Reinstalling Mac OS (Lion)

So I ran into a problem with my boot camp partition (it became corrupt for whatever reason). I used the boot camp tool to remove the partition in order to recreate it and reinstall Windows, but it failed (Windows was gone and I'm back to a single partition, but the space did not release). I have verified this by doing the simple math (adding 10% or so to my final calculation) and the questionable missing space adds up to the size of the boot camp partition I had created. Interestingly enough, the recovery partition is missing now too.
Research in the support community shows a rebuild is the way to go to fix this. Being a long time Windows guy (actually employed running a data center with many Windows based servers) and this being my first Mac, I wanted to make sure I had a good handle on this. I bought my MacBook with Snow Leopard installed and upgraded to Lion when it was released. When Apple originally offered the tool to create a Lion Recovery disk on a USB drive, I did it (and now am very glad that I did). Here are my questions:
- Should I erase and reformat the disk or is that done as part of reinstalling the OS?
- Do I need to install Snow Leopard and then upgrade to Lion or does the Lion Ugrade USB Recovery disk take care of this?
- I have a good backup from Time Capsule. Does it only restore the files/photo's/etc. or does it restore app's as well (remember, I'm a Windows guy and the idea of an application not needing to be reinstalled is kind of a foreign concept to me).
I appreciate any assistnace. This looks to be a simple process, but I didn't want to start, run into a problem, and have to visit the Apple Store (at a time when the phones are causing over-crowding at the stores).

Well, bootcamp and Lion Recovery HD have been know to create problems.
You can see if there are other hidden partitons by entering the following in Terminal:
defaults write com.apple.DiskUtility DUDebugMenuEnabled -bool YES
Then open Disk Utility and select Debug->View all partitons
You can try a complete clean re-install.
First, BACKUP to Time Machine or a Clone
Then, create a Recovery USB with: Lion Recovery Disk Assistant
Then boot with your Snow Leopard Install Disk, select from the Menu Bar: Utilities->Terminal and enable the Disk Utility Debug Menu with:
defaults write com.apple.DiskUtility DUDebugMenuEnabled -bool YES
Exit Terminal and select from the Menu Bar: Utilities->Disk Utility
Select Debug->View all partitons (you should see the Recovery HD Partiton)
Select partiton, and create 1 Partiton (which will wipe your drive)
Your Recovery HD Partiton should now be gone (and Bootcamp if it was there)
Now, boot from the Recovery USB that you created with: Lion Recovery Disk Assistant
Select Install OS X Lion
When prompted to transfer data from another Mac or a Time Machine or other drive, select the backup that you made.
(you can use your Time Capsule backup, see: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4413)
Tony

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I wanna reinstall Mac OSx lion on MacBook pro, my problem is I dint purchase OSx lion with my apple Id before.so anybody can tell me how to purchase OSx with my apple Id on MacBook

I wanna reinstall Mac OSx lion on MacBook pro, my problem is I dint purchase OSx lion with my apple Id before.so anybody can tell me how to purchase OSx with my apple Id on MacBook

Nope. You can purchase a Snow Leopard DVD for $29.00 through an Apple retailer or ordering from AppleCare:
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.

HT4718 cant fint a disk to reinstall mac osx lion

After trying to restart my Mac several times, went to the internet option to recover and truing to reinstall mac OS X lion. However once I click reinstall it asks me for a destination disk but there are none showing up. Help!

Your drive is either corrupted or has failed.
Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions - Mavericks, Lion/Mountain 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. 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
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 then click on the Repair Permissions button. When the process is completed, then quit DU and return to the main menu.
If you do not find your drive listed in the Disk Utility sidebar list, then it has failed. If you can complete the above, then restart the computer and see if you can restart properly. If you cannot, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall OS X:
Install or Reinstall Mavericks or Mountain Lion from Scratch
Be sure you backup your files to an external drive or second internal drive because the following procedure will remove everything from the hard drive.
OS X Mavericks- Erase and reinstall OS X
OS X Mountain Lion- Erase and reinstall OS X
OS X Lion- Erase and reinstall Mac OS X
Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet if possible
because it is three times faster than wireless.

