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Wiping a drive and reinstalling the OS?
- Thread starter stanw
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https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202313
If you previously purchased Lion under your AppleID, you should be able to hold command-option-r at boot to get to Internet recovery. After startup with those keys held you will be asked to select your wifi, then you will be asked for your AppleID. After that you will see a spinning globe while the recovery utility downloads. Then you will see the recovery seen and from there you can use Disk Utility to format the drive to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and install Lion.
After you get Lion in stalled you can use the App Store ti go back up to El Capitan if you want.
If you previously purchased Lion under your AppleID, you should be able to hold command-option-r at boot to get to Internet recovery. After startup with those keys held you will be asked to select your wifi, then you will be asked for your AppleID. After that you will see a spinning globe while the recovery utility downloads. Then you will see the recovery seen and from there you can use Disk Utility to format the drive to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and install Lion.
After you get Lion in stalled you can use the App Store ti go back up to El Capitan if you want.
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While the method posted by Weaselboy will work I would recommend in the future making a OS X install device (memory stick) or keeping a copy of the installer on a separate drive so you don't have to rely on Internet recovery which is A: slower than install device and B: always available and not reliant on internet connection.
Instructions can be found on Macworld.
Instructions can be found on Macworld.
What do I do if I never purchased Lion with my AppleID? Do I need to get my hands on a physical disc???
Purchase Lion from Apple for $19.99. You will receive an email with a content code for the download from the Mac App Store. Lion and above do not come on a disk.
You need to purchase it like CoastalOR described, but since your Mac is out of commission for now, you will need to do that from another Mac.
I'm going to need to wipe my MBP and I want to reinstall the OS. When I "hold command-option-r at boot to get to Internet recovery. After startup with those keys held you will be asked to select your wifi, then you will be asked for your AppleID." When I enter my AppleID is it going to somehow know that I previously had El Capital on the MBP and redownload it?
No... on any Mac when you do Internet recovery with command-option-r that will get you the OS X version that came from the factory. So if your Mac came from the factory with El Capitan, Internet recovery will get your El Capitan... otherwise no.
There is an edge case for Macs on this list that came with Snow Leopard and can be updated to work with Internet recovery to get Lion.