Problem reinstalling Lion

cap


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A few days ago I did a fresh install of Snow Leopard (erased the HD first), then downloaded and installed Lion, then used Migration Assistant to bring back my files, software, and settings from my Time Machine backup. I loved how easy and fast it was. Then none of my Adobe programs would work, giving me an error message saying I had to uninstall then reinstall the programs. Unfortunately, I acted first and uninstalled them, then realized I can not find the hard disks (moved recently, and a lot of stuff was disposed of). After checking (belatedly) online, I realized Adobe has some suggested workarounds I could have used to attempt to revive the programs without uninstalling them. Sigh. Should have checked there first.

So I decided that since the whole process of installing Lion had been so easy, I would just repeat it. This time, I used "Cmd R" to boot into the Lion recovery partition and then used Disk Utility to erase only the partition I'd originally installed Lion into (since the other had been left blank for the time being). Maybe erasing only one partition was a mistake? When I tried to install Lion, only the recovery partition showed up, not the other two partitions I'd created. So I went back to erase the whole hard drive, but on clicking on "erase", I now get the message that the erase failed because the disk could not be unmounted. And, again, when I try to install Lion, the two volumes I'd originally created do not show up, though they do show up in the Disk Utility window.

I've rebooted the system with the same results. And I made sure to verify the disk and verify and repair permissions before the first attempt.

Ay! What did I do!? Thanks to anyone who can offer some helpful ideas.
 
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Unfortunately as you have found out Migration Assistant causes problems with some larger applications, notable Adobe and Microsoft Office and it is usual to have to re-activate the programs.

You have there the Snow Leopard disc? Boot from that and erase the hard drive formatting Mac OS Extended (Jourrnalled), into partition and select one single partition. Run the installer and update to OS X.6.8, go into the App Store, hold down Option and hit purchases and Lion will come up. Double click to download another version.

Can't help with re-installing those programs sorry without the CD and activation codes.
 
OP
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cap


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Thanks!

erase the hard drive formatting Mac OS Extended (Jourrnalled), into partition and select one single partition.

Is there a particular reason I need to select a single partition? I had hoped to have a main large partition for Lion and a small partition to play around with older versions of OSX or Unix.
 
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Do as suggested and then go into Partition and create whatever you want.
 
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cap


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Everything's back up and running properly except, of course, the Adobe products. I had the CS3 suite and after trying the workaround and tool still published on the Adobe site for recovery of the license, I got a message that the downloaded tool is no longer valid for power pc software such as CS3. Guess I will be getting a new Acrobat Pro program; I don't really need the other stuff. SIGH. On the plus side, I am really pleased at how well TM and Lion worked.

Thanks for your help!
 
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My pleasure.For what it is worth no PowerPC applications will work with Lion, Intel only. Office 2011 is fine as is 2008 subject to an update from Microsoft, but 2004 and earlier are finished for Lion .
 
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cap


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Going through all my applications to make sure they were updated, I ran into some more that I can't run on Lion. I might make SL the OS for the second partition on my hard drive, if it can handle them. Or would it be better to go back to Leopard?
 
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Stick with Snowy.
 

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