How long does it take to reinstall mac OS x lion

It says 86 hours to go? Is this right?

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.4)

Posted on Sep 10, 2012 1:54 PM

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3 replies

Sep 10, 2012 3:12 PM in response to obrien7549

Like shootist explains, there are two timeframes involved. Getting the installer on the computer and then getting the installer to do its thing.


The Lion installer weighs in at exactly 4.07GB, while the Mountain Lion weighs in at 4.37GB (YEAH, I have a copy of BOTH on the HDD cause I am NOT gonna wait that long AGAIN!). So check the speed of your link and use it to divide the above figures to get a reasonable guesstimate of how long Phase 1 is gonna take. If you do not want to wait for this again, quit as soon as it finishes downloading and save the installer elsewhere cause it will commit hara-kiri and delete itself after install. Said installer can be used to concoct a bootable USB stick for expediency later on. See Kappy's Recipe: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3786371?answerId=17782820022#17782820022


Phase 2, install, starts briskly enough in Lion. About 15-20 minutes later, depending on disk speed and type of install it reaches a step where it purportedly is "moving files in place". In my latest try (was setting up a testbench on a blank external FW800 HDD), that took over an hour even though it promised to take "a few minutes". Mountain Lion doesn't have that step and finishes in about 25 minutes with the 10.8.1 installer.

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How long does it take to reinstall mac OS x lion

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