the specialist at the apple store claimed that that MBA comes with a thumb drive in the box to allow reformatting by myself. but the MBA didn't come with one and i couldn't find any reference material online to confirm..
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does new MBA come with a thumb drive to reformat?
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The 2010 MBA did. I haven't bought the 2011, so I am not sure. I can tell you that you do not need it. You can do a clean install of Lion with an iTunes account and an internet connection, very easy and convenient.
No, it doesn't come with a thumb drive. If you need to reinstall then you can use the recovery partition to do that. There is also the ability to install Lion on a new drive directly from the Internet.
No, the new MBAs do not come with a thumb drive. Instead you get the Lion Recovery partition, that installs the OS directly off of apple's servers.
If you do want to create a bootable thumb-drive, I'm sure that's possible. Though it might require you to download the OS X Lion install file from the Mac App Store, making a disc image out of it, and using Disc Utility to create the bootable drive.
If you do want to create a bootable thumb-drive, I'm sure that's possible. Though it might require you to download the OS X Lion install file from the Mac App Store, making a disc image out of it, and using Disc Utility to create the bootable drive.
I tried that over the internet thing and it didn't work for me. Mainly because I couldn't find it. You can connect to a wireless network during boot up, but I am guessing that is more to access a Time Capsule or a network drive.
There is no option to create a bootable thumb drive that I could find, and the Lion build in the AppStore is a different build that what comes with the MBAs.
I too am looking for a better catastrophe recovery solution....
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The best thing you can do is get Carbon Copy Cloner and copy your main installation to an external drive.
My own opinion is that for the price of admission, Apple should definitely supply a thumb drive with the 2011 MBA just as they did with the 2010 MBA. I am not satisfied with the Internet Recovery solution,
as I should have the ability to do my own self-controlled complete erase & restore when I want to, locally, without being forced to the "cloud".
as I should have the ability to do my own self-controlled complete erase & restore when I want to, locally, without being forced to the "cloud".
That's not going to help me if the whole drive goes south. I need something that will let me repartition the drive so I can restore that image.
On my PC I use Acronis True Image. When you boot into the Acronis CD it has tools that let you delete/recreate partitions, etc.
It would also be nice to have something that would put the drive back to its original factory state, including the recovery partition.
In addition to the recovery partition, the new MBAs (and all future Macs) have the ability to partition/download/install directly from the net, via the machine's firmware.
eg: You completely replace the drive in your machine (so no recovery partition) - you can still boot into the firmware OS installation tool and download/install Lion (and future versions of OS X).
It still requires you to have an internet connection, but you aren't stuck if you accidentally blow away your recovery partition or install a new drive.
As for me, when I pick up my new MBA next week I'm going to hook up an external USB drive (or maybe just an SD card) and use SuperDuper to make a bootable image of the default factory install as well. Because I like having a local copy of the OS to restore from, "just in case".
You would boot from the external drive into Lion, or go to the recovery partition and install Lion to your new drive.
If anyone's fuzzy on the specifics, Apple wrote a really good support article about Internet Recovery (which includes how to get iLife back via the App Store):
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4718
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4718
Why would he need another Mac to do that? I said before that he could get an external hard drive and use Carbon Copy cloner to create a copy of his main SSD. If the SSD dies and he get a replacement, he could then use the external drive to install/recover his installation to the new SSD...(assuming that the SSD can be somehow replaced on the Macbook Air).
If doing internet recovery, then that won't be necessary. The newest build will be downloaded from the Apple servers.
This, especially since I travel quite a bit and internet / speeds can be iffy a lot of times. It costs Apple almost nothing to give it to us, they just want everything to be Mac App store and make it more difficult for everyone.
IMO, if you actually bring your Mac's restore DVDs with you every time you travel, then you're in the .0001% club.This, especially since I travel quite a bit and internet / speeds can be iffy a lot of times. It costs Apple almost nothing to give it to us, they just want everything to be Mac App store and make it more difficult for everyone.
IMO, if you actually bring your Mac's restore DVDs with you every time you travel, then you're in the .0001% club.
I would bring the jump drive, it takes up no space.
EDIT: And when you're in different areas, a lot of data is shared via jump drives, which half the time are loaded with viruses. Better to be safe than have a brick for another week with nowhere to get support.
Apple cannot be omitting the thumb drive in order to further enhance the bottom line profits........the only reason for the omission appears to be.........well, we all know what the real reason is......and I may be an older long time Mac user, but I purchase CD's, Blu-ray movies and some real printed books, so I want my physical recovery media!.....
Stan
.....Stan
I tried this, and I couldn't figure out where to make it do this. Do you have a link to some instructions?
In my case I lost my recovery partition. The version of Lion that comes with the 2011 MBAs is a different build number than the one you can buy from the AppStore. I'd prefer a method that simply "resets" the machine to the way it came from the factory. Short of a trip to the Apple Store (and even they can't do it yet, as I went there yesterday to have it done and they had not received their Lion images yet) there doesn't seem to be a viable option right now.
Ahh, never mind. I just saw the link. All I can say is I tried that and it didn't do anything for me.
Lion Internet Recovery
If you happen to encounter a situation in which you cannot start from the Recovery HD, such as your hard drive stopped responding or you installed a new hard drive without Mac OS X installed, new Mac models introduced after public availability of OS X Lion automatically use the Lion Internet Recovery feature if the Recovery HD (Command-R method above) doesn't work. Lion Internet Recovery lets you start your Mac directly from Apple's Servers. The system runs a quick test of your memory and hard drive to ensure there are no hardware issues.
Lion Internet Recovery presents a limited interface at first, with only the ability to select your preferred Wi-Fi network and, if needed, enter the WPA passphrase. Next, Lion Internet Recovery will download and start from a Recovery HD image. From there, you are offered all the same utilities and functions described above.
As with the Recovery HD, reinstallation of OS X Lion from Lion Internet Recovery requires an Internet connection. See "Supported network configurations and protocols" below.