Trying to download Lion.

Question

I purchased a new mac mini that has lion pre-installed. I'm trying to download the Lion from the app store and I don't see it under purchased items. I've tried to option click the Purchases tab, holding down the option key when I open the app store and option clicking the OS X Lion link. Doing the last two tricks actually changed the link for the price from 29.99 to installed but clicking installed does not do anything. How can I download lion, I want to create a install disk.
Thanks!

Answer 1

gtribe,
If you feel comfortable, follow these instructions to get the InstallESD.dmg file for your new Mac Mini' pre-installed Lion. I have followed these since version 10.7 which came with my Mac Mini mid-2011.
Either create a partition on your hard drive to install to or use a USB external drive.
Open Terminal from /Applications/Utilities and type diskutil list to list all the partitions on your hard drive.
Look for the Recovery HD in the list and note its identifier. It will be something like disk0s3.
Type diskutil mount readOnly /dev/[identifier]. Replace identifier with the Recovery HD identifier. For example, diskutil mount readOnly /dev/disk0s3
Open Finder, select the Recovery HD in the side bar. In the right pane, open the com.apple.recovery.boot folder. You should see the BaseSystem.dmg file. Double click it. If you don't  see it, mount it by typing in Terminal: hdiutil attach "/Volumes/Recovery HD/com.apple.recover.boot/BaseSystem.dmg"
Open the Mac OS X Base System mount and double-click the Install Mac OS X Lion.app.
The installer launches and begins. Go through the validation and license agreement. When it asks for a disk to install to, select the partition you created or a USB external drive. You may need to click on Show Disks.
Enter your admin password when prompted, and the installer will start downloading. The installer should not continue until the user tells it to.
The installer will download some files into a folder called Mac OS X Install Data on the root of the drive you're installing onto. Of the files it puts there, the InstallESD.dmg.partial file (on my Mac Mini) is the file to watch. It will grow in size during the download which means it's the install image file you will want to capture when the download completes.
Wait for the download to finish. This will take awhile as the download is very large. Once the file finishes downloading, the installer will extract the InstallESD.dmg image from it and delete the InstallESD.dmg.partial file. Don't let the app restart your machine.
When the installer finishes and prompts to Restart, right click the install icon in the Dock and select Quit. The installer will ask for confirmation. Don't confirm yet! Confirming will delete the Mac OS X Install Data folder.
Open Finder and navigate to the Mac OS X Install Data folder.
Copy the InstallESD.dmg file to your desktop or other location.
Confirm the Quit for the Installer. This will delete the Mac OS X Install Data folder.
You can now burn the InstallESD.dmg to a DVD or USB (8GB) thumb drive.
You can Eject the Mac OS X Base System and Recovery HD in Finder.
When you install Lion using the USB thumb drive, you will still need an Internet connection so the install process can download additional components. These steps reduce the download time considerably as you won't need to download the entire OS installer.