How to use Lion’s Internet Recovery option?

Apple’s new Mac OS X Lion came out with a lot of features that are revolutionizing the way people use their computers. And for the first time in the computer history, Mac OS X Lion is not available via physical media and is strictly available through the revolutionary Mac App Store.

Now, say that your hard disc has crashed and there’s no way you are able to boot up into your Lion installed Mac. We usually use the recovery disc to fix the problem.

But this time, Lion has a super mini OS X interface built into it, which provides all the necessary tools that you need to login back to your Mac.

This is stored in the recovery partition which Lion creates while installing. This partition contains a file named BaseSystem.dmg. This file is responsible for contacting the Apple servers to take care of the recovery process. Here’s how you can do a clean internet recovery of your Mac OS X Lion.

How to use Lion’s Internet Recovery option:

  1. Bootup your Mac and immediately after the boot sound, just press Command+R. This will show the OS X Lion’s recovery screen. The window gives you loads of features like Disk Utility, Time Machine backup and Terminal.
  2. Once you are in the recovery screen, select the Internet Recovery option.
  3. Apple will take care of all these. A minimal design for the internet recovery will be shown with detailed instructions. It will just ask you to connect to your WiFi network and will prompt for your Apple ID and Password.
[alert_box]If you are unsure of how to access your Recovery Partition, here’s a tutorial on how to access Lion’s recovery partition.[/alert_box]
  • rgkg

    PC manufacturers have been doing this for years. This is not very helpful if your hard drive fails. Also, this makes upgrading/replacing a hard drive even more of a pain. Most PC manufacturers provide you the option to create recovery disks as well in the event of your hard drive failing.

    • James Brown

      There are ways to make recovery disks from the Lion Installer. However if you don’t have access to the actual installer, then you are left with the command+R to get into the recovery Partition. If it is a brand new Hard Drive, then you may want to use OS X Lion Recovery Partition Tool which can be used to create an external recovery option on external HDD, or USB key.

      One nice thing about the process, is that you should get the latest software and OS (well newest for that which shipped with your computer). No need to spend the next day and a half downloading all the updates that came out since your computer shipped.

      One bad thing, as mentioned earlier, you are going to have wait for it all to download. So if you’re reading this, and don’t have a local backup in place, I suggest you find an external HDD, USB or thunderbolt, if you have the extra cash, and get something setup. Time Machine is already included, and usually works fine, and should make life a little nicer if there is any major reloads in your future.

      One thing to note, if you want to see all boot options on your mac hold down the option key, while booting if for some reason you can’t get any recovery partition to load. This will show all boot options available to the Mac.

  • Tejaswin

    That is really good.

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