Mac OS Lion without an installation drive

How can i reset my MacBook Air 's password or reinstall built in apps like iLife without a optical or flash drive?
does anyone know a good online reference on how to reinstall mac os x lion on MacBook Air?
PS. I'm on a 256 bps connection, so downloading/ reinstalling mac os x over the internet is kind of impossible

I don't know if this is a forward looking question or a problem that you are already facing.
The answers above are the textbook Apple solution. More immediately, think about insurance using third party solutions. I would strongly recommend getting a backup disk or disks. Use both Time Machine to keep a history of your files and an app like SuperDuper or CarbonCopyCloner to create bootable backup images. If expense is a worry get one big disk - SuperDuper and TimeMachine can safely use the same disk (I don't know but expect that CCC can too). Practically it might be better to have more than one disk just to be sure but it does take a level of commitment and paranoia that most don't want to commit to!

Similar Messages

Easiest way to reinstall Mac OS X 10.6.8 over Lion without formatting hard drive!

What is the easiest way to reinstall Mac OS X 10.6.8 (Snow Leopard)
over Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion) without formatting the hard drive!
Any ideas?

You can do a dual boot.
In Lion, open Applications->Utilities->Disk Utility.
Click on the actual hard drive (not the 'Macintosh HD' partition).
Click on the 'Partitions' tab; then the + a the bottom of the 'Partition Layout'. Resize your new partition if you want.
Make sure the format is 'Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
Click Options and make sure the partition map scheme is GUID partition table. (can't remember if this is necessary).
Click Apply.
Insert your SL DVD and restart. During the restart press and hold 'C' so it boots from the DVD.
Choose your new partition to install SL.
One word of caution, you may lose your Lion Recovery HD partition. If so, you would need to reinstall Lion on top of itself to recreate it.
In terminal type... diskutil list and see if you see that partition after your SL install.

How to format my mac book pro without the installation disk ?

However, I do not have the installation disk. So the question remains as is the title: How do I format my Mac without the installation disk? i bought this mac book pro last year and im not sure if the warrantly is expired yet. If there is noway to format it without the disk, am i able to purchase the disk in apple store? Many thanks.

You don't. You need the installation disk. You can't buy the disk in an Apple store. You need to call AppleCare and order one. Have you serial number handy. To check your warranty status:
https://selfsolve.apple.com/agreementWarrantyDynamic.do

Switching From Mavericks Back To Mountain Lion (Without an Optical Drive)

So I normally am not one to post to a group asking for help (blame it on the mid-20's stubbornness), however I seem to have run into an encounter that I cannot exactly find via Google or through clever sleuthing. I have an Early 2008 Macbook Pro which I upgraded to Mavericks back in the early Spring. I currently would like to try to revert back to Mountain Lion or even possibily Lion, however my predicament is that I have unfortunately never ran a Time Machine backup (don't own an external) and my optical drive in the past couple of months has finally kicked the bucket. Since I'm unable to use the install cds to do a clean wipe and fresh install off of those, would anyone have a recommendation of what else I could do? Thank you so much and have a wonderful day.

You can only install Snow Leopard from an installer DVD. You can purchase one from the online Apple Store: Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard - Apple Store (U.S.). The price is $19.99 plus tax. You will be sent physical media by mail after placing your order.
Alternatively, you could relate what problems you have with Mavericks. Perhaps we can help with those.

Standard Mac users cannot eject Flash installer drive image

We recently distributed Flash to 130 macs and it defaulted for auto update. Whenever it auto updates, it mounts a flash player drive image to the desktop. Unfortunately all the users are standard users and they cannot eject the mounted drive image without an administrator logon. I have wasted hours logging into each computer to manually eject these drives. How can I reverse this behavior?
We are using apple remote desktop

Hello,
Since your users do not have Admin rights to install software, you'll want to disable auto-updates on each machine. The update settings are stored in the /Library/Application Support/mms.cfg file. You'll want to make sure the AutoUpdateDisable and SilentAutoUpdateEnable settings are configured as follows:
AutoUpdateDisable=1
SilentAutoUpdateEnable=0
This will disable ALL updates for these machines, as such, you'll want to distribute updates via some other mechanism to ensure your users have the latest secure versions when they're released.
Enterprise deployment information is documented in the Adobe Flash Player Administration Guide for Flash Player | Adobe Developer Connection.
Maria

Mac mini lion restore from USB drive - getting no-entry sign

I'm trying to recover my dead mac mini, and I'm having lots of problems. The disc is dead - I've booted in target mode and been able to reformat it from another machine, soit's working to that extent.
There's obviously no recovery system running now, and I need to get Lion running because Mountain Lion isn't supported.
I've created a few flash drives to boot from - downloading the lion install package, opening it, taking out the .dmg file and using disk utility to copy it - all as recommended by other advice.
Each time what happens is that the boot starts, then it hangs with a no-entry sign.
Any suggestions?

