Let's say you have a new mac, hard drive dies without a cloned backup or installer USB drive in place. Assume you've purchased 10.8 from the App store on another mac...how do you get it installed on a new drive in the mac with the previously dead drive?

I found this link: [derflounder.wordpress.com] but I'm not sure if the process they're describing is directly applicable to the above-described situation or to some other special-use scenario that wouldn't apply to 99.9% of users.

I'm still on 10.6, but just trying to start getting up to speed on 10.7/8 changes in terms of troubleshooting, etc.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/08/2012 06:15PM by clay.

download 10.8 (or if you still have the 10.7), then look into "contents" and find the disk image. Burn that to a DVD, or an 8 GB USB. boot from that, install and that's it. I did this when I installed an SSD into a macbook a fe wweks ago. I left the old OS on the hard drive, just in case.

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space-time
download 10.8 (or if you still have the 10.7), then look into "contents" and find the disk image. Burn that to a DVD, or an 8 GB USB. boot from that, install and that's it. I did this when I installed an SSD into a macbook a fe wweks ago. I left the old OS on the hard drive, just in case.

thanks, space-time! Sounds easy enough to manage, especially with another mac in the house. If I don't have a 10.8 compatible mac, can I still download the 10.8 installer on that machine?

you need the App store to download (10.6.6)

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space-time
you need the App store to download (10.6.6)

yeah, I've got that, just didn't know if it would check my computer's specs before attempting the download, or if that check would happen right before it started to install.

At least some of the newer Macs that came with Lion pre-installed can reinstall the OS onto a new drive over the internet from Apple. The firmware can boot into an recovery partition that is loaded from the net, and you can initialize the drive with Disk Utility and then install the OS again getting it over the net.

I tried this with an early 2011 MBP before 10.8 was released and got the latest 10.7 release installed. I'm not sure what it will do now, but assume that it will still instal Lion rather than Mountain Lion.

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clay

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space-time
you need the App store to download (10.6.6)

yeah, I've got that, just didn't know if it would check my computer's specs before attempting the download, or if that check would happen right before it started to install.

I doubt that the App store checks computer specs. maybe some who knows for sure can clarify the issue.

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GGD
At least some of the newer Macs that came with Lion pre-installed can reinstall the OS onto a new drive over the internet from Apple. The firmware can boot into an recovery partition that is loaded from the net, and you can initialize the drive with Disk Utility and then install the OS again getting it over the net.

I tried this with an early 2011 MBP before 10.8 was released and got the latest 10.7 release installed. I'm not sure what it will do now, but assume that it will still instal Lion rather than Mountain Lion.

OP said "Let's say you have a new mac, hard drive dies without a cloned backup or installer USB drive in place. "

Indeed, there is a small recovery partition. That allows you to boot into a simple OS where you can run disk Utility to repair hard drive or surf the net in Safari to get help. If the hard drive dies, this option is not available.

However, on newer macs (2011, maybe even 2010?) you can boot into firmware, make an WiFi connection and download Mountain Lion and install.

the whole approach was planned really well IMHO. You have so many options to recover, unless your motherboard is dead, you have one way or another to boot and install 10.7/10.8



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/08/2012 06:39PM by space-time.

so the small recovery partition does not reside on the hard drive itself and is a part of the firmware instead (i.e. not hard drive dependent)? If that's the case, then there shouldn't be any problem connecting the machine to the internet, re-downloading the 10.8 installer, and install.

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clay
so the small recovery partition does not reside on the hard drive itself and is a part of the firmware instead (i.e. not hard drive dependent)? If that's the case, then there shouldn't be any problem connecting the machine to the internet, re-downloading the 10.8 installer, and install.

This is correct, the firmware can connect via WiFi or Ethernet to Apple's server to "net boot" into the recovery partition loaded from Apple's servers, and from there you can restore the original OS.

I tested this on a 2011 MBP before even booting the original hard drive, I installed a brand new drive and did the net based recover to make understand exactly how it would work.

One thing that did seem to get lost in the process was the Apple Hardware Test, the new recovery partition that was installed on the drive didn't have it. Maybe they've fixed that since then.

just to clarify, in addition to booting from Apple's servers via WiFi or Ethernet, there is also a small recovery partition ON THE HARD DRIVE, if you boot into that you have a very bare-bone OS, no finder, just disk utility, reinstall OS, surf the net for help, and reset password (I list this from memory, I may be off on some of these)

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space-time
just to clarify, in addition to booting from Apple's servers via WiFi or Ethernet, there is also a small recovery partition ON THE HARD DRIVE, if you boot into that you have a very bare-bone OS, no finder, just disk utility, reinstall OS, surf the net for help, and reset password (I list this from memory, I may be off on some of these)

I support the point of using recovery HD. Although its a very bare bone OS but can help to reinstall OS.