Installing OS X Lion From Time Machine

Hi, I apologize if this has already been answered. There are just too much complications included with my MBP problem.

I have an early 2011 15 inch MBP which came in with SL which I have already upgraded to OS X Lion. I have reformatted my MBP which has crashed at least five times, wiping out all my files every single time. Every time I reformat, I install SL first and then re-download Lion from the app store.

Let me get to a side issue, I had a problem with my optical drive which the service center told me had to be replaced, since the 1 year warranty has lapsed, I decided not to replace it and just have it removed. So now, I can't do a clean install with my SL dvd.

Fortunately, I have a time machine backup of my system with OS lion and all my files from a week ago, so I have that as a back up. My question is would I be able to reinstall my entire system using the back up without having to re install SL, because as I have mentioned before, I no longer have my optical drive.

Sorry for the long post. Thanks in advance.

I'm a little confused by some of your post - it sounds as though you have a faulty hard disk from the broad info supplied but I'd need further info about these reformats and crashes to dig deeper.

But, to answer your final question, once you have Lion/Mountain Lion installed you can do a fresh install/re-install with discs and without install SL first.
Reboot holding Command + R and you'll boot into the Lion Recovery partition from here you have options to doa fresh install, recover from TM etc:
OS X: About OS X Recovery

Hi, Thanks for the reply. Sorry if the post was not clear. The issue with what caused the crash is no longer my main problem, I just want to be able to restore my system from the TM back up. I have surrendered to the fact that my hard disk ( which is a new one since my original HD was diagnosed as faulty ) has again crashed. Again, I just want to know if I can directly reinstall OS X Lion from my TM back up, as I will not be able to install SL using the DVD since I no longer have an optical drive. Thanks.

Again, I just want to know if I can directly reinstall OS X Lion from my TM back up

Click to expand...

yes you can..... 2nd paragraph of my post above ^^^^^^

Oh okay, now the problem I have is I don't have it installed anymore as I have formatted the hard disk.

You see, I have Lion installed on a thumb drive and I thought I can install directly from usb to a formatted/empty hard drive but I think they only allow you to download it online or recover from a TM.

Also, to add to this mess, I no longer have anything installed on the hard disk since I just formatted it and I can't install SL since I have no optical drive.

Please bear with all my questions. I appreciate your time and effort. Thanks

If you have Lion installed on a USB drive you can do a fresh install straight from that. Connect it and hold Option as you boot. Run through the install. On first run you'll be asked if you want to restore from Time Machine.

If, for some reason it's not giving you an install option (which suggests you have a Lion recovery USB rather than an installer you can choose the online method. It will download a fresh copy of Lion (you'll need to supply the Apple ID and password you used to buy Lion) then same as above, it'll give you an option to restore from Time Machine

Would there be any issue doing a fresh install using TM if I have a third party RAM installed? I have upgraded from 4gb to 8gb. i'm not sure if it will look for the original 4gb RAM.

No that's not a problem. Machine specification doesn't come into it. You could buy a new Mac completely and restore from TM if you wanted.

Again, many thanks for your help.

Hi, I have finished installing from my Time Machine and have almost everything up and running, as a follow up question or issue, my menu bar icons somehow have now disappeared.

Kindly help with this one as well, thanks

Run repair permissions from Disk Utility and reboot.

Try again and post back

Wow. I was not able to do what you said because as I clicked on SysPref, the shut down warning appeared and again I needed to reinstall from TM. Now all the menu bar icons have re-appeared. Everything is back to normal, for now. What do you think is causing these issues? Could a defective RAM cause this? I have upgraded with a third party 8gb RAM.

Thanks again for all your help.