Reinstalling Snow Leopard MacBook Air into Mavericks/Lion

Phidelphi wrote:

Hi!

I have a MacBook Air from 2011 with Snow Leopard on it. I want to wipe my hardrive clean and install either Lion or Mavericks on it. The problem with the 2011 model with Snow Leopard is that you cannot reboot and reinstall it without a USB key, right? So, if I install either Lion or Mavericks on the computer before I reinstall it, will that give me an option to reinstall without an USB key, or is it a permanent condition for the Macbook Air from 2011 to be without an Internet recovery mode?

Thanks in advance!

While not exactly answering your specific questions, my advice: Partition your hard drive for a new 2nd partition of about 80% of the remaining capacity. Install Lion or Mavericks into the new partition.

That way you have a Snow Leopard partition to work with by "dual-booting" (Startup Disk in System Preferences). If you discover that some of your software will not work in Lion/Mavericks, you have the Snow Leopard option to work with them.

Reinstalling Snow Leopard after a complete wipe/install Lion or Mavericks will be very difficult and time consuming.

BACK UP BEFORE DOING ANYTHING!