Reinstalling Lion from scratch

I need to do a clean install of Lion due to me deleting important system files and now the whole computer is a mess! I just want to install Lion as new and then I can drag all my files over from my external HD. What's the best way of doing this? It all seems a little more complicated without having the usual OS disc like in the past.
Many thanks

You'll find this thread helpful.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3345748?start=0&tstart=0

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Will my MacbookPro still be under warranty if i format and reinstall mountain lion from scratch?

Hello everyone,
as in title, will my MacbookPro still be under warranty if i format and reinstall mountain lion from scratch? After the release of mountain lion, bought it and reinstalled it on the previous version,but the system looks slightly slower.So my thought was to format and install it from scratch.But being my computer 1 month old,will this influence my warranty?Thank you for answers.Cheers.M

Reinstall doesn't broke the warranty, so you can reinstall OS X Mountain Lion

Can i reinstall OS X Mountain Lion from scratch from a Time Machine Backup

Can i reinstall OS X Mountain Lion from scratch from a Time Machine Backup
Asking because i'm a new mac user having used windows since 3.11, wanting to know if the Time Machine bacup was enough or will i need to make a seperate OS install disk or usb drive ???
thanx in advance guys

Lizardcarter's instructions are correct, you can (and possibly should) consider a second external HD to create a bootable clone. Redundancy in backups is a very good thing because backup can fail too. A bootable clone is an external HD that has a mirror of your internal HD so if the internal HD does crash you can boot from the clone, something that cannot be done from TM. This means you will be down for minutes and can resume work until you have had the internal HD replaced. Never use an external HD for both TM and a bootable clone, each should have it's own EHD. The reason being is if the EHD crashes you have lost ALL of your backup and are dead, don't laugh it happens! To create a bootable clone get either SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner (both about $30) and you're pretty set. Many people on these forums (including myself) use that strategy and yes I have had a backup fail.

HT4718 I had a copy of Mountain Lion on my late 2008 MacBook Pro, having replaced Lion which it came with. But the drive,crashed, so I replaced the drive and reinstalled Lion from the original disks I had. How do I get another copy of Mountain Lion?

I had a copy of Mountain Lion on my late 2008 MacBook Pro, having replaced Lion which it came with. But the drive crashed, so I replaced the drive and reinstalled Lion from the original disks I had. How do I get another copy of Mountain Lion?

A 2008 Mac won't have originally shipped with Lion. You need to install 10.6.8 on the computer, log into the Mac App Store with the Apple ID you used to purchase Mountain Lion, click on the Purchases tab, and download it.
(121465)

No choice, need to reinstall OS from scratch, but... Help!

I've been dealing with a disk error that has tripped up every application I've used to correct it. Disk First Aid could nothing. I tried Disk Warrior, but that's taking centuries to run and still won't solve the end problem (according to a DW techie). But before running DW I tried to use Retrospect, but that application won't function either, presumably because of the original disk error. All of this because I can't upgrade to Tiger and because I've been told that though there are no issues now the disk error will eventuallly get me. I don't know what the disk error is but it clearly is causing problems up and down the chain.
Anyway, so I am forced to reinstall Tiger from scratch thus entirely erasing and reformatting my hard drive (which I've been told will solve the problem). But without a Retrospect back up all I can do is drag'n'drop from an external hard drive back onto the Powerbook. But though I've backed up most everything manually I'm sure I'm missing things, plus there's all those settings and preferences (and where is my Safari bookmarks file?).
So, should I do this and go through the pain? Should I take it into a professional and have them do a more thorough backup and reinstall and reset? Should I buy a new Powerbook and just have it copy over everything onto a freshly formatted Tiger machine and sell my old one with a fresh install and reformat on Ebay (no)? Or just stay with Panther until I buy a new one later and live with the risk of an eventual hard drive meltdown?
What to do, what to do??? Thanks.
Also, with Restrospect, what happens with a restore if I've reinstalled a new OS since the backup? Does it do anything with the OS or not?

Your Safari Bookmarks.html file is in the folder ~/Library/Safari.
Good luck.
Tuttle

What happens if i need to reinstall Lion from a disc after my iMac ***** itself?

What happens if i need to reinstall Lion from a disc after my iMac sh**'s itself?

It depends on how bad your iMac sh**'s itself. If you can boot into the Recovery partition, then there is re-install option which will automatically download Lion from the store and install it. If you can't boot into recovery then you would have needed to create a bootable Lion dvd or thumb drive to do an install. In this case you would need to create the bootable image after downloading the Lion installer and before performing the install as the installer gets deleted upon successful upgrade to Lion.