Wanted to restore macbook but cannot reinstall mac osx lion, any help?

tried to reinstall mac os x lion after buying a 2009 macbook air from someone. just wanted to reset the machine to factory settings, but everytime i try the screen says it is temporarily unavailable. anyway to help this problem?

Hi tonysaez,
I apologize, I'm a bit unclear exactly when or in what context you are seeing the "temporarily unavailable" message. If you are having issues restoring your Mac to factory settings, you may find the steps outlined in the following articles helpful:
OS X: About OS X Recovery - Apple Support
OS X: How to erase and install - Apple Support
What to do before selling or giving away your Mac - Apple Support
Regards,
- Brenden

TS3926 Unable to reinstall Mac OSX Lion after internet recovery

Sequence of Events on My Macbook Air
1. I saw a flashing question mark in the morning on starting my macbook air
2. I then tried the internet recovery of my Macbook air
3. The system took me to a recovery partition where my only option was reinstall the OSX lion
4. I tried following the system till the Mac OSX lion disk selection
5. I do not see any disk to select and hence cannot proceed.
Any pointers? Is my hard disk gone for good?
Please advice Urgent!!!!

It's possible that the flash storage is damaged, but first, see if it's working properly. After starting in Internet Recovery, open Disk Utility and tell me if you see Macintosh HD in the sidebar. If so, go to Macintosh HD, open Erase tab and erase the disk. Finally, close Disk Utility and reinstall OS X.
If you don't see it, see if the flash storage appears at the top of the sidebar. If so, choose it, go to Erase tab and erase it. Then, reinstall OS X.
If you don't see the flash storage in Disk Utility or your Mac is in warranty, take it to an Apple Store or reseller

Erased my Harddisk, coudnt reinstall Mac Os Lion from internet recovery as it says "Could not find installation information on this Machine"

Hi, i just got this Macbook Pro last October and recently i wanted to have a clean install of Mac Os Lion so i erased my harddisk in disc utilities, and found myself unable to install back Mac Os Lion from the internet.. It says 'Coudnt get installation information on this machine', I don't think my internet is the issue as ive tried installating it in both of my houses :/. Tried asking my friend.. he ended up screwing things up in Disc Utilities. If i recall carefully.. My Disc utilities used to look like this
500GB Toshiba Harddisk
-Macintosh HD
-Disk1
Mac OX Base System
but now its just
500gb Toshiba Harddisk
-Mac OX Base System
Sorry if i don't know what i'm talking about as i'm quite new to using a Mac and any help would be appreciated, thanks!

The fix is to use Disk Utiilty to make the Lion Partition a tiny bit smaller.
https://support.apple.com/kb/TS3926
https://discussions.apple.com/community/notebooks/macbook_pro?view=documents

My computer has reset it self and is asking me to reinstall mac osx lion

My mac reset and now it is asking me to reinstall the operating system and when i try to do that it say the disk is locked. So i can not do anything.

What backups do you have?

Reinstall mac os Lion taking long time

i am from India and trying to reinstall OS Lion - the download took 20+ hours, after 12+ hours I got a error message stating its unable to download and stopped!.
Now I need to start fresh! can anyone suggest if there is an option for quicker download?.
My ISP is 2MBps.
Thanks

No problem, found # C13 immediately.
Just for reference here is what happened in chronological sequence:
1. System was running under Snow Leopard and all previous backups worked without any problem.
2. Started a backup and a message was shown saying something like "Index has to be rebuilt"...and this took more than 24 hours before the system started to make a new backup.
3. Updated Snow Leopard to get the latest version prior installing Lion.
4. Started a backup which was completed without any problems.
5. Installed OS Lion, checked various functions/programs > OK
6. Started a backup under Lion and the message "...Time Machine must create a new backup for you..." appeared.
Anyway, it sounds that I have no other choice...make a complete new backup and delete all my old data. It is basically no problem, because what I need I still have on my Mackbook. It is just a feeling
of uncertainty.
Once again many thanks for your feedback. Found a lot of additional useful infos in the link provided by you.

