When trying to reinstall Lion OS on new mid 2011 Macbook Air, error msg 'This version of Mac OS X 10.7 cannot be installed on this computer' comes up. What should I do to reinstall?

I just wiped out all the hdd to reinstall a clean copy of Lion on my brand new mba mid 2011 (just received it today)

when i go through the internet recovery, and try to install the system, i got the same error than you.

what's going on ?

Got the same problem. I've logged a call with support aswell and gone through the whole process. Whole thing seems poor, a new product where you can reinstall the OS!!!! I'm hoping I don't have to ship the unit back as I will have to wait for the BTO option for another week !!!

update:

1. Called Support... and it didnt really help. basic troubleshooting etc.

2. continued my testing - restart CMD + R and connect to my office wifi (yesterday was at home) and start downloading the installer. after a while, got the installation popup prompting me to install, click next, then got finally to download the Lion source. However, my connection in office is so slow it was taking 7hours to get the whole thing.

3. I thought that the guy at the end of the line did something miraculous... I then disconnected and went back home trying the exact same steps... and I was impossible to get it work !!

This is really amazing, the worst piece of crap I have ever seen. Brand new macbook air shipped with Lion installed and I can't get to reinstall the whole system ?!? This is really ridiculous !

Another part is that I tried to install Snow Leopard from the USB key (provided with earlier mba 11") and it can't even get to the installer... that's another point...

Apple, can you get a fix?

Support closed my case for no apparent reason. Going to notify other websites. Am sure others will start reinstalling

Check the partition map scheme on the installation drive. I think I remember reading somewhere that Lion won't install unless it is a GUID partition scheme. You should be able to access the Disk Utility from the Recovery console to check it...

Gone through that check aswell. Mine was already a GUID partition. Just isn't working

Could I ask, out of curiousity, why you're wiping the drive of a new computer and reinstalling Lion?

I bet in an attempt to get the iLife apps to update....

Actually I migrated all of my apps and extensions from my old mac (running Lion) to the laptop using the migration assistant and later decided I didn't need all of the apps and extensions so I decided to wipe the drive and do a fresh install as it seems to be the quickest cleanest way of doing this. Perfectly valid I think

Perfectly valid 🙂

There are a number of us however who cant get the iLife apps to update, and some have tried a reinstall. Without luck I might add.

Not tried the iLife updates though now I can't anyway. I suspect the owners of the new mac minis are in the same boat

Anyone managed to get this to work?

I need the same issue too.

As I had purchased lion before, I even tried to redownload but it prompt me the same error..

Using a new MBA 2011, this seems fustrating as I am not able to restore from my MBA 2010 backup as well

Huh. Didn't know about the iLife updating problem, and the changed-mind-about-migration is one I hadn't thought of either. Good luck!

Still not working. This is really fustrating - my MBA 2011 is pretty much useless at the moment. The only thing I can think of is to boot up my lion (app store version) install from my old disk, download and install a copy of the 10.7.2 beta, clone this to my new air.