How to Install a "Clean" copy of Lion as if computer were new

Question

Level 1

0 points

How to Install a "Clean" copy of Lion as if computer were new

Hello - SORRY for the repost, I see this thread has been done a million and one times already. Yet none of them have answered my question. I bought a refurbished computer (not from Apple) and it came with SL. I purchased Lion from the App store and created a partition on my external hard drive with the disc image for Lion. I then proceeded to download Lion and of course once it was done the computer still had previous settings and the previous owner's name. I want to install Lion and make the computer MINE, I want it to load lion so that it asks for MY name and all that... Please just give me steps.

MacBook Air, Mac OS X (10.5.2), iPhone & MacBook Pro

Posted on Sep 25, 2011 8:02 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Best reply

John Hammer1

Level 4

2,814 points

Sep 25, 2011 8:07 AM in response to ckreems

Boot from "Recovery HD" - it's a mini partition on your hard drive that was created when you installed Lion. You can boot from Recovery HD by holding down Command-R while booting, or by holding down the option key while booting and then selecting Recovery HD from the list of bootable volumes.

Once you're booted into Recovery HD, you can completely wipe the other partitions of your hard drive and even repartition it if you like. You can then install Lion from scratch; it will take some time as the first thing that will happen in this process is the downloading of the Lion installer.

http://www.apple.com/macosx/recovery/

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4718

You might want to just create your own administrator account and then delete the previous owner's accounts. It will take much less time and you won't have to reinstall/reauthorize all your software.

http://www.hackmac.org/hacks/how-to-create-a-new-administrator-account/

Reply

Answer 2

ckreems Author

Level 1

0 points

Sep 25, 2011 8:13 AM in response to John Hammer1

Thanks for the quick response! Unfortunately I erased everything on the hard drive - I don't know if that erases the Recovery HD as well - but now when I restart it only gives me the option to boot from my external hard drive - which is partitioned and has the Lion Installer DMG. Can I do the same from my External and if so how?

Reply

Answer 3

Sep 25, 2011 8:16 AM in response to ckreems

Did you try booting while holding down Command-R?

If that doesn't work, boot from whatever you've got and use the Install Mac OS X Lion install application to install Lion on the chosen boot volume of your internal drive. You already erased everything, so that's pretty much your only option at this point. At least you kept a copy of the Lion installer and a bootable backup.

Reply

Answer 4

ckreems Author

Level 1

0 points

Sep 25, 2011 8:20 AM in response to John Hammer1

Yes I was holding option (Does that make a difference?) And I wanted absolutely nothing to be on the computer so am I going in the right direction by just intalling from my hard drive?

Reply

Answer 5

Sep 25, 2011 8:27 AM in response to ckreems

"Yes I was holding option" does not compute if you're answering the question, "Did you try booting while holding down Command-R?" Either, "No, I was holding option" or "Yes" are possible answers. Anyway...

Yes, if you want to wipe everything (which you did already) and get a clean install of Lion, everything you've done so far is fine.

Reply

Answer 6

ckreems Author

Level 1

0 points

Sep 25, 2011 8:29 AM in response to John Hammer1

Thanks John I love you.

Reply