OSX Recovery - Will it install Lion or Mountain Lion?


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Hi guys,

I've currently got the most recent model Mac Mini which came with Lion preinstalled. If I initiate the Recovery feature and reinstall the OS clean it will download and install OSX Lion for me as that's what I'm entitled to - that's fine.

My question is, if I purchase Mountain Lion from the App Store and then initiate OSX Recovery, will it download and clean install Mountain Lion for me or will it stick with just Lion since that's what my Mac shipped with?

Thanks.

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I suppose the (EFI?) code gets updated and it'll download Mountain Lion. It'd only make sense really.

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I suppose the (EFI?) code gets updated and it'll download Mountain Lion. It'd only make sense really.

I'm guessing it just checks the App Store to see what latest OS you have purchased.

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I'm guessing it just checks the App Store to see what latest OS you have purchased.

I thought the recovery was just a very basic image downloader, does it require you to sign in with your Apple ID?

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If you do an update install is will update the recovery partition with the new ML recovery image. I'm not sure about the EFI recovery yet...

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I'd say internet recovery will stay at Lion until the EFI gets updated to point at a new image. (Internet recovery currently installs 10.7.3, not .4 too). In a few weeks, I'd bet an EFI update for all 2012 Macs will be released to point Internet recovery to ML. I don't think this would apply to 2011 Macs as that'd essentially give them ML for free.

If you download and then install ML, your hidden recovery partition IS updated to ML, but you have to download AND install ML first.

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Internet Recovery doesn't install Mountain Lion once purchased from App Store, Apple will need to release an update for this to happen, I am not sure how they will go about it yet, probably a simple EFI Firmware change will do it. However if you use the Recovery Utility after upgrading, it WILL install Mountain Lion, just not the Internet Recovery.

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I'd say internet recovery will stay at Lion until the EFI gets updated to point at a new image. (Internet recovery currently installs 10.7.3, not .4 too). In a few weeks, I'd bet an EFI update for all 2012 Macs will be released to point Internet recovery to ML. I don't think this would apply to 2011 Macs as that'd essentially give them ML for free.

If you download and then install ML, your hidden recovery partition IS updated to ML, but you have to download AND install ML first.

Well they could put it in the 10.8.1 update, you need 10.8 / ML in the first place to update to 10.8.1 so you must of got it from somewhere. They could either change the Internet Recover to ask for an Apple ID login and it checks which one it needs to download!

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I thought the recovery was just a very basic image downloader, does it require you to sign in with your Apple ID?

Yes, you do have to sign in with your Apple ID from what I recall.

I like how Apple designed the recovery partition (in that it is small and just downloads stuff as needed). Very SSD friendly approach, which I appreciated.

You can also restore from a time machine backup if you don't want to redownload the OS (if you use Time Machine, which I think everyone who owns a Mac should...)

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Yes, you do have to sign in with your Apple ID from what I recall.

I like how Apple designed the recovery partition (in that it is small and just downloads stuff as needed). Very SSD friendly approach, which I appreciated.

You can also restore from a time machine backup if you don't want to redownload the OS (if you use Time Machine, which I think everyone who owns a Mac should...)

Never has asked me to sign in ever...

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  • 4 months later...

I have done this hundreds of times. It does it based on what you purchased from the App store. If you have only lion it will it will load just that. If you have ML then it loads that.

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