#Upgrading mac os mountain lion how to

OK, so you can, but should you? Prior to Snow Leopard, I generally recommended a clean install. (This is one situation in which the more apps youвЂ™ve purchased through the Mac App Store, the better-you just launch the Mac App Store app and click a few buttons to automatically reinstall everything youвЂ™ve purchased.) Should you perform a clean install of Mountain Lion? If you truly want a clean start, youвЂ™ll instead need to manually copy your personal data from your backup to your new Mountain Lion installation, and then reinstall all of your software. Once youвЂ™ve done this, if you want to use Setup/Migration Assistant to restore data from your backup, proceed with Step 8. Specifically, scroll down to the section called вЂњThe brute-force methodвЂќ and perform Steps 1 through 7, substituting вЂњSnow LeopardвЂќ or вЂњLionвЂќ for вЂњLeopardвЂќ-the result is a clean install.

#Upgrading mac os mountain lion how to

In fact, you can use the instructions in my article on how to install Mountain Lion over Leopard. So if you first back up your existing Snow Leopard or Lion installation and all your files-I recommend creating a bootable clone using SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner-you can then boot from a bootable installer drive, erase your MacвЂ™s normal startup drive, and install Mountain Lion on it. As explained in my main article on installing Mountain Lion, the installer will let you install the new OS onto a blank drive.

Can you perform a clean install of Mountain Lion?ДЇirst, the technical question: Given that the OS X 10.8 installer doesnвЂ™t include an official clean-install option, is it possible to perform such an installation? The simple answer is: Yes.