Which version of OS X came with your mini?

Reinstalling lion without wiping drive

i need to reinstall lion without wiping my drive because i haven't made a backup yet. how do i do this?
thanks.
carl

Can't you first make the backup?
Reinstalling Lion
Boot to the Recovery HD: Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alterhatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions: Upon startup select Disk Utility from the main menu. Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions as follows.
When the recovery menu appears select Disk Utility. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the main menu.
Reinstall Lion: Select Reinstall Lion and click on the Continue button.
Note: You can also re-download the Lion installer by opening the App Store application. Hold down the OPTION key and click on the Purchases icon in the toolbar. You should now see an active Install button to the right of your Lion purchase entry. There are situations in which this will not work. For example, if you are already booted into the Lion you originally purchased with your Apple ID or if an instance of the Lion installer is located anywhere on your computer.

MBP downgrade to SL from Lion without backup drive

Hi there,
I bought my 15 inch MBP only about 4 weeks ago with SL installed already on it.
Yes, I have made the mistake of upgrading to Lion and I have not made any backups at any point.
I am experiencing monitor crashes when I resume from sleep.
My MBP also did not come with a SL installation disc.
My question is simple - if I buy a copy of SL from the Apple store and install it - will it work?
Thank you.

As I answered in the other copy of this question you posted:
Purchase replacement discs from Apple: Apple Store Customer Service at 1-800-676-2775 or visit online Help for more information. To contact product and tech support visit online support site.
Purchase a copy of Snow Leopard which may work provided your computer doesn't require a special build of Snow Leopard.
However, I suspect reinstalling Lion may well fix your problem:
Reinstalling Lion Without the Installer
Boot to the Recovery HD: Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alterhatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions: Upon startup select Disk Utility from the main menu. Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions as follows.
When the recovery menu appears select Disk Utility. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the main menu.
Reinstall Lion: Select Reinstall Lion and click on the Continue button.
Note: You can also re-download the Lion installer by opening the App Store application. Hold down the OPTION key and click on the Purchases icon in the toolbar. You should now see an active Install button to the right of your Lion purchase entry. There are situations in which this will not work. For example, if you are already booted into the Lion you originally purchased with your Apple ID or if an instance of the Lion installer is located anywhere on your computer.

I locked my Macintosh HD, can i re install my os x lion without delete HD files?

Hi i am a new Mac user. I'm looking for help!!!
I have an iMac with OS X Lion, my problem is i changed Macintosh HD permissions and now i start iMac and of course it doesn't run just can see the Apple icon and the wheel spining. I think the solution is re install Lion os x BUT i have a problem I DON'T want to erease files inside my Macintosh HD because i don't have a backup!!
Note: i don't have any installation DVD Software.
It is possible recover my os x Lion without to erease my HD personal files??
PLEASE HELP ME!!!

Reinstalling Lion Without Erasing the Drive
Boot to the Recovery HD: Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions: Upon startup select Disk Utility from the main menu. Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions as follows.
When the recovery menu appears select Disk Utility. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the main menu.
Reinstall Lion: Select Reinstall Lion and click on the Continue button.
Note: You can also re-download the Lion installer by opening the App Store application. Hold down the OPTION key and click on the Purchases icon in the toolbar. You should now see an active Install button to the right of your Lion purchase entry. There are situations in which this will not work. For example, if you are already booted into the Lion you originally purchased with your Apple ID or if an instance of the Lion installer is located anywhere on your computer.

