To perform a clean install, click your boot drive - not any of its partitions - and then the 'erase' tab. You can, however, work with your primary boot drive, which is inaccessible in the full Lion environment, and which, in this instance, is the first drive listed above the divider.ĭecide at this point whether you want to blitz everything and perform a clean install or simply write new system files over the top of the existing OS, keeping all of your documents, user accounts and settings in place. You can select it, but, as the start-up partition, you can neither erase nor repartition it. It's called 'disk1', and sits below the sidebar divider. Now launch Disk Utility, which, in recovery mode, reveals your disk's hidden partition. Unless you're using wired Ethernet, you'll need to use the AirPort menu to select your local network and enter the security details in order to use the online help function or reinstall your system from the Internet. Your Mac won't automatically log you onto a wireless network, as your access credentials are tied to your user account. Called 'Base System', this dumps most of the core operating-system features, leaving you with access to only a set of system utilities and minimal language and network preferences.

Your Mac will boot into a stripped-down version of OS X installed on the recovery partition. If you're using a trackpad, you'll have to enable the proper clicking action throughout this operation, as tap-to-select and Lion gestures are disabled during the recovery process. Select the drive called Recovery HD and click the arrow beneath it. Instead of booting straight into Lion, your Mac will display a list of your available drives, including external units and any CDs in your optical drive, if you have one. The only way to find it is to reboot, holding alt on the keyboard (marked 'option' on some older keyboards). This is kept hidden, and appears in neither Startup Disk, which you'll find in System Preferences, nor in Disk Utility. It's not a bits versus bytes discrepancy that's to blame, but a secret partition created as part of the install process, in which Lion installs a set of recovery tools. Install Lion on a clean hard drive, and you'll wonder how a 4GB download has come to consume so much space - it took up nearly 10GB in our case. Apple's decision to debut Mac OS X Lion as a Mac App Store download wasn't unexpected, then, but where does that leave you if your Mac refuses to boot one morning? How do you get Lion roaring again without access to the Mac App Store? Lion's little secret The company's business is built on the back of broadband and a world in which we download everything from music and movies to upgrades and apps. It has never shipped a Mac with a Blu-ray drive, and probably never will, and its sleekest laptop, the MacBook Air, doesn't even support DVDs. Apple is pushing its users into a world without media.

Clean install on macbook os x 10.7 lion