Apple now selling $69 Mac OS X Lion USB Thumb Drive - Page 2

The USB drives are read-only. They're as safe as a CD-ROM would be, just faster and less easy to break. Extremely high security US agencies are allowing their use although they can not be transported into a SCIF without special screening. Similarly, a CD-ROM could be a CD-RW and nobody would know the difference unless such media were specially screened.

that probably just answered my question too

Absolutely, but for the easiest method (creation of a boot and install DVD that includes everything, not just recovery tools) remember to make your disc BEFORE running the Lion installer, as you need this to create the disk, and it deletes itself after install, and won;t download again as it will say it is already installed.

This - only remember you only get once to do this, once you have installed Lion the package frill you downloaded it deleted and you can only redownload it from a Snow Leopard system again. However, burn it as your first task, and you have an installer disc that works in every conceivable way just like your Snow Leopard DVD media, no internets required.

Yes, it's good advice to create your backup before you install Lion as it does delete the installer… however you can always re-download the 3.5GB installer again by going into the Mac App Store, clicking on Purchases from the tab bar then, whilst continuing to hold down the Option Key, clicking on Mac OS X Lion and then Install. Note: you'll know you did it correctly because it will say Install instead of Installed.

There may be a way after you have installed Lion - if you are lucky. It could be in Time Machine, or in the comments in the linked article someone found it stashed away in a Lost and Found folder after he had installed it on his machine.

Anyway - there are a few important steps that need to be taken to create a usable USB Bootable drive. I post this link again...

How to make a bootable Lion install disc or drive

Lion creates a recovery partition that allows you to boot up and re-download Lion from your App Store account. Post-Lion Macs also have this built directly into the firmware. "Recovery Disk Assistant" essentially copies your existing recovery partition onto external media, so it must still re-download Lion from your App Store account to install.

Downloading Lion from the App Store and burning the internal DMG file onto a thumb drive seems to be the closest thing to an official Lion USB Thumb Drive.

It seems that the Lion USB Thumb Drive would be priced higher because it is not tied to an App Store account, so the potential for casual piracy is higher. Although I doubt this would have any impact on anyone determined to pass it around, since burning your own thumb drive from the App Store download is easy enough.

I am a bit surprised that Apple doesn't include a one-time Apple Store redemption code with the USB key (similar to the "up to date" program) so that the purchaser can tie the Lion USB purchase to one App Store account for future media-less recovery.

As an aside, I think Apple discontinued the install DVD because the experience is TERRIBLE. Lion installer must literally boot up a version of the full OS core and then copy over the files, because it takes forever to boot the installer from DVD.

Optical drives are slow and optical media are inherently more prone to damage due to their unprotected design, but the reason Apple moved away from DVDs is that they are moving away from ODD (optical disc drives). The MBAs are a huge success, three out of 4 Macs are notebooks, and even the new Mac mini  a desktop* doesn't have an ODD.

On top of that, the ODD haven't increased in capacity or speed for the svelte 9.5mm ultra-slim slot-loading drives Apple requires short of going with a $500+ Blu-ray option which simply wasn't going to happen.

Worst of all these slow mediums with moving parts take up a 25% of the internal space in the 13" MBP while also require they be placed along the edge of a machine where port side real estate is greatly needed.

Expect the ODD to be removed in the next case revision of the MBP ports on both sides of the machine, at the back vis-Ã*-vis the MBA.

First time I have seen this tip, and it rounds off the recovery options nicely - thanks, I just tried it, and it works.

With this, I defy anyone to come up with a reasoned argument against the fact that there is simply no easier OS to install, full stop. There are so many ways of doing it in any way that tickles your fancy. All of them simple, and consistent regardless of your hardware.

I was a developer using the Previews. I had plenty of download issues which required me to contact Apple and get a new Redeem Code. After the release of Lion I figured it would be inefficient and pointless to issue redeem codes for every Mac App Store Lion user considering they don't care about the number of activations per account so I simply looked for a built-in solution. I don't expect anyone to automatically know this solution, it's certainly not obvious, but knowing Apple I knew they likely built-in a simple fail safe. By comparison DFU mode for the iPhone is more complex to execute.

Know what? I do apologize for that. Seriously. I guess I really do have to get off this kick of thinking that people are smart enough to research stuff on their own. I've been fighting it for years and nothing's changing.

