Lion Recovery (Command-R) - What Lion version do you get?

Question

Level 5

5,083 points

Lion Recovery (Command-R) - What Lion version do you get?

When booting from the Lion Recovery partition using Cmd-R, one of the options is to download and reinstall OS 10.7, Lion. The entire Lion installer is then downloaded and the installation begins.

The question is, when that's done, what version of Lion has been installed? Is it the earliest: 10.7.0, the latest, 10.7.5 as of this writing, or whatever version is currently installed on your Mac?

While Lion was still the current OS, after an update was released, the version of the Lion installer available for purchase or redownload from the Mac App Store was the updated version, not the original one. Even after Mountain Lion was released, while Lion was still available on the Purchases tab (with the Option Key down), the updated version, including 10.7.5, of the "Install Mac OS X Lion.app" was what was delivered and they each had different version numbers.

The question is relevant for posters on the endless "time machine slow in 10.7.5" thread because using Recovery to revert to an earlier version of Lion could be a quick solution to the Time Machine/Spotlight conflict, as long as Recovery didn't just install 10.7.5 all over again.

Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.4), 5,1 6-core 24 GB 5870 27" LED ACD

Posted on Sep 30, 2012 9:15 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Best reply

John Galt

Level 10

141,150 points

Oct 3, 2012 7:18 AM in response to FatMac-MacPro

FatMac\>MacPro wrote:

… The question is, when that's done, what version of Lion has been installed? Is it the earliest: 10.7.0, the latest, 10.7.5 as of this writing, or whatever version is currently installed on your Mac?

The answer is... the latest version from Apple.

As of this writing, it is OS X 10.7.5.

There is no way to select an earlier version. So, as a solution to the Time Machine / Spotlight problem, this won't work.

Reply

Answer 2

LD150

Level 10

89,803 points

Oct 3, 2012 7:47 AM in response to John Galt

Except of course if you have been using time machine daily and the TM drive is attached, the Command R boot option allows total recovery from TM, from a time when you had 10.7.4 which is what I did. I lost 4 days work but it was available to recover separately from later backups in TM.

Reply

Answer 3

FatMac-MacPro Author

Level 5

5,083 points

Oct 3, 2012 9:27 AM in response to LD150

peter_watt wrote:

...I lost 4 days work but it was available to recover separately from later backups in TM.

I imagine that would work if just some more recent files had to be recovered. But some things, like your recent email in Thunderbird, are in the Username/Library and your whole Profile would have to be located and replaced; same with any bookmarks or history in your browser. Any new applications installed would need to be recovered too, and support files in /Library or buried in /System/Library would have to be brought into concurrence for them to work properly. Loosing your recent email could be an especially big deal for some users. Consider the 242 posts so far on the Verizon forum complaining that Verizon has managed to loose all its online customers' email and hasn't been able to fix it in over two days. For them, the Cloud is raining. 😢

Reply

Answer 4

LD150

Level 10

89,803 points

Oct 3, 2012 9:45 AM in response to FatMac-MacPro

True, there is no easy path which is why the 10.7.5 disaster is so serious. So serious that Apple is schtumm about it.

My photos are in Aperture which was upgraded at the same time. Any photos I may have added in those 4 days are in a converted library I can no longer open til 10.7.6.

I don't use email clients (I have a tablet to do that) but they are always a real problem with restores I agree. Sending all the relevant mail to webmail folders first then restoring is an option, maybe...

Point is you can get to 10.7.4 using Command-R if you are set up with TM, though it has risks as you rightly say.

Reply

Answer 5

FatMac-MacPro Author

Level 5

5,083 points

Oct 3, 2012 9:56 AM in response to LD150

FWIW, a user on another thread (https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4369615?tstart=0) is now reporting that using Recovery to reinstall Lion gave him 10.7.5 again (no surprise there) but all of his Spotlight and Time Machine problems are gone.

Reply

Answer 6

LD150

Level 10

89,803 points

Oct 3, 2012 10:14 AM in response to FatMac-MacPro

That would be an internet recovery I guess. 4 gigs of internet allowance I don't have this month. If I did I would buy ML. Does that wipe the disk of data or not? Never tried it.

If an internet recovery sorts the TM/Spotlight fiasco then maybe 10.7.5 is not compatible with something that 10.7.4 leaves on the disk. It may help apple solve the real problem. Maybe.

Reply

Answer 7

FatMac-MacPro Author

Level 5

5,083 points

Oct 3, 2012 10:23 AM in response to LD150

peter_watt wrote:

That would be an internet recovery I guess...Does that wipe the disk of data or not?...

As I read his original post on the subject, he booted from the recovery partition and did a reinstallation of Lion. "Our fix was to boot up in recovery partition and reinstall Mac osx lion (which just reinstalls systems files and touches none of your personal files)" so the HD isn't erased first. I believe that if you use the Internet Recovery that's built into new Macs, the HD will be wiped clean first.

Reply

Answer 8

LD150

Level 10

89,803 points

Oct 3, 2012 10:26 AM in response to FatMac-MacPro

Sorry, lazy, shoulda read it. That's good I thought that was only available for Snow Leopard.

Reply