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Level 1

10 points

Help! Clean install Mountain lion, nothing happened after entering Apple ID

I have a Macbook Air 11 (mid-2011). Recently I have purchased Mountain lion from App store and upgraded it with no problems. But I would like to have a clean installation to clear all my previous settings and installed Apps.

I pressed 'Option' to restart the computer to Recovery mode, run 'Disk Utility' to erase the harddisk, then clicked 'reinstall OS' to start the installation.

The first few steps look good, when it comes to select a partition for installation, I selected the harddisk and clicked 'Continue'. Then it prompts me to enter my Apple ID and password, I entered it, then the prompt box disappeared with nothing to happen. I then tried to click 'Continue' again, the input box prompted again to ask me for my Apple ID and password, I entered again and, again, nothing happened.

First I thouhg it may be the network problem, so I click 'Continue' again and this time I entered a wrong password. But it can warn me that my password is incorrect, which means the system can actually connect to the internet.

I then opened the log window, and see the following error messages:

localhost Unknown[287]: 2012-08-02 09:29:52.489 Install OS X Mountain Lion[312:1803] Couldn't find app store version, falling back to hardcoded

localhost Install OS X Mountain Lion[312]: Can not connect to /var/run/systemkeychaincheck.socket: No such file or directory

Please help!!

Thanks in advance.

MacBook Air, OS X Mountain Lion

Posted on Aug 2, 2012 9:34 AM

40 replies

Aug 2, 2012 2:11 PM in response to killhippie

I just tried that... No dice, got an error message this time though "Error 1004"

Aug 2, 2012 2:13 PM in response to skyofky

This issue has nothing to do with the computer someone is using, it's definitely Apples servers.

Aug 2, 2012 2:20 PM in response to PeterFerland

Not all Macs have Internet recovery, it was enabled with an EFI software update for various macs. Internet recovery to Lion was working for me earlier today, but if that's gone down the Apple need to sort this out, its does seem like an Apple server issue, its not my hard drive as i zeroed that today with no issue, and had tried the ML clean install earlier in the week as a test before I zeroed my drive to clean install. Hopefully we will here some news to soon as this is a pain.

Aug 2, 2012 2:26 PM in response to killhippie

Does this retain all the data on your hard drive? When I have installed from recovery it keeps all my data and only reinstalls the OS? Thanks.

Aug 2, 2012 2:32 PM in response to Andrea Sian

I would imagine it should, may be worth checking, I had a blank drive, its the same principle but since you are going back to a previous version of OS X I would google or search this forum it to see. Good luck.

Aug 2, 2012 2:39 PM in response to killhippie

Thanks, I did have Time Machine running so would only lose max 45 minutes of work but obviously it's easier and quicker to not have to restore from Time Machine!

Having already had this issue once today I'm not feeling confident that it won't happen again. A bit confused as to why the Apple tech support didn't offer this as an option when I was on the phone to him earlier? Thanks for your help though, more useful than an hour on the phone to Apple!

Aug 2, 2012 3:06 PM in response to Andrea Sian

http://www.cultofmac.com/106669/force-lion-to-start-internet-recovery-on-your-20 11-or-later-mac-os-x-tips/

This shows how you do it, I guess not all Apple staff may know, or it depends on your mac

Aug 2, 2012 3:40 PM in response to skyofky

I'm getting a new message now that reads "Could not write installation information to disk. Contact AppleCare." It has a big yellow triangle with the ML Logo in the corner next to the message. Maybe Apple are in the process of fixing it?

hmahadik

Level 1

0 points

Aug 2, 2012 3:50 PM in response to Andrea Sian

One can only hope...

Aug 2, 2012 4:58 PM in response to Andrea Sian

Had that last night if you shut down and reboot it goes away. 😐

Aug 2, 2012 5:09 PM in response to killhippie

Never mind then! I fixed the problem but creating a USB install disc on my MacBook. I know this isn't an option for everyone though and still hope Apple are seriously looking in to a fix.

Aug 2, 2012 5:13 PM in response to Andrea Sian

I have ML on my iMac but would want a clean instal tbh, personal preference. I have sent an email to the tech with this and another thread in it so he can see the issue further, I hope it will be fixed by next week sometime.

skyofky Author

Level 1

10 points

Aug 2, 2012 8:09 PM in response to Andrea Sian

I feel a bit relief (or should I?) to know that it is not an 'only me' problem. I am now trying to create an ML USB boot disk and see if it could rescue my Air.

Crossing my fingers.

Aug 2, 2012 10:04 PM in response to skyofky

hey guys i think it's fixed because i just did clean install and it worked perfectly.

Aug 3, 2012 1:54 AM in response to killhippie

this did it for me, thx! - at least to go back to lion..

Help! Clean install Mountain lion, nothing happened after entering Apple ID