Recovery options in Mac OS X Lion

What options are available if your system crashes, and you lose your hard drive? You buy another hard drive, put it in your system and you need to reinstall Mac OS X Lion. Do you have to put Snow Leopard back on, and then update to Lion? Will you be allowed to redownload Lion then?
This has been my concern ever since Apple announced the download, no disc upgrade.

Yes to both questions. If you want, you can make a copy of the installer or burn the dmg file inside it.
(59585)

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Hi I installed a new hard drive in my Mac mini osx lion an when I turn it on I get a flashing file with a question mark. I tried holding command and R keys when turning it on but the recovery fails to work. Does any one know how I can get it to recover?

Hi I installed a new hard drive in my Mac mini osx lion an when I turn it on I get a flashing file with a question mark. I tried holding command and R keys when turning it on but the recovery fails to work. I can hold the option key at start up and choose my network, then Internet recovery shows up with an arrow pointing up. When I click on the arrow Internet recovery fails and all I get is a globe with a triangle on it with an exclamation mark on it, and under that it says
apple.com/support
-6002F
Does any one know how I can fix this without a recovery disc? Thanks

I just want to add to this, in case someone else searches for this error on Apple Support (google doesnt cover apple support.. how clever is that?)
I had the same error. And i had a Computer that had worked, with a SSD drive and 16GB upgrade done by the owner himself.
I tried swapping with a Mechinal Harddrive, no luck.
Kept the Mechanical drive in, and tried with some other Ram, it worked..
So for me this error and after reading the other responses can be boiled down to a Harddrive problem or Ram issue.
It was Ram for me..

TS4303 When I try to Reinstall Mac OS X Lion using the Recovery by choosing the partition, I got an error message saying that it protected. What should I do?

My Macbook Pro will not start anymore after the update.
When I try to Reinstall Mac OS X Lion using the Recovery by choosing the partition, I got an error message saying that it protected. What should I do?

Bootup holding CMD+r, or the Option/alt key to boot from the Restore partition & use Disk Utility from there to Repair the Disk, then Repair Permissions.
If that doesn't help Reinstall the OS.

I have a Mac Pro with four hard drives. I currently have Lion installed on one hard drive. I want to have the option to boot from either Lion or Snow Leopard. How can I do this?

I have a Mac Pro with four hard drives. I currently have Lion installed on one hard drive. I want to have the option to boot from either Lion or Snow Leopard. How can I do this?

It's best to install Snow Leopard on one of the three remain drives without an Operating System.
You can then install the applications you need from the original media. Create a User Account using Setup Assistant.
Do you want to migrate User Accounts from the OSX LIon boot drive, or are you keeping the User Accounts separate?
Dual-booting just requires holding the option key during startup and selecting either Lion or Snow Leopard.

I cannot able able to start my macbook and then i started my mac in a recovery mode now mac os X utility window opens with 4 options 1. Restore From Time Machine Backup 2. Reinstall Mac OSX 3. Get Help Online 4. Disk Utility if i try to restore my mac wit

i cannot able able to start my macbook and then i started my mac in a recovery mode now mac os X utility window opens with 4 options 1. Restore From Time Machine Backup 2. Reinstall Mac OSX 3. Get Help Online 4. Disk Utility if i try to restore my mac with time machine no option appears if i reinstall from Mac OSX error comes and cannot able to recover from disk utility please help how can i reinstall mac OSX

Guitar21,
your MacBook Pro has booted into its Recovery mode. From the OS X Utilities menu, select Disk Utility. On the left-hand side of the Disk Utility window, select your internal disk’s boot partition (typically called “Macintosh HD”). On the right-hand side, press the Verify Disk button if it’s not greyed out; if it is greyed out, or if it reports that errors were found, press the Repair Disk button. Once the verification/repair is completed, exit Disk Utility and select Restart from the Apple menu to restart in normal mode. Does it get to the login screen now?

Mac os x lion wont boot after an EFI upgrade and i am unable to reinstall using recovery hd.

i have macbook pro 2011 mid . it came preinstalled with lion (10.7.x)
I updated my mac os x lion for an efi upadte (i don't remember the version but it was there in update list) ,java and safari . After downloading it restarted. i heard a beep sound and system restart twice. And now whenever i start my laptop i saw an Apple logo beneath it there is a status bar which progresses very little for 2sec approx and system shutdowns.
I have backed up my data using Single user Mode. i have a bootcamp drive of 35 gb and it working fine.
when try to reinstall os using recovery hd, after accepting all agreements and connecting to wifi, what i saw was there are three drives Recovery,Bootcamp and Macintosh and all were locked. i chose macintosh (214 used and 500 approx free) for setup and prompted for password to unclock it. i filled the password and again chose macintosh for setup and clicked install. Within a fraction of seconds i got an error "error while trying to prepare for installation" or something like that.
is there any way to fix my macbook pro? what kind of problem is this Hardware or software("My Vote")?
what should i do to fix it?

