As expected on Wednesday 25th of July Apple released Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion. Early reviews are generally positive and the swift performance and the nice additions like the notification center and the improved cloud features were well received by beta and golden master users.Below you can find some general tips how to get a clean install and how to prepare a bootable USB stick:

Prepare a bootable external USB drive - capable of installing OS X 10.8

1. Purchase and download Mountain Lion from the Mac App Store on any 10.8 compatible Mac running 10.6 or 10.7.
2. Right click on “Install Mac OS X Mountain Lion.app” and choose the option to “Show Package Contents.”
3. Inside the Contents folder that appears you will find a SharedSupport folder and inside the SharedSupport folder you will find the “InstallESD.dmg.” This is the Mountain Lion boot disc image you are looking for.
4. Launch Disk Utility and go straight to the Restore tab.
5. Drag “InstallESD.dmg” the Source field, and drag your external hard drive from the left side of the Disk Utility window into the Destination field.
6. Check Erase Destination (if present), and begin your restore. (It goes without saying this process will erase everything on your external hard drive.) Once Disk Utility’s restoration is complete you will be the proud owner of a external drive capable of booting and installing Mountain Lion clean.

Boot from DVD / USB and install OS X 10.8

1. Insert your installation DVD or connect your external boot drive into any 10.8 compatible Mac.
2. Restart the Mac holding the option key, and choose Mac OS Install ESD as the startup volume.
3. Once booted from the Mountain Lion installation media you will have the opportunity to run Disk Utility and erase your Mac’s primary hard drive. From the Erase tab select your Mac’s primary hard drive and choose “Mac OS Extended (Journaled)” as the format. Before you erase the drive confirm you have a known good backup then click Erase.
4. With your Mac’s primary hard drive wiped clean it is now time to begin installing Mountain Lion. Quit Disk Utility to go back to the Mountain Lion installer. Choose your Mac’s primary hard drive as the destination, and continue.