MAC OS LION FAQ's

lawrence_from_london wrote:

I've read your posts and others here with great interest. Your sound advice clarifies to me that so much of which has been written about hacking the Mac OS X Lion Installer and creating a "bootable install disc" is far to simplistic. My gut instincts alone tell me that these hacking methods are critically flawed and, as has been discussed here at great lengths, a rather inept way of circumventing Apple's own prescribed methods of safely installing, re-installing Lion, etc.

You only need to Google the hack and you get the same run down, a mere 2 hours after Lion was available for download! Yet none seem to have actually tried to use their "bootable install disc", let alone extensively test their systems, post install hack.

Result: my faith in Mac sites and their glaring nepotism is seriously dented, but my faith in those who have not jumped the gun, read Apple's own advice, particularly these excellent posts in the Apple Support Communities, shows to me an understanding of where Apple is going with this method of software distribution and installation.

Me, well I'm going to sit tight for a couple of months, read and learn, perhaps do a RAM upgrade, and then download Lion, the right way.

And as the man said "Think Different"

I did try the CMD+R at boot up & it worked perfectly. I appreciate what you have written & hope that everyone reads this. You are absolutely right, 'Think Different'.

AppleLisa Rose

😉

Graham Perrin wrote:

Immediatly after my use of the hacked USB flash drive, the FileVault 2 system to which I reinstalled was unusable.

--1. Sorry: using Disk Utility to produce a booteable media from a bootable image is not a hack. It is how one should do it on a Mac.

--2. You are talking about "reinstalling" and a system using "FileVault2". This is a totally different situation against a fist install of Lion on a normal (no FileVault) existing SnowLeopard 10.6.8.

Again: this worked for me without problems and must have worked for many others too.

So your situation might have been special.

Hi guys, I'm confused. Is it really that bad to create a bootable disc off of the lion installer? I'm having trouble clean installing from the lion recovery partition. The disc seems to be the only efficient way. Lots of credible sites recommend burning a disc. Is it really that prone to problems as mentioned in this thread?

When I called Apple about the Time Machine backups the Lion download put on my startup drive without running the installer I told the first and second level support as well as the engineer I spoke with that I had burned the InstallESD.dmg to DVD and planned to use it to install a Mac OS X Base System along with DiskWarrior to a flash drive so I had choices if my Lion installation went south. None of the people I spoke with cautioned me that using the DVD would cause any problems. It happily installed a perfectly functioning Lion installation including the recovery partition on the the flash drive.

Perhaps if you post the specifics of what you did to ruin a good Lion installation people might be able to see if they can duplicate your results.

Apple have just released "Lion Recovery Disk Assistant". It's a small download, and once you've downloaded Lion it lets you create Lion Recovery on an external drive/USB flash drive that quote " has all of the same capabilities as the built-in Lion Recovery: reinstall Lion, repair the disk using Disk Utility, restore from a Time Machine backup, or browse the web with Safari"

Just head over to:

http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1433

Hopefully this may well calm some fears or misgivings regarding the various methods/hacks that have been shunted around the Mac world.

Wait just a second, I made a bootable USB key, it worked fine. It's not a 'hack' to modify your property to function best in your surroundings. It made perfect sense to do it, I have re-installed 4x now, and would have hated to download Lion 4x to do so.

Waiting for "deus ex machina" to solve problems is hardly the way to go. I love apple's hardware, but this time they got it wrong with the OS. Nobody needs to commit suicide or anything, but I've seen more kernel panics over the last 7 days then I have in 8 years. Apple is just a company, in particular, a company that already got paid. They make the best hardware, and OS, certainly, but maybe they could take a tip or two from Dell... or maybe not. They got paid.

Too much running, with not enough documentation, and too many apologists, with too many excuses. I'll never install new Apple software again, I'll watch here first. I have learned this lesson.

I hope I'm not being offensive in pointing out that Apple has released this software download, its just that I have read roughly 6 different ways to do what Apple's own software can do in one or two easy and clear steps, especially when not everyone is that confident or adept in making their own install recovery USB discs/drives, let alone not actually wanting to have too.

I accept that 'hack' maybe too strong a word to explain those 6 different extract and burn processes, but that is what has, and still is being used, and that is what scares people who just want their iMacs to MacBook Pros make a smooth transition from Snow Leopard to Lion, and as such I felt it appropriate to point Epiphron to Apple's specific Support page as a starting point to gather enough knowledge and to be assured that there is an official and recommended way to create your own Lion Recovery drive should you wish to.

Hi, again

Sorry for the delay in not replying sooner, I'm right in the middle of the riots in South London you may have seen on the news and I've been looking after my neighbours, some who are scared to go out. Tough times.

But back to your point. As this Lion Recovery Disc Assistant is a new development, and a welcome one at that, I am unsure which would be better as the next step as I am new to the Support Communities. Yet, on reflection and ideally, re-opening this discussion and editing it (when you are free) may prove helpful for everyone in the long term, after all, this is still early days since the release of Lion and many still have not plucked up the courage to update because of the confusion and uncertainty seen here and by many others outside of the Apple Support Communities.

And by the way, I don't believe for one second that you may or may not have caused any of that confusion here, we are all learning a new and rather exciting way of worldwide major software distribution and our shared experiences go a long way in supporting many and the future development of Apple and its products.

You may want to add that there is a great little tool available for burning a DVD or making a bootable USB disc from the Lion installation package:

http://blog.gete.net/lion-diskmaker-us/

One doesn't need to know about "showing package content", disc utility and similar. I have used it myself (yes, I did overwrite my Lion installation with a fresh install using it) and it is excellent. It makes use of 4GB USB sticks as well, while Disc Utility didn't like it.

> … Apple's [Apple] Mac OS X Lion Upgrade Information (2011-06-17), in particular Deploying Lion. …

That page is no longer found.

Instead: [GL] OS X Lion for Business and Education (2011-06-20) refers to OS X Lion for Business and Education (PDF).