disc, reinstall it, quit the setup parches, give it to his, along with all the previous discs that shipped with the machine, and let him use his AppleID to download and install Lion after setting it up with his username and password.

Maybe you are looking for

  • HT1386 ipod syncs but doesnt update new songs from the library to the ipod

    I had problems syncing my ipod touch, a message appeared on the computer, which said the itunes program was corrupted/damaged so it advised to reinstall itunes, which i did.  This wiped my library from the computer.  When i connected the ipod to the

  • Apple TV getting video or audio from external harddrive on wifi N

    The only way i can get media to sync is to put it on my mac book pro's harddrive. The external is connected by the airport new N. Has anyone had this problem, this bothers me to have to move data from a wireless external harddrive to the powerbook, j

  • Controling a LabVIEW VI from C#

    Hello, I'm writing a C# program that calls LabVIEW  VI's using the ActiveX automation interface. Getting started was quite straightforward (Load a VI, set/get simple parameters, run VI, etc...), but I could not figure out how to pass "clusters" from

  • Transfer purchased audiobook from iphone to laptop

    couldn't find this under discussions, sorry if I am asking an already answered q. I bought a book from itunes on my iphone, now I want to transfer it to my laptop itunes so i can burn onto disc. it doesn't seem to sync that direction. appreciate help

  • Address labels?

    I am very new to apple and would like to know how to make address lables by using my contact information OR by tryping in the information.  I just need to make labels!  Please help!