Internet recovery

[Failurbydesign]

My hard drive took a crap and I had it replaced. I can't use the internet recovery since I have no mountain lion purchase under my account (bought the imac on eBay with ML already installed).

Is there any way to around this? Has anyone else ran into this issue?

 

[Weaselboy]

Need a little more info. What year and model Mac is it. Some newer 2010+ models can install the OS with a command-option-r boot to Internet recovery and that can get you back to the OS it came with.

Do you have access to another Mac you could use to purchase and DL Mountain Lion to a USB key?

Do you maybe have a good Time Machine backup we can use to restore?

Answer these questions and I can give you some suggestions.

 

[satcomer]

My hard drive took a crap and I had it replaced. I can't use the internet recovery since I have no mountain lion purchase under my account (bought the imac on eBay with ML already installed).

Is there any way to around this? Has anyone else ran into this issue?

That is why I always keep a external clone at home. I backup about once a week to that clone.

 

[Failurbydesign]

It's a 2010 imac and when I bought it used it had ML installed.

I have a backup that's a few weeks old but every time I try and restore it I get read errors. Essentially I get the same error as I did on the drive that failed.

I put in another drive I had and tried the internet recovery, but it asks for my log in for the App Store, which I have no purchase under my account.

 

[Weaselboy]

It's a 2010 imac and when I bought it used it had ML installed.

I have a backup that's a few weeks old but every time I try and restore it I get read errors. Essentially I get the same error as I did on the drive that failed.

I put in another drive I had and tried the internet recovery, but it asks for my log in for the App Store, which I have no purchase under my account.

Okay, it sounds like your machine has had this firmware update applied, so Internet Recovery is at least present. Normally, this would get you back to Lion or Mt. Lion that came with the machine. But since your machine came with Snow Leopard, it will not install Mt. Lion unless you have an AppleID tied to an App Store purchase of Mt. Lion.

Do you have access to any Mac anywhere that you could use the App Store app to login with your AppleID and buy ML for $20? Then go back to Internet Recovery on your machine and enter your AppleID when prompted during recovery.

At this point your options are buy a Snow Leopard disc from 1800MYAPPLE or figure out a way to access another boot drive for your machine or someone elses to get Mt. Lion purchased on your AppleID.

 

[Failurbydesign]

Yeah I figured those were my only options. Too bad I can't purchase it through the internet recovery.

 

[Bear]

...
At this point your options are buy a Snow Leopard disc from 1800MYAPPLE or figure out a way to access another boot drive for your machine or someone elses to get Mt. Lion purchased on your AppleID.

Actually I would recommend that instead of the Snow Leopard disc that he get the System Recovery discs for his computer.