I have been unable to do this at all in the 2012 15" non retina macbook. Now I'm stuck with an empty partition and only the mountain lion recovery which will not recover since it is not yet out. Anyone figure out any means of booting? Cant boot through snow leopard dvd, it just hangs.. can't create USBs of any system (Lion / mountain Lion), I just get a circle with a slash.. any advice?
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Downgrade to Lion from GM
- Thread starter yogeewan
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
you need to find a bootable version usb or dvd of Lion and do a clean install
you could also try internet recovery which is holding CMD-R on bootup see if that works but the ML install might make it think you want to re-install ML
Last edited:
Bootable versions don't work. They show the apple and then after a bit show a circle with a slash.
Internet recovery does not work, since ML is still not out and it says you have not purchased lion. (even though it is ML recovery, thats the message it gives!)
----------
Let me try the live cd option. If i erase the hdd completely, I hope booting through USB will work with the slash and the circle? I don't want a completely clean HDD. I have a feeling with the GM, some EFI and firmwares were upgraded as well which prevents all these boots.
There comes the sarcasm. This is a developer machine. I can wait a few more days till ML officially comes out and do an internet recovery. It is only out of adventure and learning that this question was asked.
I wasn't pleased from ML so I downgraded to Lion. That's way I inserted cd with Ubuntu 12, pressed ALT/OPTION and chose from boot list Windows( but it was really ubuntu) Then i opened disk gparted and formated whole disk. After that I inserted Lion disc and traditionally installed Lion
You will need to use the Internet Recovery Option by pressing Command + Option + R. Then you'll see a spinning globe; this is how you will know you're in the correct mode. It will then proceed to download the machine specific Lion version for your macbook.
Again:
Command + R is just recovery mode that goes straight to the partition, and this is not what you want.
Command + Option + R will goto Internet Recovery Mode, which is what you want, since the latest OS on Apple's servers is still Lion.
Again:
Command + R is just recovery mode that goes straight to the partition, and this is not what you want.
Command + Option + R will goto Internet Recovery Mode, which is what you want, since the latest OS on Apple's servers is still Lion.
Before downloading Lion it asks for your Apple ID so this only works if you already purchased Lion.
Lion will be a free download (and is tied to the machine's unique ID) for the new 2012 retina macbooks. This is given for free instead of giving a recovery disk.
i also had this problem and what i did was boot into recovery using "option" then select disk utility and erase EVERYTHING every partition every hardrive until you have nothing then once your positive everything is gone restart your computer into internet recovery not positive but i think its option+command+r and let it do its thing and it should install os x lion instead of mountain lion, it took me about an hour i have fast internet though so it may take a little longer depending how fast your connection is, good luck
I would recommend you re-download lion from the mac app store but you will probably have to pay again for it , or buy it from apple they offer it on a usb drive and it is $69.00 .