..Step by Step to fix your Mac
Erase, formatting, OS X installs on Mac's
http://www.everymac.com/ultimate-mac-lookup/
http://mactracker.ca/
https://support.apple.com/kb/HT1237
https://support.apple.com/kb/HT2213

Reinstalling Mac OS X Lion from Recovery problem

So I've decided to sell my 2007 Macbook (Black) to someone else, but when I tried to
wipe it (I already did it successfully) and reinstall Mac OS X Lion, it comes up with
"This item is temporarily unavailable. Please try again later"
It happened today, I'll try again tomorrow since it says "Please try again later"
but I need a quick solution because I need the money! Help please!

If you plan to sell or give away this computer, then you must install the original version of OS X that it came with pre-installed. That was 10.4.9 or 10.5 depending upon which model you have. Get out the installer discs that came with the computer and use them to erase the disk and install a fresh copy of OS X. Or you can do the same using the retail Snow Leopard DVD.
Clean Install of OS X
     1. Boot the computer using the OS X 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. Before it restarts just shut it down.
Be sure you also de-authorize the computer and sign out of your iCloud account.

Ebay-password Recovery Disc for Mac OSX Lion

Dear Apple Support Communities: recently on ebay, I have seen several sellers selling a Password Recovery Disc for Mac OSX Lion. This Password Recovery disc claims to be able to reset Lion's password of any user account WITHOUT knowing the old password! Is this possible? This is scary! If so, is there a way to prevent someone from using this disc to reset someone's password without them knowing it? If you want to see for yourself: go to ebay and enter item # 251037274344 for example. There are other sellers also. Thanks.

Anyone can do this from the terminal without even a CD, so no it's not very scary.
If they advertised that they could get into file vault, or the keychain, then that would be another story altogether.

I never got a Mac OS X Lion Recovery USB Drive with my mbp

i was reading online how to make a backup dvd for Lion and it ref that if you bought a new mpb with lion on it it came with a
Mac OS X Lion Recovery USB Drive
i went back and looked in the box ,and nothing
my son just bought a 15 " mbp with moutin lion and there was no usb drive either
how do i get this usb stick
or did apple stop including it
fred

You do not need it It was a buy product for those unable to use the download from the web at a charge of $69
see
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4718

My macbook pro 2012 mac os x lion 10.7 stuck at apple logo with spinn wheel

my macbook pro 2012 mac os x lion 10.7 stuck at apple logo with spinn whell and i held it for hours nothing happend so i tried to boot from recovery hd so i started mac and pressed option key ...so a screen appears telling recovery hd with bar for wifi connection selection then i put my wifi details and choose roc. hd it again booted with same apple logo with spin wheel...what to do now ....i haven't tried reseeting pvram..etc nvram..

Hi there lakra,
You may find the troubleshooting steps in the article below helpful.
Mac OS X: Gray screen appears during startup
http://support.apple.com/kb/ts2570
-Griff W.

Mac OS X Lion donesn't start after Windows 8 installing

I'm having some troubles booting from Mac OS X Lion after installing Windows 8 Release Preview on bootcamp partition.
I've made these steps.
Install Windows 8 Consumer Preview using bootcamp
Upgrade Windows 8 Consumer Preview to Release Preview
Reboot the system and hold option key.
On bootcamp select Machintosh HD
Mac OS X Lion doesn't start, or after a lot of time, it presents me the accounts screen but I cannot select anyone, trackpad or keyboard doesn't works!
I tried to boot from Recovery HD, but keyboard and trackpack doesn't work too.
I tried to boot from Snow Leopard installation CD, but it also doesn't work.
If I restart and boot in Windows 8, everything works fine!
I have a Macbook Pro 15".
Could someone helps me?

Take a look at the partitions on the drive.
What is there?
When you do what you did it keeps 20GB Windows.old which you can delete after, and if the upgrade fails on Windows 8 CP you are left with Windows you had, and 20GB Windows.install temp file
So whatever you do using your method you needed to have 30GB of free space or more to perform the change.
And you should have a clone or backup of both that you can restore if needed.
Carbon Copy Cloner for instance to make an image of Lion and Lion Recovery.
WinClone 3.x to image Windows - though may not need to.
Windows Easy Transfer to make it quick and easy and act like it was an upgrade with all your settings (but not all programs and 3rd party).
Did you download the ISO also and burn to DVD? The download assistant for 8 will assist with that and then you can use Windows 8 DVD for system recovery.
Not a mind reader could know what the state of your system is now and if OS X is there or got clobbered.
Zap PRAM and try to boot from one of your DVD systems. (there are no CDs anymore they don't fit)

I want to factory reset my macbook pro but my computer doesn't give me the recovery option, it gives me Macintosh HD only.

