How to install Lion with a clean install?

I am going to be selling my iMac soon to upgrade to a new Mac Mini when they refresh them. My iMac is the late 2006 17inch model. It only has a Combo drive, so I can't exactly burn the image to a DVD and boot from it.

Is there any other way of installing a clean copy of Lion without going out and buying Snow Leopard, and then buying Lion over that?

asked Jun 30 '11 at 19:52

User_1002
241●52●56●65

7 Answers:

oldest newest most voted

Well, if you're going to be getting a new Mac Mini, then it'll already have Snow Leopard on it, then just download Lion on top of that from the App Store when its available. But, no there is no way to upgrade directly to Lion from anything less that Snow Leopard. I've tried to install Lion on my Maccbook with Leopard on it and it just ended up boot looping at the apple logo. You HAVE to have Snow Leopard installed to upgrade to Lion.

answered Jun 30 '11 at 20:18

ShahzadJan
1●1

I mean on my iMac so I can sell it.

(Jul 02 '11 at 13:57) User_1002

answered Jun 30 '11 at 20:18

ShahzadJan
1●1

the dev preview lion DMG has a bootable DMG within it.

inside the DMG, will be InstallMacOSX.pkg

inside InstallMacOSX.pkg, there is InstallESD.dmg

use disk utility to burn InstallESD.dmg to a DVD or i guess you could also use disk utility to flash it to a USB drive. then just boot from the USB drive or DVD to install lion.

This might not work with the final release but hopefully it will

answered Jun 30 '11 at 20:25

JakeTechie
76●5

edited Jun 30 '11 at 20:26

0	Wait, I think the poster is suggesting installing Snow Leopard on the iMac. answered Jun 30 '11 at 20:58 Duodave 4.6k●40●49●98 Correct. I want to install a clean install of Lion so I can sell the iMac. (Jul 02 '11 at 13:58) User_1002

0	Is the CPU even going to work with Lion? answered Jul 02 '11 at 15:10 ryebread761 7.5k●216●241●322 I have the developer preview of Lion installed right now. Of course it will work. The 2006 iMacs were Core 2 Duos. (Jul 02 '11 at 16:45) User_1002

Assuming you have Leopard right now, you will NEED to buy snow leopard to be able to upgrade to Lion, as it requires SL installed...

But buying SL and Lion won't nesscarily improve the resale value... SL only costs $30, and Lion $30... Just do a clean install of Leopard, and then sell it :o) Suggest to the new owner that they upgrade to Snow Leopard

answered Jul 02 '11 at 19:25

Lee Wood
2.4k●28●39●69

edited Jul 02 '11 at 19:27

and I have been thinking here today, to buy Lion you need an iTunes account, that means when you purchase Lion it would be connected to YOUR iTunes account, meaning the new owner of the iMac would still need to purchase their own version of Lion... So at most you should just upgrade to SL and then explain why Lion is not on there..

(Jul 03 '11 at 09:21) Lee Wood

0	A quick Google search brought up this tutorial, showing you how to make a bootable 10.7 USB stick. They used a preview version of Lion, but I imagine it would work just fine with the full release. answered Jul 03 '11 at 12:30 Justin 8.4k●104●143●222

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