Not feeling like hacking? Let Lion DiskMaker do the job for you: Ars Technica has an in-depth guide on how to do that: How to create a bootable, backup Mountain Lion install disk Once you downloaded the installer you can create a bootable flash drive using /Applications/Install OS X Lion.app. They don't appear to do this anymore but maybe you can find one.ĭownload the OS X Lion installer from another Mac's App Store using your Apple ID. Given your vague error description it's hard to diagnose the problem here, but this is the usual way to go.Īpple used to sell USB keys with a Mac OS X Lion installer on it for around $60.
Apple has details on this here: About OS X Recovery – basically, given high speed internet access and enough time, the recovery partition installed with Mac OS X Lion or OS X Mountain Lion should enable you to download the installer. If you don't have access to another computer:
