How to Re-Install OS X with Internet Recovery on a Mac.

Hello there, it’s been a productive morning here at Mission Repair! I have a little tidbit that is NOT NEW, but it’s super useful when you are in need and not a lot of people actually use this feature in the Mac. It’s called Internet Recovery, and it allows you to reinstall your software without any discs or external drives. You just need a wireless Internet connection.

The Software Reinstalling

In some rare situations, reinstalling OS X on a Mac may be required. This is made fairly easy as all modern Macs include the OS X Internet Recovery feature, which lets you reinstall OS X through a netboot type of mode that is accessed from the internet rather than a local drive. This is helpful in the event you need to reinstall Mac OS X because you need to replace the system software for whatever reason. Truth be told, we do a lot of system installations here at Mission repair for our customers because of file loss, corruption or once in a blue moon- a virus. Remember, we’re talking about Macs here.

To be clear, we’re going to focus on Internet Recovery here, but there are actually two modes of system recovery; one of which is based on a local Recovery disk partition, and the other which is called Internet Recovery, the latter being triggered if the Mac does not have a Recovery partition found or if booted directly into as shown in this walkthrough. Both of the recovery modes let you re-install OS X, but the version of OS X that is installed onto the Mac will be different depending on the type of recovery mode used. Specifically, the Recovery HD partition will re-install the most current version of OS X that is currently installed on the Mac, whereas Internet Recover will re-install the version of OS X that originally came with the Mac. That difference in how the two features works means you could theoretically use Internet Recovery to downgrade OS X to the version that shipped with the Mac, though there are better ways to do that if you have a Time Machine backup from the prior OS X release handy.

Internet Recovery requires internet access, that may be slightly obvious but it’s worth mentioning because if the Mac is unable to connect to a network then it will not be able to download the operating system. Whenever possible, you should back up the Mac with Time Machine before attempting this.

You can start the internet recovery reinstall process from either a shutdown Mac, or by rebooting the Mac. This process will be the same on any new Mac, be it an iMac, MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, etc:

1. Immediately after hearing the Mac boot chime, hold down Command+Option+R – if you see the Apple logo you waited too long and need to reboot and try again!
2. OPTIONAL: You may or may not see an option to join a wi-fi network, this depends on whether the Mac can access any saved networks from OS X or not.
3. When you see a spinning globe icon, Internet Recovery mode has been entered with a message saying it can take a while, a progress bar appears as the recovery functions are downloaded.
4. When finished downloading, you’ll see the familiar “OS X Utilities” screen, choose “Reinstall OS X” to begin the re-installation process of the Mac operating system!
5. Select the destination and complete the re-installation (or installation) of OS X as usual.

Installing and re-installing OS X through Internet Recovery is pretty easy, but do be aware that because everything is coming from Apple servers, it can take quite a while as the system restore features are downloaded locally, and then the version of OS X to install are also downloaded locally as well.

Again, this is not a new feature that just came out for the Mac…it’s well known in the tech world, and I thought that maybe you’d want to know about it too.

Take care, Ryan

We will be closed Monday, September 7th for labor day!

Hello friends,

It’s not that big of an announcement, but it’s good to know that we will be closed on Monday September 7th, 2015 for Labor Day.

Labor Day in the United States is a public holiday celebrated on the first Monday in September. It honors the American labor movement and the contributions that workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of their country.

Labor Day was promoted by the Central Labor Union and the Knights of Labor, who organized the first parade in New York City. After the Haymarket Massacre in Chicago on May 4, 1886, U.S. President Grover Cleveland feared that commemorating Labor Day on May 1 could become an opportunity to commemorate the affair. Therefore, in 1887, the United States holiday was established in September to support the Labor Day that the Knights favored.

While I don’t know much about the Knights of Labor, I feel like a slave of labor over the last few weeks and I’m grateful that it’s coming to and end. I’m pretty strong minded, but even I’ve cracked a time or two 😉

Next Monday is a much needed day off for a lot of us, and please note that Mission Repair will be closed for the day! I’ll be back soon right here in the Mission Repair blog-o-sphere.

Have a great day, Ryan

Mission Repair Locations – for iPod, iPhone, Tablet and Computer Repairs

NATIONWIDE MAIL-IN SERVICE

We are still the best in the business at Mail-In Repairs. We’ve been there from the beginning and will be there until the end. There are thousands of customers every month that have their devices repaired and if you’re one of the many that doesn’t want to make a trek out of the house, our exclusive mail in services are for you.

Shipping your device to us? Please place your order on our website and follow our shipping instructions. Need help placing your order? Give us a call at 1-844-459-0105 or email sales@missionrepair.com.

LOCAL WALK-IN SERVICE – OPEN 7 DAYS A WEEK!
We also take local walk-ins with no appointment necessary! Want your device repaired while you wait? Ask us about our express service and view the map below for our locations.

Business Hours:
Monday – Friday: 10am – 7pm
Saturday – Sunday: 10am – 5pm
CLOSED MAJOR HOLIDAYS

Lenexa, Kansas Store
OPEN FOR BUSINESS!
9214 Marshall Dr.
Lenexa, KS 66215
913-353-9233

Mission, Kansas Store
OPEN FOR BUSINESS!
5604 Johnson Dr.
Mission, KS 66202
913-284-0994

Lakewood, Colorado Store
OPEN FOR BUSINESS!
3234 S. Wadsworth Blvd.
Lakewood, CO 80227
720-897-6297

We’ll see you here! Have a great morning, Ryan

Our new Lenexa, Kansas location is fully operational! Except for the air conditioning that is.

Good morning!

All of the usual bugs and glitches hit us yesterday on our first day in our new building and we took it in stride…until the air conditioning in the building went out.

The best part is that we’re in the middle of a heat wave here in the Kansas City area this week; so it’s making for a heck of an uncomfortable work day. Today is starting off a little worse, because it’s already 78 degrees in here. Oh well, it can’t all be perfect, right?

We did have an impressive amount of customers that came in yesterday stating that they waited for this location to open, so it was a huge success. (Thanks to Carol and Jason that I was able to personally spend a little time with yesterday afternoon!) We stayed late and took care of as many customers as we could, and we’re back in here early to do the same today! It’s what we do.

I’m hopeful that the air conditioning will be back to normal in the early afternoon so if you’d like to wait a bit to come in, I wouldn’t blame you 😉

Thanks again to all of our customers that helped us make our first day at Mission Repair in Lenexa Kansas a huge success. We appreciate it!

I’ll be back soon, Ryan