I want to factory reset my macbook pro but my computer doesn't give me the recovery option, it gives me Macintosh HD only.

Hello sallay Amir,
Thanks for participating in the Apple Support Communities.
It sounds like you would like to erase your MacBook Pro and install a new copy of OS X, but the Mac does not boot to OS X Recovery when you hold the Command + R keys during startup.
If your Mac came with OS X Snow Leopard (10.6) or earlier, I recommend referring to the steps in this article:
Mac OS X v10.6 Snow Leopard: How to Erase and Install - Apple Support
For a newer Mac (OS X Lion, Mountain Lion, Mavericks or Yosemite), try reinstalling OS X by using Internet Recovery, as described in the "OS X Internet Recovery" section on this page:
OS X: About OS X Recovery - Apple Support
All the best,
Jeremy

Installing Mac OS X Lion on a new drive fails

I got a new SSD to replace my HDD with. I followed the directions on apple's website: I erased and formatted my usb drive, I downloaded and installed Lion Recovery Assistant on it, then I put the SSD in.
Then I boot up holding the option key and I connect to my wi-fi and select "Recovery HD". Then I make sure the SSD is formatted properly (GUID, etc) and create a new partition. I name it, exit disk utility and select Reinstall Lion.
I follow the directions, but it doesn't ask for my Apple ID, weird. It starts reinstalling telling me 1:35 hours left, which increases to about 7 hours left and then I get this error: "Cannot download the addition components needed to instal Mac OS X Lion"
I am mentioning that the usb drive I used for the recovery assistant was formatted correctly as well.
Any ideas why this happens?
I also tried using Internet Recovery but after 4-5 minutes I get a weird error: I get a triangle on the world map and the text bellow says something like: "apple.com/support - 501 OF [11 ]"

I got a new SSD to replace my HDD with. I followed the directions on apple's website: I erased and formatted my usb drive, I downloaded and installed Lion Recovery Assistant on it, then I put the SSD in.
Then I boot up holding the option key and I connect to my wi-fi and select "Recovery HD". Then I make sure the SSD is formatted properly (GUID, etc) and create a new partition. I name it, exit disk utility and select Reinstall Lion.
I follow the directions, but it doesn't ask for my Apple ID, weird. It starts reinstalling telling me 1:35 hours left, which increases to about 7 hours left and then I get this error: "Cannot download the addition components needed to instal Mac OS X Lion"
I am mentioning that the usb drive I used for the recovery assistant was formatted correctly as well.
Any ideas why this happens?
I also tried using Internet Recovery but after 4-5 minutes I get a weird error: I get a triangle on the world map and the text bellow says something like: "apple.com/support - 501 OF [11 ]"

Mac OS x lion clean install problems

While trying to do a clean install of OS X lion, my macbook pro is stuck at "downloading additioal components required to install mac os x lion. though i have wifi access, there is no bandwidth usage in the whole process.. it starts with 22 minutes, goes upto 4 minutes and suddenly jumps to 5 hours and 54 minutes before showing an error message that says "cant download additional components required to install mac os x lion. Im stuck with a dead notebook.. would be grateful if anyone could give me an insight into a possible solution.

OS X Lion: Unable to download OS X Lion wireless...
OS X Lion Install to Different Drive
- About Lion Recovery options, half way down the page
Or put Lion installer on flash or DVD
How to create an OS X Lion installation disc MacFixIt
How to prepare your Mac for OS X 10.7 Lion
Also goes into use of recovery; doing a clean install

I need to re-install mac os x lion

Hello,
I installed windows 7 on my imac but when I made it, I remove all other parts including mac os x boot section. I can not find all drivers for windows 7, because of that I want to re-install mac os x lion but I don't have any installation DVD, also I don't have any installation file on my HDD. How can I install mac os x lion again?
Thank you.

I'm hoping you didn't totally wipe your system, try booting and when you hear the Startup Tone hold down the Option key and choose the Recovery Partition and then install Lion. If you totally erased the drive and the only thing left you will have to try using Lion Recovery & Lion Recovery, OS X Lion: About. If those don't work then your next stop is an Apple Store or AASP for service.

Recovery options in Mac OS X Lion

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