Installing Clean OSX Lion from a DVD or USB stick

[Boz]

Though very retarded and disorganized, creating a clean install without installing Snow Leopard first is fairly simple.

To download OSX Lion you do have to do it from a computer with Snow Leopard 10.6.6 and above (due to the app store condition). Lion will not be distributed on the physical media or anywhere else. (One of the ways how Apple wants to make everyone use Mac App Store).

So, once you download OSX Lion it will automatically start the installation procedure.. before you click anything:

1. Go To Applications and find a filename called Install Mac OSX Lion.

2. Back That file to a hard drive or wherever just you have a copy so you can make a new DVD or USB when you need it

3. Now you need to right click on the above mentioned file and select Show File Contents

4. You will go into Contents folder and then Shared Resources and located a file called InstallESD

5. You can either burn this InstallESD.dmg with the Disk Utility but Lion installation from DVD drive can take forever. So it is recommended to use the USB stick.

To use USB Stick you will do the following in Disk Utility:

A) Locate USB stick on the left

B) Select it to be active

C) Click on the right side to RESTORE tab

D) Drag the InstallESD.dmg to the SOURCE textbox and drag the USB source to DESTINATION textbox, so it looks like this:

E) Hit Restore and wait until it's done

When it's done your USB stick is ready to be used as startup and install for OSX lion

6) Boot your Mac and hold the ALT key to pick the boot source

7) Choose your DVD with Lion or USB stick and you are on your way

There you go.

[mattking]

Thanks for that, made it dead simple.

[FlintyV]

Good job on the guide. Much appreciated!

[DeadEndAccount]

This thread needs to be sticky-ed so that any future 'inquiries' by people claiming Mac OS X cannot be installed on a clean drive can be pointed to this exact thread.

[Eric Veteran]

This thread needs to be sticky-ed so that any future 'inquiries' by people claiming Mac OS X cannot be installed on a clean drive can be pointed to this exact thread.

Pinned... :)

[Avlor]

Thank you so much, I hate upgrade installs and as I thought, somebody has figured it out!

[piehouserat]

Many thanks for this!

[instant.human]

How big is InstallESD.dmg exactly? I need to know if I need a new USB drive. :p

[Miuku.]

How big is InstallESD.dmg exactly? I need to know if I need a new USB drive. :p

A 4GiB thumbdrive will do the job.

[+Frank B. Subscriber²]

How big is InstallESD.dmg exactly? I need to know if I need a new USB drive. :p

[instant.human]

Great, thanks. So my 4GB will do. <3

[evo0o]

Anyone who has done both a clean install and an upgrade install care to share their experiences on which is better?

I've always been ok with Apple's upgrade install but many are claiming that Launchpad has unwanted/ deleted items so I'm a little apprehensive as I'm just a neat freak like that... :p

[Bloodwork]

I'm formatting a USB stick now, does it need to be formatted as MS-DOS or Mac OS Extended?

[Damian]

Mac OS Extended Journaled

[.Neo]

I'm formatting a USB stick now, does it need to be formatted as MS-DOS or Mac OS Extended?

GUID Partition Table and Mac OS Extended

[game_over]

I've formatted my 4GB USB stick to mac osx journaled guid partition table and it keeps saying i dont have enough space when i try to restore :(

Capacity : 3.68 GB (3,678,363,648 Bytes)

Free Space : 3.65 GB (3,652,558,848 Bytes)

Used : 25.8 MB (25,804,800 Bytes)

Number of Files : 44

Number of Folders : 12

weird as i've erased it. says capacity is 4.02gb else where.

[Southern Patriot]

If that DMG is compressed (which it likely is) then it isn't going to restore onto a 4GB flash drive, it is going to need a larger one.

[.Neo]

I've formatted my 4GB USB stick to mac osx journaled guid partition table and it keeps saying i dont have enough space when i try to restore :( [...] weird as i've erased it. says capacity is 4.02gb else where.

Not sure I fully understand your confusion to be honest. Disk Utility gives out an error saying the target disk doesn't have enough free space, which means you need a higher capacity drive. Seems pretty straight forward, no? The restored DMG requires a total of 3,8 GB of free space, your drive only has 3,65 GB. It should be noted that the capacity of any drive ? formatted capacity.

[Nerd Rage]

total size after being restored is 3.82GB

EDIT: Neo beat me to it :)

[game_over]

Not sure I fully understand your confusion to be honest. Disk Utility gives out an error saying the target disk doesn't have enough free space, which means you need a higher capacity drive. Seems pretty straight forward, no? The restored DMG requires a total of 3,8 GB of free space, your drive only has 3,65 GB. It should be noted that the capacity of any drive ? formatted capacity.

I'm not confused, i have a 4GB USB disk so i assumed that would work since thats what is being talked about on the first page of this thread, so you need at least a 5GB USB disk, not 4GB

[.Neo]

I'm not confused, i have a 4GB USB disk so i assumed that would work since thats what is being talked about on the first page of this thread, so you need at least a 5GB USB disk, not 4GB

That person is wrong (Disk Utility giving out a "not enough disk space"-error should be a hint). The first post clearly shows an 8 GB drive being used for the process. Any external drive or DVD-R(W) will do as well. Good luck!

[game_over]

Burning to DVD now anyway :)

[Zoom7000]

I've already installed Lion before I could burn the DMG and now I can't see the install file anywhere. Looked in /Applications and did a Spotlight search too. Does the Lion installation delete the file? If so, how can I re-download it from the App Store?

[Julienprz]

Though very retarded and disorganized, creating a clean install without installing Snow Leopard first is fairly simple.

Thanks for sharing, this is pretty usefull.

I've already installed Lion before I could burn the DMG and now I can't see the install file anywhere. Looked in /Applications and did a Spotlight search too. Does the Lion installation delete the file? If so, how can I re-download it from the App Store?

Yes it delete the file after installing... Do not know if it's possible to re-download from the M.A.S.

[.Neo]

Do not know if it's possible to re-download from the M.A.S.

You can re-download all applications from the App Store. Including OS X Lion and Xcode. Personally I just made a backup on my external drive.