TS1702 I am unable to download updates directly to iPad 2 , now trying to reinstall one from scratch but download keeps stopping and the restarting. Can you offer any advice, this happening when trying to download to laptop in itunes as well. Have tried t

I am unable to download updates directly to iPad 2 , now trying to reinstall one from scratch but download keeps stopping and the restarting. Can you offer any advice, this happening when trying to download to laptop in itunes as well. Have tried to download on different broadband lines without success. Is this an apple problem due to high demand or something else?
Everything has worked well until about a month ago, up to date iOS 5 and itunes installed. Tried resetting numerous times, turned off all apps still no joy. Ipad was great but now feeling buying one was mistake. Also recent music purchase was useless and tunes would not play correctly.

Since this is happening on the iPad and the computer, it might be worth a try to reboot your router - unplug it from power for about 30 seconds and then plug it in again.
Quit iTunes on the PC, reboot it and the iPad as well
Reboot the iPad by holding down on the sleep and home buttons at the same time for about 10-15 seconds until the Apple Logo appears - ignore the red slider - let go of the buttons

Problems reinstalling Lion from Recovery service

I'm trying to reinstall Lion from the Apple Recovery service but keep getting told after 10 hours downloading, that installation has failed.
I'm having to do this as my machine crashed a few days ago and lost access to the operating system. I did not loose files as the machine was Bootcamped and i could access from there.
Initially, I was told that the hard drive needed repairing, which has now happened and it's passed all it's tests via the Disk Utility but still no installation.
I tried booting from a usb and the download recovery but no sucess.
Can anyone advise.

Philip Keller wrote:
John,
I think I'm "reinstalling OS X by booting OS X Recovery": I reboot with command-R depressed, or I reboot with Alt depressed and choose the recovery parition, and then I start the installation process from the list of things I can do. Are we talking about the same thing?
Yes, exactly.
I think that OS X Internet Recovery would be necessary only if you were to attempt a Lion installation with a completely empty HD, implying that even a Recovery partition has not been created. Your USB flash drive is the way to cope in that circumstance. If you can install Lion by booting the recovery partition as you described, it seems to me that it is all that is necessary and there is nothing to fix, despite the error message you see.
I'm surprised that Internet Recovery works at all, given that your Mac is not one of those allegedly eligible to use it.
Without a similar 2006 iMac to test, I can only speculate that the "abysmal distribution system" as baltwo describes it just doesn't work well with earlier Macs, and that Apple may not have tested it extensively with them. If I were you I would rely upon that USB installer much more than OS X Recovery or OS X Internet Recovery. I prefer not to rely upon any installation method that can possibly result in "the server is not available at this time" or such nonsense, but that is the direction in which Apple has been going for a long time.
An OS X installation log exists at /var/log/ that you can examine using Console, probably named "install.log". Deciphering it is another challenge.

Reinstalling lion from itunes

does anyone know how to reinstall lion from itunes?

Download Lion from the Mac App Store, not the iTunes App Store which is only for iOS apps.

Reinstalling lion from app store, can I still have Snow Leopard on a partition?

I rushed out too early to install Lion via Apple Apps store. Now, I realize that Rosetta is gone and so are my options to use older apps.
I have never partition my hard drive, but using disk utility I created a partition called "Snow Leopard." It divided my HD in half which is okay. I closed the disk utility window, rebooted holding down the "C" key, and saw the OS X Snow Leopard Install DVD v10.6.2. When I select it, a window pops up saying, "You can't use this version of the appl inst Mac OS X with this version of Mac OS X. You have installed Mac OS X 23.1.1."
Before downloading lion, I made a backup of my existing Snow Leopard HD using Time Machine to an external HD. When I open up a saved version dated a month ago, I see that the applications that were working in Snow Leopard now have the icon circle saying that it is not supported by Lion. This is strange since I used Time Machine to back up my HD, then turned off the app before downloading Lion. Even older versions saved on the external HD show the circle.
I read about lion and the "Recovery HD," but when I hold down the Command-R key nothing happens when I restart my computer. It also talks about using the option key but that does not work. It talks about reinstalling lion using this system, but I don't see it working.
I have now decided to download Iion again from the Apps Store, got the option key to work and as of now it is slowly downloading. I plan to make a bootable DVD of Lion before installing it again. I also can create a partition called "Lion," since I deleted my partition called "Snow Leopard," or first created a partition called "Snow Leopard" since I deleted it again from the HD. Since I still have the original Lion install on my iMac, if I create a new partition can I then get the "Snow Leopard," disk to install on that partition? I tried Carbon Copy, and it loaded in from my external HD to a previous partition but when I opened it up many documents had a "RED X," saying something about permissions. So that is when I deleted the first partition.
Now, I want to start over, and have two bootable versions, Lion and Snow Leopard. Can someone tell me the right way to do this?
Thanks,
DaisyMay
DaisyMay