In the future, I'm going to have to accept that some people care enough to ask questions but don't care enough to find out the answer. That just goes against how I was raised, so my replies tend to be, what, sharper than they should be, I guess.

Again, I am sorry. This isn't meant as a joke at all, though it's possible to read it as one.


The safest thing for our country would be write-only drives.

Can do it from their local Apple Store. Just bring your storage.

Maybe I have this wrong, I downloaded Lion the day it came out. I then promptly put that download onto a dvd. The next move was to make from that a Bootable Lion DVD. After that I tested this DVD I had made to make sure it did in fact boot my Mac. It did and I went through the opening steps of installation, all went fine. Now as I normally wait until Apple releases the first revision/upgrade of a new OS I stopped short of actual installation.

Question -- If I have a Bootable DVD Why would I need a Thumb drive ?

Well to prove it to myself I went out and got a suitable USB Drive 8 Gig.
Cloned the Bootable DVD I had made onto the USB thumb drive. Using CCC
Bingo now I can boot from the Thumb Drive and all else is the same.

By the way one really has to watch the USB drive formatting. 1 Partition GUID

I think I may have saved myself $69.

It may be interesting to see if this catches on

Like you I created an installable bootable USB thumb drive. If you have a DVD there is no reason you also need a USB variety, but if you have tried to use both you know which one is preferable, right? Three reasons - speed, sped and speed. As more and more Macs come without optical drives the USB way is a better choice.

Yes you are correct, but why would Apple not put this up somewhere for others to use. But I guess $69. times a few million is a lot of money.

I suspect that's correct, although "bad folks" who intend to pass out many copies of the OS (why bother anymore?!) certainly would not want to have their personal information attached to the version being distributed.

I will be buying a USB drive because I do not want a fricking AppleID linked with my personal info on my computer. Nor do I want to provide Apple any means of tracking my behavior or my computer (there are many ways this happens, most benign, but it's all too invasive for my taste). Apple is nowhere near as bad as Google, but their fingers are getting deeper into our personal affairs and I'm quite happy to step into my local Apple store with $69 cash to stay out of any tracking or profiling. $69 is much cheaper than Windows, or most previous versions of MacOS.

Oh, and what the hell is up with people preferring to re-download an OS for recovery, rather than just grabbing a physical USB drive and plugging it in?! Downloading is sloooow compared with sucking off a USB drive. Are people so absent minded they can't remember where they keep their physical OS media? I don't get it.

Oh now people are just making up problems without even thinking if they exist. How many organizations will absolutely not allow you to use a USB stick, but have no problem with you upgrading the OS at will?

Generally organizations frown on letting their employees upgrading the OS themselves. And if they do allow it, they'll certainly allow them to use a USB stick to do it.

Fair enough, but then again, you can do a complete install, and then just clone your disk onto a bootable USB stick. A clean install of Lion will easily fit on a 16GB USB stick. Or you can boot with the recovery partition and restore from Time Machine, a cloned drive, etc.

It is not obvious from Mac app store offering that the download can be used to create an installer on a removable disk. How would you sort out the licensing in a large business, given that the Mac app store licences for an Apple account holder for all the computers in the same house?

Your experience may be narrower than you think.

It's not about whether people can work out things for themselves, the forums aren't a service for people to go for help and advice, they are there for discussion, chat, a bit of banter and the sort of help that you might offer where where you can without needing to get on your high horse.

In this thread someone replied to one of your comments and said "There is an application from apple that allows you to make your own USB after buying Lion from the app store." to which you replied "Never said there wasn't". That person wasn't disagreeing with you, wasn't putting you down, wasn't doing anything other than adding to the conversation, and it was the first time in the discussion that the recovery tool had been brought up. But you managed to turn that into a personal slight.

Someone followed up the comment with "Why not share with us what it is called and where we can find it?", which was a bit rude to be fair, something like "I didn't know that, can you tell me more" might have been better, but you then reply to that with nothing more than a cropped screenshot with nothing more than an Icon and the name underneath, which adds precious little to the conversation. For good measure, you throw in an insult telling someone to stop posting and calling them a fool.

Then someone calls you out on your attitude.

Now, you can defend this all you like with your "people are too stupid to research things for themselves", but the primary issue is one of attitude, not knowledge. No-one asked anyone to do anything for them because they couldn't be bothered, or were too stupid, but you seem to be above joining in in a social manner and merely want to promote your lofty ideals on how everyone should post in a way that meets your own exacting standards which you don;t even adhere to yourself.