I went to comand R, turned off the system to format and reinstall when I put in the Mac OS Lion I downloaded the Apple Store to a billing error in the account, now I'm no OS, what should I do?

I bought the OS Lion in apple store, I downloaded and installed, it happens that wanted to erase everything and reinstall the OS, I went with the comand + R, reinstall Mac OS Lion, but when he arrives at the apple to put the id is a billing error in the account,now my macbook is no OS

Try here > Apple - Support - Lion - Installation and Recovery
To edit payment information for your account click Account under Quick Links right side of the App Store window.
Then click Edit to the right of Payment Information.

MacBook pro late 2011 i7 8GB 750GB MAC OSX Lion freezes on wake up

Hi,
My MacBook pro late 2011 i7 8GB 750GB MAC OSX Lion (up to date) 1 week old freezes on wake up.
Plugged on power or not, same issues.
No apps running.
When it goes to sleep itself i wake it up it freezes for few seconds
When i put it to sleep mode same issue.
With the lid same issue...
I already try setting up the sleep mode from 3 to 0 with terminal command it didn't work.
Can it be an hardware issue ?
Any ideas ?

Dear TheSmokeMonster, Dear all MacBook pro 13'' late 2011 users,
Here is the update.
As TheSmokeMonster mentionned (above) they asked me to reinstall MAC OSX Lion by shutting down the computer and holding cmd + R while switching it off. Then you choose the language and you are good to go for a looooonngg 4GB download (it took me 8hours yeah chinese ADSL :-/ )
Lion reinstalled itself automatically and restarted. - it did not solve the issue.
I called Apple Care again and we try to run the hardware diagnostic by restarting the computer and holding D. FYI do not try it as this command does not work on the new version of macbook pro.
Here is the intersting part! As the Apple Care already did everything they could to help me. We booked an appointment the my local Apple Store in Shanghai (a real one )
The Genius remake again the SMC and PRAM reset - same issues and he also tried to boot Lion from his own external hard drive - Same issues. So we started to think that it was a Hardware problem.
We tried another MBP 13'' late 2011 (last hardware update) in the shop to see if it works properly and it DOESN'T!
Yeah you heard me. I have been trying more than 10 MBP 13'' (2.4Ghz 4GB and 2.8Ghz 4GB) put them asleep and they all freeze on wake up!! it also does it on Mac book air 13'' it seems to be a global issue on all the new 13'' machines. A compatibility problem between Lion and the new hardware architecture of the 13'' ? just my guess.
Anyway FYI this issue doesn't occur on MBP 15 and 17"
I was just amazed by this global problem so was the genuis. We could not find any solutions cause even a replacement one will have the same problem. They told me i could change for a 15" but i had to go back to the Apple shop where i bought it which is 2000Kms away not really convenient So i file the cas and i took my MBP 13'' back with me.
They will contact me later for further explanation.
To be continued.

How to reinstall mac os x server on mac mini 2011

Hi
i need to help
Can i Reinstall "Mac osx lion server "on my MACMINI 2011

Then you will need to boot to the Recovery HD partition included on the internal drive when Mt Lion was installed. To do that at startup hold down the Command+r keys and that will boot the computer from the recovery HD. Once that starts use Disk Utility to Erase the Macintosh HD partition. Once that finishes exit DU and select Reinstall Mac OS X and Mt Lion will be downloaded from the internet and whenn that finishes downloading the install will start. Have the Apple ID and password you used to originally install Mt Lion. And it is best to Wire the computer to your internet router, Ethernet cable from computer to router. You can use WiFi but if for some reason the WiFi drops out you will have to start over from the beginning with the Mt Lion download.

Is it possible to reinstall Mac OS X Lion on MacBook and then use Time Machine to restore to the previous backup I made before reinstalling Mac OS X Lion?

Is it possible to reinstall Mac OS X Lion on MacBook and then use Time Machine to restore to the previous backup I made before reinstalling Mac OS X Lion?

