Questions on creating a bootable USB Drive of a Mountain Lion OS X 10.

[MacOSX10]

Do i have to spend $20 to buy a copy of Mac OS from the mac app store? even though my current macbook comes pre-loaded with osx 10.8??

 

[3rd Rock]

No you don't have to.....

If you don't have 10.8.4 as of yet, you can download it free by going to the app store, find mountain lion, download/install the current version.
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If you want a copy burned to a thumb drive as a back up, do the following.....

Download the current OS version to the desktop, but don't open it...

Get DiskMaker from below to make a USB thumb drive if you wish. Simple and fast if you ever have to reinstall the OS again.

Lion DiskMaker ( US Or French )

http://liondiskmaker.com 2.02 version

http://liondiskmaker.com/?page_id=27

http://www.macworld.com/article/116...sier_to_create_a_bootable_lion_installer.html

 

[Weaselboy]

Do i have to spend $20 to buy a copy of Mac OS from the mac app store? even though my current macbook comes pre-loaded with osx 10.8??

Since you did not buy ML from the App Store, you will not be able to DL it from there. But you can DL it using this procedure, then use the free app LionDiskmaker with a 8GB USB key to make yourself an installer.

 

[davidlv]

Since you did not buy ML from the App Store, you will not be able to DL it from there. But you can DL it using this procedure, then use the free app LionDiskmaker with a 8GB USB key to make yourself an installer.

Tried the method in your link "this procedure", but it didn't work. The procedure did work to mount the install dmg, i.e. the terminal commands worked, but the installer checks with the App store and says, in effect, "You have to sign in with an Apple ID that was used to purchase ML."
Back to square 1. My OS Recovery partition is ML, the OS is 10.8.4.