Circle Slash new SSD

[karupspc]

Hello all

Installed SSD hard drive into current gen Mac Mini. Followed iFixit guide also formatted the SSD using Journaled Extended prior to installation.

I have a USB Recovery disk of Lion to fully reinstall Lion. When booting Mac Mini, I hear the startup sound while holding down Option key, I get the USB disk boot option.

Upon pressing the USB disk option next screen is grey with a circle slash.

Any ideas?

 

[Ice Dragon]

I believe you cannot use the USB disk with a mini that came installed with Lion.

 

[August West]

Did you create the USB recovery drive on the Mini you are trying to recover? If the computer shipped with Lion, the external recovery drive can only be used with the system that created it - per Apple.

If you have broadband you can always use Command-R to recover from the internet.

 

[karupspc]

Re

I purchased the USB Recovery Disk from Apple. Used the suggested method of CMD + R during boot. OS X Lion is now downloading from Apple. Bummer I was hoping to use the disk as means to reinstall on the Mac Mini.

Thank you everyone for helping!

 

[Ice Dragon]

I'm bumping this topic as opposed to creating a new one since I want an SSD in the Mini I just bought.

Hopefully someone can clarify this for me...

Do I have to backup my HDD data to my new SSD? Or is it just simply put in new SSD? Hit command+r during boot?

I am basically looking for a step by step guide. I believe I need something called a Lion Recovery console?

I understand it somewhat though some things are still murky.

Thanks in advance.

 

[shortcut3d]

You can copy your HDD to the SSD using disk utilities after you boot to Internet Recovery or the Recovery Partition.

Note: Lion no longer allows you to copy the OS X system disk from within OS X.

Steps:
1) Restart > Command + R
2) Disk Utilities > Restore
3) Drag your original HDD to the Source field
4) Drag your new SSD to the Destination field

 

[Ice Dragon]

All right, so I have my SSD in the USB enclosure and everything is copied over and then I get it in the Mini.

Once I get it in the Mini, how do I do a clean install of Lion?

 

[surroundfan]

Hello all

Installed SSD hard drive into current gen Mac Mini. Followed iFixit guide also formatted the SSD using Journaled Extended prior to installation.

I have a USB Recovery disk of Lion to fully reinstall Lion. When booting Mac Mini, I hear the startup sound while holding down Option key, I get the USB disk boot option.

Upon pressing the USB disk option next screen is grey with a circle slash.

Any ideas?

There were special builds of Lion for the Mac mini mid-2011 models. The stock build on the USB key won't install on them. You'll have to download Lion from Apple.

 

[ccartola]

There were special builds of Lion for the Mac mini mid-2011 models. The stock build on the USB key won't install on them. You'll have to download Lion from Apple.

I agree with you 100%. I have a mac mini mid-2011 and decided to change HHD to SSD 120GB (Vertex 3) and there wasn't any possibility to install Lion from USB. I had to dowload from Apple and install it. Around 3-4 hours.

Don't try to do anything "normal" or "extra" because it won't work...

 

[BarkingGhost]

I believe you cannot use the USB disk with a mini that came installed with Lion.

Why is this?

 

[Ice Dragon]

Why is this?

I think because they ship a different kind of build on the USB disk as opposed to the Lion shipped with the Mini itself.

The disk is designed (if I recall reading correctly) to allow people to upgrade to Lion who do not have sufficient broadband internet access.

On another note; what is a good USB enclosure device to put my future SSD into and copy over my data. Can it be just any one or is there one that is Mac compatible?

 

[Stan Mikulenka]

Hi everybody,
I made my own USB install which looks like this.
I can install Lion from it: