Installing OS X Mountain Lion on OS X Leopard Mac Pro

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Level 1

8 points

Installing OS X Mountain Lion on OS X Leopard Mac Pro

Hi,

My mac came with OS X Leopard and I am currently using OS X Lion. I want to completey wipe out all data from my laptop and reinstall OS X Mountain Lion,since my laptop is very slow. How do i do this without having to repurchase snow leopard? I do not have the installation discs for either Snow Leopard/Lion.

Is it possible to use a Snow Leopard boot disc? I bought my laptop about a month before they released OS X Snow Leopard. The image below contains the details of my laptop's configuration.

Kindly Help.

Thanks.

MacBook Pro (13-inch Mid 2009), Mac OS X (10.7.3)

Posted on May 6, 2013 5:27 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Ralph Landry1

Level 8

41,844 points

May 6, 2013 5:34 AM in response to skaralan

If you already have Lion installed, restart the MBP while holding the Command and R keys. Then choose to do an erase and install. That will erase all data and reinstall Lion. Then you can go to the Mac App Store and purchase/install Mountain Lion which will replace Lion. You will have a hard drive that has then had all data removed and only contain Mountain Lion.

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Answer 2

Csound1

Level 9

59,973 points

May 6, 2013 5:35 AM in response to skaralan

You'll need the original disks that came with your Mac.

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Answer 3

skaralan Author

Level 1

8 points

May 6, 2013 6:09 AM in response to Ralph Landry1

Thank you for that suggestion, but i have a problem. Since a friend of mine did the upgrade for me i am suddenly having doubts about the authenticity of the OS X Lion installed on my laptop. I vaguely remember him installing Lion from from a dmg file, NOT entirely sure if he used an installation disc.

Is there a method to check if my OS is a licensed version?

Also if i followed the procedure you suggested above, will it be the equivqlent of a new istallation? Like a new laptop without any trace of already existing data?

Thanks again!!

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Answer 4

cbs20

Level 4

2,796 points

May 6, 2013 6:29 AM in response to skaralan

Did you purchase it through the Mac App Store? You can do a clean install of Mountain Lion yourself by creating a usb drive with the Mountain Lion installer on it. Do a simple Google search of how to make a Mountain Lion disk installer and follow those steps. Then you can boot to the usb and completely erase your drive and install Mountain Lion.

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Answer 5

May 6, 2013 7:29 AM in response to skaralan

When your friend did the installation, was Lion downloaded from the Mac App Store or from something else, like a flash drive? You can see if you own the Lion installation by opening the App Store, click the App store icon, then where it says Purchases, click and see if it shows you Lion. If not, close the App Store and then reopen it and now use Option-click on Purchases and see if Lion shows up this time.

If it doesn't show up it was installed from another source, or your friend downloaded it under a different AppleID.

Check to see that your MBP meets the Mountain Lion compatibility by seeing if it is on the list at:

http://www.apple.com/osx/specs

If it is, and since you have Lion installed, you can open the App Store and purchase Mountain Lion ($20 US). After it downloads, about 4-5 GB file, make a copy of the download before you install. The final step of installing is to delete the installer. The install file will be downloaded to the Applications folder. Just make a copy somewhere safe, like your Documents folder.

Then you can click on the installer, and proceed to install. After the installation is finished, you can decide, based on how the MBP is running, if you feel it is necessary to do an erase and reinstall.

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Answer 6

Imp68

Level 4

2,672 points

May 6, 2013 7:40 AM in response to skaralan

Just purchase mountain lion through the app store and download it using your apple id. When it gets to the install part, after the download, cancel it. Then do like cbs20 said, and create a bootable USB out of it. You can easily find instructions online on how to do it. Then you can simple boot to that USB, erase, reinstall, and it'll all properly be under your own Apple ID.

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