Lion Stopped Seeing External Drives

I've been running Lion on a 2.8 GHz, i7 13" MBP I bought new in January. When I got it, I partitioned the 750 GB hard drive into two drives so that I could create a second bootable Admin partition from which I could run repair and diagnostic software on my Main drive. (I run my computer pretty hard. Even sleep with it next to me. But that's another story....) Both partitions are running the latest version of Lion with all updates. I tend to mess very little with Terminal tweaks. And all of my software is either from a) A very well-known dev company, b) the Mac App store, or c) Rated very high with lots of reviews on MacUpdate. I run Virus Barrier, LittleSnitch, DriveGenius / Drive Pulse to help ensure everything is running fine. I have 50+GB of free space on my Main partition.
Yesterday, I was transferring data from one external 4TB G-Technologies RAID drive to another identical drive — daisy chaned over firewire 800. After copying the first 2TB, I kept getting Finder crashes after every few hundred GBs were transferred. Had to reboot after each crash because relaunching the finder would shut it down, but not bring it back up. Finally, after one of the crashes, the Main Lion partition I was working from stopped recognizing the external hard drives, except for in Disk Utility.
I booted to the Admin partition. That partition recognized the drives just fine. I ran every diagnostic possible on the Main partition. It checked out completely fine. Booted back to the Main partition. Still no ability to recognize the drives. Ran Lion recovery on the Main drive. Then ran all the re-needed software updates. Still no ability to recognize external drives. I haven't attempted to repair the external drives, since they are fully readable from the other partition.
Any ideas what might be going on? My next step is to copy the contents of my Main partition to an External drive from the Admin partition and then wipe and do a clean install of Lion on the Main partition. I'd much prefer to just be able to do a clean install of Lion without wiping my drive or data — the way we used to be able to do reinstalls back in the day. But I don't have that option from the cloud installation and I can't find any articles to see if that option would be available if I were to create a bootable USB of lion. I'd like to not spend the money on a Lion download if it won't be able to do this kind of system reinstall for me. If it can, I'm thinking my problem will be solved....
Has anyone tried this kind of reinstall from a bootable Lion USB? Does it work? Help....

Please read this whole message before doing anything.
This procedure is a diagnostic test. It’s unlikely to solve your problem. Don’t be disappointed when you find that nothing has changed after you complete it.
The purpose of this exercise is to determine whether the problem is caused by third-party system modifications that load automatically at startup or login. Disconnect all wired peripherals except those needed for the test, and remove all aftermarket expansion cards. Boot in safe mode* and log in to the account with the problem. The instructions provided by Apple are as follows:
Be sure your Mac is shut down.
Press the power button.
Immediately after you hear the startup tone, hold the Shift key. The Shift key should be held as soon as possible after the startup tone, but not before the tone.
Release the Shift key when you see the gray Apple icon and the progress indicator (looks like a spinning gear).
*Note: If FileVault is enabled under Mac OS X 10.7 or later, or if a firmware password is set, you can’t boot in safe mode.
Safe mode is much slower to boot and run than normal, and some things won’t work at all, including wireless networking on certain Macs.
The login screen appears even if you usually log in automatically. You must know your login password in order to log in. If you’ve forgotten the password, you will need to reset it before you begin.
Test while in safe mode. Same problem(s)?
After testing, reboot as usual (i.e., not in safe mode) and verify that you still have the problem. Post the results of the test.

Imac mid 2007 with mac ox lion reformat with what os

hi i have a imac mid 2007 and i have with mac os x lion with it and i wanna reformat it because its so slow what os do i will install again?

You may just need to reinstall, not reformat:
Reinstalling Lion/Mountain Lion Without Erasing the Drive
Boot to the Recovery HD: Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions: Upon startup select Disk Utility from the main menu. Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions as follows.
When the recovery menu appears select Disk Utility. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the main menu.
Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion: Select Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion and click on the Continue button.
Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet if possible because it is three times faster than wireless.

Stolen computer how download bought programs without a cd-drive?

I have bought lightroom 4 and adobe creative suite 6 design standard on cd´s.
Now got a new mac book pro without a cd-drive. How do i Install the programs on my new computer.
Thanks in advance
Jonna

You can copy installer on some other computer take it to this computer in a Flash Drive/ USB Pen Drive
or you can also download the creative suite 6 design standard from : http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/tdrc/index.cfm?product=design_standard and you can download lightroom 4 from : http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/tdrc/index.cfm?product=photoshop_lightroom&promoid&promoid=DT EML

Reinstalling lion WITOUT wiping the drive

i need to reinstall lion without wiping the drive because i have no back up. how do i do this?
thanks
carl

Lion? You posted in the Mac OS X v10.5 Leopard forum... ??

