Apple Introduces ‘Lion Recovery’

In a knowledge base article posted on the Support section of its website, Apple reveals that OS X Lion includes a new feature called Recovery that includes all of the tools users need to reinstall Lion, repair their disk, and even restore from a Time Machine backup without requiring physical media.

The latest Mac OS from Apple includes a built-in set of utilities in the Recovery HD - a separate partition created as Lion is installed the first time.

If something goes wrong and users need to revert back to the computer's previous working state, they can simply restart their Mac and hold down the Command key and the R key (Command-R) and access the "Mac OS X Utilities" application where they can reinstall OS X Lion.

To do so, users will need an Internet connection (at least until August when Lion USB thumb drives are scheduled for launch).

If the Recovery HD (Command-R method above) doesn't work, the new Mac models introduced yesterday can use the Lion Internet Recovery feature.

“Lion Internet Recovery lets you start your Mac directly from Apple's Servers. The system runs a quick test of your memory and hard drive to ensure there are no hardware issues,” Apple explains.

“Lion Internet Recovery presents a limited interface at first, with only the ability to select your preferred Wi-Fi network and, if needed, enter the WPA passphrase,” the Mac maker elaborates.

“Next, Lion Internet Recovery will download and start from a Recovery HD image. From there, you are offered all the same utilities and functions described above,” adds Apple.

This method of reinstalling OS X Lion from also requires an Internet connection.

Lion Recovery also requires that the user enables DHCP on their chosen Wi-Fi or ethernet network.

Customers who bought Lion from the Mac App Store will be prompted to enter their Apple ID and password.