Possible to factory reset without having to download Lion? (Bought new with Lion on)

wellladida

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I'm new to mac world but one thing that has confused me is the recent lack of any disc with a mac running OSX Lion. Anyway I would like to do a factory reset on my MBP just to start afresh and was a little confused when I seemed to have to download Lion again in recovery mode. I really do not want to do a large d/l and surely there must be some way around this. You would think if I paid for a mac with Lion on or for people with no internet you wouldn't need to keep d/l'ing it to restore their MBP.

Sorry if this has been asked before, (it seems likely) however I did try searching before posting.
 
Those wanting to do similar load the installer up onto external media such as a thumb drive. This would only require that you do the initial download and not have to repeatedly download the installer each and every time you wish to perform a clean install. There are various tutorials on how to do this as well as an app that helps create an external installer disc/thumb drive:

Building an OS X Mountain Lion installer thumb drive | TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog
 
So that is my only option. Would a person with no internet connection be buggered, then?
In hindsight I should of made a time machine back up as soon as I got my Mac.
 
So that is my only option. Would a person with no internet connection be buggered, then?
In hindsight I should of made a time machine back up as soon as I got my Mac.


If no copy of the installer and no internet access then yes, you are stuffed. If you've no internet access then how are you posting here?
 
If no copy of the installer and no internet access then yes, you are stuffed. If you've no internet access then how are you posting here?

I was just asking out of interest. Does anyone know why Apple just doesn't put a copy of OSX Lion is the box is it just to save money?
 
I was just asking out of interest. Does anyone know why Apple just doesn't put a copy of OSX Lion is the box is it just to save money?

This covers most of the reasons in a logical way:
Why OS X Might Soon Be Free | Technology, Commentary | Chris Friend


Apple has been moving away from physical media for some time now. Their first blatant move away from the format was the MacBook Air, introduced in 2008, which did not include an optical drive. At the time, Apple was pushing for adoption of other products without physical media, including the Time Capsule backup device and iTunes movie downloads. The recent addition of an app store for the Mac moved official software distribution away from discs, as well.

By eliminating the materials, packaging, and shipping costs associated with software distribution, Apple has streamlined and simplified purchases and upgrades. They also, in true Apple style, secure greater control over what they distribute. If Apple updates their distribution files, there is no way to install an older version from discs that shipped with a computer, for instance. If Apple changes software features or functionality, there is no way for the customer to “roll back” to a version shipped on disc.

By only ever providing the latest version of any available software, Apple promotes faster adoption of newer software; customers cannot easily remain on older software that Apple no longer wishes to support. By reducing the cost of their next operating system to $20, Apple makes it very enticing for users of their current software to quickly jump on board with the update. If prices were to be reduced to $0, Apple could virtually guarantee rapid adoption of the new software, considering most home users do not skeptically wait for bug fixes and maintenance releases like large corporate installations have to.
 
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Well it would save money not using disks but apple is a closed system all the apps and software gets checked by apple then download straight from app store direct to ure computer or ipad so the chances of u getting a pirated or duff copy are next to zero the advantage is thats why there stuff is so good and reliable and u dont need antivirus because its a closed system downside is you have to download everthing whether u like it or not but at least once u download software its all stored in the cloud for u to redownload when ever u want.
Look at windows cd u dont get original windows cd its all disk image of ure desktop on cd if ure lucky a lot of laptops you have to make up a back up disk ure self so ure just as well downloading?
 
Dante 01, could you please give me the name of the app that helps download M/Lion onto a thumb drive i tried to do it myself with Lion but coudn't get it to work ,I thought i'd followed the guide but it didn't work for me
 
Dante 01, could you please give me the name of the app that helps download M/Lion onto a thumb drive i tried to do it myself with Lion but coudn't get it to work ,I thought i'd followed the guide but it didn't work for me

Serial Serveur » Lion DiskMaker (US)

Lion DiskMaker is an application programmed with AppleScript that you can use with Mac OS X 10.6, 10.7 or 10.8 to burn a DVD or build a bootable USB key from OS X 10.7 or 10.8.
 
Well it would save money not using disks but apple is a closed system all the apps and software gets checked by apple then download straight from app store direct to ure computer or ipad so the chances of u getting a pirated or duff copy are next to zero the advantage is thats why there stuff is so good and reliable and u dont need antivirus because its a closed system downside is you have to download everthing whether u like it or not but at least once u download software its all stored in the cloud for u to redownload when ever u want.
Look at windows cd u dont get original windows cd its all disk image of ure desktop on cd if ure lucky a lot of laptops you have to make up a back up disk ure self so ure just as well downloading?

You don't have to go through the app store on a mac. I got my first mac in march and i've only installed xcode via the app store. Everything else i've downloaded of the internet just like Windows.
Also, its basically Linux underneath. Most linux stuff works on a mac. Its not as closed as some people seem to think it is.
 
You don't have to go through the app store on a mac. I got my first mac in march and i've only installed xcode via the app store. Everything else i've downloaded of the internet just like Windows.
Also, its basically Linux underneath. Most linux stuff works on a mac. Its not as closed as some people seem to think it is.
To be more strictly accurate under the covers OS X is a derivative of BSD UNIX whereas Linux is a UNIX-like OS written from scratch.
 
Probably best to make a time-machine backup as soon as you install lion again to save having to re-download it.
 
I burnt it to a DVD so I could do a clean install. It's a little bigger than Lion, so needed a dual layer disk.

Worked ok though.
 
I thought you had two options here, may be wrong though...

1. Booting into the recovery partition (hold option at the chime) will allow you to reinstall your current OS without having to download again.

2. Booting into internet recovery (hold command+r at the chime) will allow you to reset your system to what it came with at the time of purchase, this option requires a download of the OS. I have recently done this to add a Lion partition to my MacBook which I upgraded to ML.
 
I thought you had two options here, may be wrong though...

If you've not previously downloaded and made a copy of the installer then you have no option other than to download the installer again, this includes installing OS X via the recovery mode and/or via internet recovery.

You can restore your Mac via a Time Machine backup from the recovery mode, but you cannot do a clean install without downloading the installer from Apple.
 
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Thats garbage isnt it, what the hell are Apple thinking god forbid my MacBook ever goes tits up when I dont have a decent internet connection :suicide:
 
Then download it now in preparation?
 
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hutch said:
Thats garbage isnt it, what the hell are Apple thinking god forbid my MacBook ever goes tits up when I dont have a decent internet connection :suicide:

But then you still have the installer partition, or just reset from single user boot mode, can even do it remotely.
 
Thats garbage isnt it, what the hell are Apple thinking god forbid my MacBook ever goes tits up when I dont have a decent internet connection :suicide:
Surely if your MacBook ever goes tits up you would want to restore a backup from Time Machine or Super Duper rather than installing a new copy of OS X?
 

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