Mountain Lion download to a PC to burn the dmg file?

[Darren S]

Chaps,
I must be missing something obvious, but I appear to be in a chicken and the egg situation?
I have a sales order here with a redemption code for Mountain Lion Single Unit in order to do a clean iMac install with fresh hardware. I thought that I'd be able to log into the store, download the Mountain Lion image to my PC and burn it to a DVD - ready to stick into the Mac.
However, it looks like the Mac App Store is only 'useable' on a Mac in the first place. How can I download that via a Mac, if the Mac itself will be running virginal hardware?

Cheers,
D.

 

[Jay_A]

Is the Mac blank then?

Have you tried booting the Mac in to Internet recovery mode? Cmd-r I think.

 

[Darren S]

Is the Mac blank then?

Have you tried booting the Mac in to Internet recovery mode? Cmd-r I think.

Hi Jay,
Not as yet - I'll have to download it beforehand on that Mac first then? Just thought I could get some time saved by having the DVD media ready to go.

Cheers,
D.

 

[Jay_A]

I don't have a DVD player on my macbook pro. There's a great feature though that allows you to boot up to the internet and re-install the OS that way (Internet Recovery mode).

Give it a whirl.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4718?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

 

[Darren S]

Cheers Jay. Do you know if this feature applies to iMac's as well?
Thanks,
D.

 

[sn00p]

Any mac from the last 2 or 3 years will support it, possibly even older ones as well.

 

[Darren S]

Any mac from the last 2 or 3 years will support it, possibly even older ones as well.

Thanks sn00p. In age, it falls into that time period - it might be a little older though. I'll stick to getting it downloaded in the Mac Store on another Mac and burning it to DVD that way. But I will check to see if it has this feature first - sounds like a very (very) good idea imo.

D.

 

[sn00p]

Thanks sn00p. In age, it falls into that time period - it might be a little older though. I'll stick to getting it downloaded in the Mac Store on another Mac and burning it to DVD that way. But I will check to see if it has this feature first - sounds like a very (very) good idea imo.

D.

It is a really good feature.

You can actually burn the image to USB stick which will make installation a lot quicker as well. I guess you've read the guides on creating a bootable image from the installer download? Its not difficult, just a bit of an odd process as its not really the way to install it these days.

 

[Darren S]

Right - finally got around to having a dabble at this.
All I get off the iMac is a flashing folder and question mark. It's connected to the same switch that we WDS all of our PCs from - so it's definitely an active connection and can access the internet. I suspect that the Mac can't use this feature?
The other possibility is that it has an issue with the new 2TB drive capacity? I removed the factory fitted Seagate 1TB drive and fitted this new Seagate 2TB unit. It is devoid of everything - even being formatted - but I was hoping I could do that through some Mac BIOS/HDD controller front-end?
I have a full blown legit Mountain Lion licence key staring at me from the App Store - but I have no means of downloading that via Windows. FFS - it's a proper, frustrating chicken & the egg situation. The only other way I can see around it is to tie-up my fiancee's MBP tonight for several hours in order to download the image - chuck it onto a USB stick, then burn that to a DVD here at work in the morning. God knows what I'd do if I didn't have access to a Mac??

 

[Jack!]

Torrent? Give £20 to charity if it makes you feel bad.

In fact, if you've got a legit key, you're not really doing anything wrong.

I think I have a copy of ML on a bootable USB, I can upload that or send it to you if that helps?

 

[Darren S]

Torrent? Give £20 to charity if it makes you feel bad.

In fact, if you've got a legit key, you're not really doing anything wrong.

I think I have a copy of ML on a bootable USB, I can upload that or send it to you if that helps?

Hi Jack. If you could upload it - that would be excellent - cheers!

 

[Jack!]

It's 4gb and .dmg not .iso, is that an issue?

 

[Darren S]

Hi Jack,
Shouldn't be a problem - but I'm getting more confounded by the minute!
I've borrowed my girlfriend's MBP to download the Yosemite image - which I've now got and can see in the Apps folder. However, it has no optical drive, so my logic was to chuck it onto a USB stick, put that onto my PC and burn it that way to a DVD - which can then go into the iMac and hopefully install? But I can't seem to drag the installer across to the USB drive - only to another folder on the MBP? Am I best transferring it to my PC over the network (again - thank fcuk we have wireless in the office or else I'd be screwed with this as well - no CAT5 connection!)
It's a massively convoluted way of doing things - give me a Windows OS install ANY DAY!

 

[Darren S]

Following these steps so far - seems to be going ok (for now)

http://www.macworld.com/article/236...otable-os-x-10-10-yosemite-install-drive.html

 

[Darren S]

It hangs with one second to go on the Yosemite installation - in particular not being able to contact a specific /var folder and some link to an apple.com URL.

I'm thinking it might not actually be Yosemite compatible. No worries - I can go into the Purchases section of the App Store and Mountain Lion is there to download on the MBP. However when I go to download it, it says that the hardware is not compatible with ML.

I'm not trying to install it onto that you Bitten Fruit moron. I simply want to download the b*****d thing and shove it on a bootable USB (again). Since when would you go to eOpen and attempt to install a Windows OS straight from the web???!

Give me bloody strength with this - honestly.

 

[Jack!]

I'm uploading a copy of ML to Mega for you, hopefully my internet doesn't cut out during the upload.

 

[Jack!]

@Darren S https://mega.co.nz/#!XAdTHDjK!eo3O9W6TXVJnhgD3NFAmyzl3Ea9XtHcczMNQ64nhuUU

 

[Darren S]

Excellent m8 - thanks for that. I've triggered off the download now...

 

[Jack!]

How you getting on @Darren S?

 

[Darren S]

Legend m8. I'm on early finish today, but the iMac had just about finished installing by the time I left.
I got the dmg file that you uploaded burnt via an iso using Nero and put that into the Mac. Prepped the new 2TB drive (again) then proceeded with the install. Christ - how long does that take?! I reckon from start to finish on the install - it must have taken 3.5hours. I'm used to doing about three PCs in that time!

Thanks again for your help with this - much, much appreciated!