How to factory reset Lion, yet retain Win7?

[Colchiro]

Hi guys,

I decided to sell my 2011 i5 Mini and have a 2012 i7 on the way. There's nothing on the Mac side I need and thought having it already set up with Boot Camp might be an asset when selling, esp since I have an extra copy of Win7 and Office 2007. I also assumed that would be easier than trying to copy the Win7 partition to the new Mini.

I've been a PC guy for decades, but new to the Mac so could use a little help.

Thanks.

 

[AppleNewton]

When using Lion recovery it will ask which destination drive or partition you want to install it to.
Boot the mac mini holding option, select the recovery partition, and select disk utility, then click on the ac partition and select erase.
Exit disk utility and select reinstall OS X and it should leave your windows partition in place with a blank os x partition.

Winclone is a great utility for backing up and cloning windows partitions as well.

 

[Colchiro]

Thanks for the quick reply.

I found "Reinstall Mac OSX" under Mac OSX Utilities, but that says it'll take 7 hours to download. I haven't erased anything yet.

Is there a way to create a DVD so I only need to do this once?

 

[Colchiro]

Is there a way to create a DVD so I only need to do this once?

Looks like that's not an option.

Erased and DL'ing now. Looks like it'll only be 6 hours.

Sure glad I'm not on Verizon with a data plan like the idiot next door.

 

[niteflyr]

Here's how to make bootable disk. Hope this isn't to late.


http://www.macworld.com/article/1165337/create_a_bootable_lion_install_drive_for_newer_macs.html

 

[Colchiro]

Here's how to make bootable disk. Hope this isn't to late.

Too late for this time (already erased the drive), but I have a mountain lion machine coming in next week.

Thanks.