prepare a clean install for upgrade to Mountain Lion

1. Repair the hard drive and permissions.
2. Make a cloned backup of your current system.
3. Download Mountain Lion from the App Store.
4. Erase your OS X volume prior to installing.
5. Install Mountain Lion.

If you do a clean install then you aren't restoring anything from your Time Machine backup. Here's the process:

Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions - Lion

Boot to the Recovery HD:

Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.

Repair

When the recovery menu appears select Disk Utility. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported then click on the Repair Permissions button. When the process is completed, then quit DU and return to the main menu. Select Restart from the Apple menu.

Clone Lion using Restore Option of Disk Utility

Boot to the Recovery HD:

Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.

1. Select Disk Utility from the main menu then press the Continue button.
2. Select the destination volume from the left side list.
3. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
4. Check the box labeled Erase destination.
5. Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
6. Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to the Source entry field.
7. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.

Destination means the external backup drive. Source means the internal startup drive.

When you download the Mountain Lion installer application just be sure that you first erase the OS X volume before you install Mountain Lion. This can be done within the Mountain Lion installer.

Are you actually having any problems with your Lion system? If not, don't bother with a clean install. It's really not necessary on a properly-functioning system.

The only problem with this is that upgrading from one operating system to the next can lead to some functionality issues. When I started my computer with Leopard, the transition to Snow Leopard and then to Lion caused many of the features available in Lion to not be offered on my computer. It wasn't until I did a clean install of Lion that I noticed the difference. Sometimes it is safer to clean install and guarantee that all of the benefits of a new operating system are available to you.

That's not normal, and there must have been something wrong with the Snow Leopard install. I installed Lion right over Snow Leopard and have no problems at all.

That could be. My initial thought was that some of the OS files from the previous operating systems hadn't been deleted and maybe they were being used together with the Lion files. I also did use CleanMyMac for a couple of months which may have very well caused the problem, now that I think about it. I haven't used it on my clean install of Lion. Either way, for the sake of a faster computer I think it's good to do a clean install every so often.

Hi,

I have some problems with my MacBook pro mid 2010, so I’m going to do clean install for ML, but in the other hand I don't want to loose some of app setups, like

Outlook 2011, iTunes library, iPhoto’s library, safari bookmarks and settings, Google chrome bookmarks.

Can I restore them from TM? Or I need to back them on separate place?

Thank's

You will need to back it up on a backup drive, not on Time Machine. Time Machine creates a backup of all of the data on your machine, and recovering it will put you back at square one. If you put your computer's data on a backup drive before doing a clean install, you'll be able to recover your iTunes library and your iPhoto library. You'll need to re-install iLife and Microsoft Office and then re-configure your email accounts in Outlook. Unless someone else knows about the bookmarks, I can't promise that they can be recovered. That's at least how it was for me on the clean install. Also be sure to de-register your Microsoft software and any other important software such as the Adobe CS if you have it, prior to the clean install.

Message was edited by: heatwaveo8

kaiedmek wrote:

Hi,

I have some problems with my MacBook pro mid 2010, so I’m going to do clean install for ML, but in the other hand I don't want to loose some of app setups, like

Outlook 2011, iTunes library, iPhoto’s library, safari bookmarks and settings, Google chrome bookmarks.

Can I restore them from TM? Or I need to back them on separate place?

Thank's

TimeMachine won't give you a clean machine again as it has copied the software problems on your present drive.

It's best to do a fresh install, then restore files by hand.

See this:

Upgrading 10.6/10.7 to 10.8 via "Fresh Install"

You can export your Safari and other browser bookmarks like a file (look in the browsers bookmark options) and reimport them, no sweat.

All your iTunes playlist data is in the Music/iTunes Folder, so as long as you transfer that manually into the same named account when you restore, it will work. Use a different name then your playlists and song locations are screwed.

Your Pictures/iPhoto Library will work fine, but it's best to use the same named user account, else right click on "iPhoto Library" and "Show package contents" for the Originals folder and copy that into the new user account.

Most third party software will have to be reinstalled from original source due to copy protection schemes.

All you really need to do is set new preferences for programs, reset your Mail program and other minor tweaks like screensavers and desktop pictures, no problem.

Thank you, good news.