Thanks Pondini,
I read #14 and your helpful hints. I am afraid to erase and reformat the drive because I am not as knowledgeable as others maybe. I have a website, and I don't want too loose all of my work and photos if I make a mistake.
I installed the Snow Leopard disk that came with my iMac i5 (2010), I first created a partition labeled "Snow Leopard." Started up the computer and saw the install icon. I selected the partition and followed the instructions, when that was done, I selected in Utilities, to back up from time machine on my external Seagate HD. When it was done, I noticed on the desk top two Macintosh HD, but changed back the name of my Snow Leopard 10.6.8. When I start up from the Snow Leopard HD, I see in the dock my older apps with the icon circle showing that I can't use them, like when I start up from Lion.
On the backup version on my external HD, I selected a date in March for the time machine backup. When I open up my external drive and select the apps it says, "Can't open up apps because it is in a time machine backup. Before installing Lion last week I backed up Snow Leopard in time machine and turn it off before installing Lion.
How can I get my old apps to work, it seems that time machine won't allow me to open up my older apps. The only reason that I am going to all of this trouble is that some older apps like File Maker Pro, Nvu, Motion Pictures HD, Switch, and a few others have some data that I want to see before I decided to trash the folders and just use Lion.
Any suggestions?
DaisyMay

Reinstalling lion from web

I am trying to reinstall Mac OS X lion from my 2011 MacBook air recovery drive but during the lion download process the count down timer keeps resetting to 30 minutes left and when I left it overnight in the morning it just gave me error message saying it could not be reinstalled.

I'm having a same problem.
my airbook was yosemite 10.10.3 latest version.
but reinstall screen has a lion image and details.
i think, reinstall process wants to lion but i need yosemite.
what is the solution??

How to reinstall Lion from new MBP?

Hi guys. I just bought an Early 2011 MBP with OS X Lion pre-installed. I just want to ask how to reinstall Lion? Just in case I want to reinstall the OS. Thanks! If you could post different ways of doing it, the better.

OS X Lion includes a new feature called Lion Recovery that includes all of the tools you need to reinstall Lion, repair your disk, and even restore from a Time Machine backup without the need for optical discs.
About Lion Recovery
Stefan

Sarafi won't start up. Hard drive crashed, reinstalled Lion from Safe Mode. and Safari still won'topen. I get an error message. There are no files in the extensions folder.

How do I clear the error in Safari? I've reinstalled Lion 3 times and the error won't clear.

Well Apple Suupport is still tops in every book.
The fix for my problem was so ridiculously simple, I can't beleived it worked.
But somehow the mouse install disk (stuck in the drive) was disrupting the start up. I was instructed to take the batteries out of the wireless mouse.
IT WORKED.
Not sure if anyone that's had this similar problem is using wireless devices, but take the batteries out of them, use plug in devices to work around the problem, eject the CD and if you luck out like I did, it'll work
Thanks Apple my faith is renewed

I can print on y HP Deskjet f4580 from my IMAC with Lion 10.7.5. I've updated the print drivers and my OSX and reinstalled everything from scratch too. No joy. Help?

My HP Deskjet f4580 won't print from my IMAC despite updating the print driver and OSX 10.7.5 Lion software. Printing is fine from a different computer. What else should I try?

Hi there misterglenn,
I would recommend taking a look at the troubleshooting steps for printer issues found in the article below.
Troubleshooting printer issues in OS X
-Griff W.

I'm having troubles with reinstalling lion from Recovery HD

Hello everybody. Please keep in mind that I'm not english, so I'll probably do some grammar errors.
Here there's my problem:
I decided to reinstall Mac OS X Lion, on my macbook pro 15" (late 2010). Everything worked well, I just wanted to clean everything and start over again.
I started the computer from Lion Recovery HD, which is, as we all know, in a separate partition.
I followed the instructions written in the documentation: I initialized the Hard Drive with a HFS+ file system from the utility disk, then, I clicked on "Reinstall Mac Os X".
After choosing the right HD and writing the username and password for the mac app store, i got an error: my account is allowed only in the Italian store (I'm from Italy, but I'm temporarily in the USA. I also wrongly forgot my Snow Leopard DVD in Italy )
Anyways, after clicking OK and writing ID and PWD again, the download of the OS finally starts (First problem solved?)
After more then 15 hours downloading, I came home but it didn't change a lot: the computer was still on recovery hd (i think it restarted by itself?), the download was finished, but it didn't install the OS, nor I could boot from the main HD. If I try to click "Reinstall Mac Os X" again, it would ask for my id and pwd again, and start the 15 hours download another time, as nothing had happened.
By the way, i checked the HD from the utility disk, and about 4 GB are used in the HD, while before the download I had initialized it, so I think Lion was downloaded there. I repeat, I can't startup from the main HD, since it's not available when I turn the computer on and press option.
Sorry for the long message, but I tried to give you the most informations I could provide. If you need other informations, tell me.
Thank you very much for the help, by know I'm stucked on a $2000 machine that has only Safari on it, with the scrolling that is in the wrong way
Alefus

Not sure what happened, but I think your best bet it to try again.

Reinstalling Lion from scratch

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