Mac OSX lion 10.7.3 Logs me out unexpectedly ?

Hello everyone,
I was going trough some photos I've been wanting to edit when all of a sudden I got logged out of my Profile? By my profile I mean the only account I have on
my Imac, It was weird. The first time I really didn't mind but the it just happen to me about 10 minutes ago for the second time? Just wondering if this has
happen to anyone or if anyone knows what this is about?
Hope this doesn't happen to anyone cause it could be a bit frustrating if you're in the middle of working on something.
Thanks everyone.

I have never had this happen to me ever in any version of OS X. Perhaps you should consider the following:
Reinstalling Lion Without Erasing the Drive
Boot to the Recovery HD: Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions: Upon startup select Disk Utility from the main menu. Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions as follows.
When the recovery menu appears select Disk Utility. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the main menu.
Reinstall Lion: Select Reinstall Lion and click on the Continue button.
Note: You can also re-download the Lion installer by opening the App Store application. Hold down the OPTION key and click on the Purchases icon in the toolbar. You should now see an active Install button to the right of your Lion purchase entry. There are situations in which this will not work. For example, if you are already booted into the Lion you originally purchased with your Apple ID or if an instance of the Lion installer is located anywhere on your computer.

Installationproblem: Photoshop Elements 10 Trial on Mac OS Lion

I can't install the Photoshop Elements 10 Trial on Mac OS Lion. The installer stops right at the start with this message:
Exit Code: 24
-------------------------------------- Summary --------------------------------------
- 0 fatal error(s), 18 error(s), 0 warning(s)
ERROR: DW001: Set payload cancelled status
ERROR: DW049: Payload {007A2A28-D6A8-4D91-9A2B-568FF8052215} has an action "install" but no resultState
ERROR: DW049: Payload {0AA9D11A-227D-45AB-A5D5-6F5F6E81D5E3} has an action "install" but no resultState
ERROR: DW049: Payload {0AF29C46-6E82-4402-9019-8A6BB0F981D4} has an action "install" but no resultState
ERROR: DW049: Payload {28B74F2E-2E70-4B44-A581-0C19F62A5D6E} has an action "install" but no resultState
ERROR: DW049: Payload {3BDD6712-FD98-4280-AD34-DE0BDF4EC9F0} has an action "install" but no resultState
ERROR: DW049: Payload {52411D2C-81DD-442F-81C7-D867F6D73491} has an action "install" but no resultState
ERROR: DW049: Payload {60CB5C6D-5B99-45D3-BAB5-E7728182101E} has an action "install" but no resultState
ERROR: DW049: Payload {66662067-28E4-4A8B-8209-5D6F2B7BCF48} has an action "install" but no resultState
ERROR: DW049: Payload {6A2E619B-E4AC-433B-A648-D458CE543A96} has an action "install" but no resultState
ERROR: DW049: Payload {6F3A624B-1B72-4081-96E8-23261F389C5C} has an action "install" but no resultState
ERROR: DW049: Payload {A44863BF-8DB8-4D22-88DB-5A02BE319840} has an action "install" but no resultState
ERROR: DW049: Payload {BD0D6363-E961-410F-8BF4-ECD8795F3923} has an action "install" but no resultState
ERROR: DW049: Payload {EB3A47AA-B4E2-4857-A69C-92A6E097F24C} has an action "install" but no resultState
ERROR: DW049: Payload {FEA75AFB-4905-43BB-B1D5-5B44D681BFE7} has an action "install" but no resultState
ERROR: DW050: The following payload errors were found during install:
ERROR: DW050: - Camera Profiles Installer: User cancelled installation
ERROR: DW001: User cancelled the operation
Can anyone help me here?
By the way...same problem with the Premiere Elements 10 installer ;(
Thanks,
Martin

There are a few things to try:
1) Remove all traces of the previous install and start over.
2) Update Java script for OS X Lion http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1421
3) Temporarily disable any firewalls, internet security and antivirus software during download and installation - don‘t forget to turn it back on again after installation is complete.
4) Try the download again using a different browser such as Firefox. Before starting enlarge the temporary internet file cache in Firefox 3.x and later (Mac OS)
Choose Firefox > Preferences.
In the Advanced tab, click Network.
In the Offline Storage area, increase the amount of space for the cache to the size of your file. (The default is 50 MB.)

Mac OS Lion without an installation drive

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