Just my 2p.

Good reply. Thanks. Would be better if there is an official way to place a purchase order and have it delivered though, on something other than a USB drive.

I think it's a reasonable judgement call, if your security policy is so tough that you cannot use the USB ports, then I find it highly likely that you would be able to use shiny disc media to install (or probably more likely, copy) stuff for any purpose, and even if you were allowed, I would suspect that you would not be in control of suitable administrator rights in order to complete a software install, much less an OS upgrade.

Your logic is impeccable, and I agree with it too. Not all organisations are quite the yet.

[QUOTE=stuffe;1922378]the forums aren't a service for people to go for help and advice[.QUOTE]

They absolutely are.


I suppose that if you ignore the main content of my post, you'd ignore the last sentence where I specifically state that isn't the intention.


No, you just completely misread it. In no way can that be read as a "personal slight". My response was to a statement that didn't need to be made, so it was just restating what I had already said.

[QUOTE=Tallest Skil;1922404]
I missed the word "only" out from that.

Regardless of intention, I am merely providing my thoughts on outcome.

As to the response that didn't need to be made, I don't see how the first mention of the recovery tool in the whole thread was unnecessary, and it was not a repeat of anything you had already said. It can be read that way, or I wouldn't have actually read it that way. Others may have read it that way too. That's not a fact, of course, but opinion.

What if the Mac originally shipped with Lion installed? Do you still need an Apple ID? Or does Apple check the serial number and know that the Mac already came with Lion.

Actually it isn't. The drive was designed more for those that hadn't gotten around to upgrading to Snow Leopard and thus can't update to Lion via the App Store.

So $29 for Snow Leopard, $29 for Lion and the rest for the disk.

Those that need the disk for some other reason like their recovery partition isn't working as it should would be eligible to get a free drive via the Genius Bar appointment they just had.




Supposedly when you enter your Apple ID during the initial set up it validates that your machine came with Lion, iphone, iMovie and Garageband pre loaded and records them as purchased for your id in the iTunes system.

So how many Apple Fanbois will buy this just to have a USB drive with an Apple logo?

Well, there is this solution where you can install your purchased volume of Mac OS 10.7 from the Mac Store directly to DVD or a USB Stick. It's freeware and everything you need to know about installing Lion is explained on the developer's site. The stick or DVD can then act as a recovery device for Lion!

Just follow this link: http://blog.gete.net/lion-diskmaker-us/

I hope this helps. This way you just pay for a standard 4GB USB stick (costs about $5).

Cheers! )

I have a new 13" MacBook Air, which shipped with Lion. The downloaded Lion Installer WILL NOT BOOT the MacBook Air, nor, I suspect, will the $69 USB thumb drive. The Air ships with a special distribution of Lion. (now Mac OS X Lion 10.7.1 (11B2118)) For a bootable thumb drive, I used the Recovery HD partition to install the Air version of Lion onto an external USB hard drive (It requires at least 11 GB to install, by the way.) I then cloned the resultting clean install to an 8 GB USB thumb drive, and it WILL boot the MacBook Air.

Apple has created some additional complexity for those machines shipping with the capability to download the Recovery HD Partition directly over the internet, without anything on the internal hard drive, SSD or spinning platter.

This makes sense. If you use the Lion Recovery Assistant, it has to check your Apple ID in order to confirm that you have purchased Lion in the past, allowing you to redownload a copy. If you install using the USB key, Apple has no way to verify that you actually purchased Lion for your machine, as the license is tied to the physical USB key, not your Apple ID.

Caveats like this, in addition to the higher price point, goes to show that Apple is dead set on making the App Store the default for all purchased products going forward. Still, I don't think it's unreasonable to ask Apple for an official method of creating an offline installer for Lion if you purchased it online. Even if you eliminate all the issues of data caps and broadband accessibility, it still takes a long time to download a 3+ gigabyte file even over a decent connection here in the US. Reinstalling Mac OS X used to be a 20 minute process on a fresh hard drive. Depending on your bandwidth, it could take hours.

It'll probably check the serial number to see if it shipped with Lion. You'll need an Apple ID in order to re-download the iLife applications, though.

well I downloaded Lion on my Snow Leopard machine and made a disk image, however, the disk image will not open on the Leopard machine, saying it cannot boot from this version of osx.