My MacBook was not normally booting up. It would turn on, make the Apple startup noise, and the bottom loading bar would progress just a little bit, then my MacBook would shut down. I tried rebooting it many times and the same thing would happen, it would just shut down. Then, I read that I can reset the PRAM (by holding Option+Command+P+R after the Apple startup noise comes). That worked, but now I get a screen that asks me to choose one of the 4 options (see: http://images.macworld.com/images/article/2012/07/lionrecoveryutilities-289404.j pg). I choose Restore From Time Machine Backup, but it progresses to 17.6% and gets stuck there forever. I tried doing it again, and it got stuck at 17.6% again. That is why I am asking if I should just reinstall Lion, then restore a previous backup on the fresh new Lion?

Is there any way to get back my data if I had not restored it from time machine before reinstalling Mac OS X on my comp from utility. PS - My OS version has downgraded from Mountain Lion to Mac OS X 10.75 . Pls. help

Is there any way to get back my data if I had not restored it from time machine before reinstalling Mac OS X on my comp from utility. PS - My OS version has downgraded from Mountain Lion to Mac OS X 10.75 . Pls. help

Look at the blue box on this link:
http://pondini.org/TM/19.html
Ciao.

Reinstall Mac OS X Lion with saving data

Hello, I want to reinstall Mac OS X Lion with saving my programms, docs and photos. What should I do then? I know that Time Machine backups data with the system. But Ineed to backup my files and then on clear system I want to restore this backup. Please reply with the steps which should I do. And where should I download original Mac OS X Lion image?
PS I bought MacBook Pro with pre-installed Lion.
Thanks in advance.

Yes there is/are.
Removing and rebuilding a malfunctioning Recovery HD partition « Der Flounder
By the way it is NOT self deleting. Something deleted it, you or something else.
Just to check open Terminal and type diskutil list then hit the enter key. If there is an entry for "Apple_Boot Recovery HD" of 650MBs then you do have a recovery HD partition.
Once you recreate the Recovery HD I would do one of 2 things, or both of them.
1) Use the Lion Recovery Disk Assistant to create a USB thumb drive of the recovery HD file. that way you will always have a way to boot your Mac and do maintenance or Reinstall Lion.
2) follow this link
10.7: How to get a full Lion install disc for a new MacBook Air or Pro - Mac OS X Hints
to create a Real Lion Install USB thumb drive.
If you do # 2 you can forget about # 1. But me being me I have both.

I have a late 2011 macbook pro i want to reinstall os lion 10.7 so when i reboot hold down options key click on recovery hd then in the os x utilities screen it says reinstall mac os x is there any way i can save this download so i can burn to dvd

i have a late 2011 macbook pro i want to reinstall os lion 10.7 so when i reboot hold down options key click on recovery hd then in the os x utilities screen it says reinstall mac os x is there any way i can save this download so i can burn to dvd

steve359 wrote:
Sorry ... I read but was unfortunately distracted from your original post. You have a system that came with Lion. The Lion that is on your system is only for your computer and cannot be downloaded from the app store again because you never purchased it officially through the App Store.
Try this for making an external USB/DVD copy of Recovery on an external disk. internet is still required for reinstall, though, I believe: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4848. But at least you have a separate Recovery Partition if you ever need a fully new and empty internal disk.
Your assumption is incorrect. Although he may not be able to download it from the App store he can download it directly for the Apple servers using the recovery partition on his original drive.
All you have to do is start the install routine and then point the install to an external hard drive. Once the download is finished the computer will reboot to start the install. At that reboot disconnect the external drive so the install can not start. Boot the computer back into the OS on the internal hard drive, which is what will happen automatically once the external drive is disconnected. Then connect the external and copy the files from it that were downloaded. Right click on that downloaded package file and select Show contents. In the contents of that package is a file called InstallESD.DMG. Copy that file out of the package and burn it down to a DVD or USB thumb drive and you now have the Full Lion Installer. I have several of them laying around on different hard drives and 2 USB thumb drives which I have used to reinstall Lion on my 15" MBP.
Sorry OP I should of just typed this out in my first post.

Reinstalling Mac OS (Lion)

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