Mac OS X Lion upgrade question

Hello,

when I bought my Mac, it came with Snow Leopard 10.6.3. I'm now running version 10.6.8 and so I'm ready to upgrade to Lion. But what will happen if I need to reinstall Lion in the future? Am I going to go through the rigamarole of installing SL 10.6.3 from my restore flashdisk, downloading all the updates and upgrading to 10.6.8 and downloading the Lion upgrade from the App Store again?

Let's wait for a few more days for Lion to be released before starting to worry about fresh installation and all that..

Hard to imagine that Apple completely forgot about those who might want to do a fresh install for one reason or another and force customers to start with SL 10.6.8 before getting Lion..

Do a Google on how to burn Lion to a bootable DVD. TUAW has one for starters. After installing going to copy the download to a 16GB SanDisk Cruzer.

Just for the record, Apple has already said that the download should fit on a 8GB thumb drive ... may even (just) fit on a 4GB thumb drive. Lion is more of a makeover (visually) than a revolution under the hood -- more like a tune-up of SL from that perspective.

I think I have a few things gumming up the works in my user account so I was planning a clean install anyway. Once that is done I'll add the stuff I need and then clone that.

I might go the flash drive route but then again I have a remarkable capacity to loose those things.

As Harry stated: "How to burn a Lion boot disk" LINK

That's what I intend to do although I may (as chas_m mentioned) burn it to a flash drive instead.

Some very good points brought up. I do still wish we had an option of getting an original disk. Also, if I'm not mistaken, if you download same from the APP store, you can down load same at a later date if need be. Is there a time limit on how long you can still down load the program or APP after you purchased same from the APP store? Thanks.

May God bless.

Ed:Blushing:

ronin: no, there's no time limit -- BUT if the publisher ever decides to pull the app from the App Store at some point in the future (either its discontinued or whatever), then its an open question if you'll be able to re-download. So I continue to back up my digital purchases and encourage everyone to do the same.

chas_m said:

ronin: no, there's no time limit -- BUT if the publisher ever decides to pull the app from the App Store at some point in the future (either its discontinued or whatever), then its an open question if you'll be able to re-download. So I continue to back up my digital purchases and encourage everyone to do the same.

Click to expand...

VERY good advise Chas. I do the same just in case.

chas_m said:

Just for the record, Apple has already said that the download should fit on a 8GB thumb drive ... may even (just) fit on a 4GB thumb drive. Lion is more of a makeover (visually) than a revolution under the hood -- more like a tune-up of SL from that perspective.

Click to expand...

Since the Thumb drive has to be partitioned with EFI for it to boot, the EFI takes just enough so it will not quite fit. An 8GB drive works. That is all I can say till the 14th.

It should, however, fit on a standard DVD which is larger than 4 GB. The EFI only takes up around 200 MB and since a DVD will hold 4.7 GB, even allowing space for the TOC, the image should fit. It would be a good idea though to have both a bootable DVD and flash drive.

I think there will be a DVD option, perhaps not sold direct by Apple but they'll advise. Based on what Apple has told us so far if we install a new blank HDD, we need to install SL and then upgrade/install Lion.

Apple has made it pretty clear they will NOT be selling a DVD version. At all.

They will probably, however, offer instructions on how to MAKE a DVD version for those who want that. If they don't, every Mac magazine and website on the planet will the moment they figure it out.

It does fit just fine on a normal 4.7GB DVD.