Clean install a Macbook without another Mac

A friend of mine recently bought a new laptop and passed me his old Macbook Pro 6,2. I think he had Lion on it, but the installation CD has been long lost.

I put in a new disk (he kept the original one), but how do I install OS X now?

Command+R gets me into Internet Recovery, but asks for an Apple ID (well, I registered for one). Then it complained the Apple ID was not used on iTunes (well, I loaded iTunes on my Windows laptop and set up the account, added the credit card details, etcetera, I even registered the serial number to my Apple ID on the website).

Now it tells me that my Apple ID has not purchased Mountain Lion, but will not let me buy it from there, nor can I do it from iTunes. According to this Apple support question, you have to use

one of your personal authorized Macs

Well, I don't have another Mac! How am I supposed to do this?

Solution 1:

This is an interesting situation. If you have access to an Apple Store, I suspect that going to them would be the easiest way to resolve the problem. Otherwise, if you have access to a Mac even temporarily, you should be able to sign in on the App Store using your Apple ID, and purchase Mountain Lion that way. From here, I'm not sure if you'll be able to install Mountain Lion using Internet Recovery, because it is likely for Lion and not Mountain Lion (and I don't know if the Lion Internet Recovery supports Mountain Lion), however, from here, if you download the image, there are various tutorials that you can follow to either burn the installer to a DVD, or copy it to a USB flash drive, for instance: http://lifehacker.com/5928780/how-to-burn-os-x-mountain-lion-to-a-dvd-or-usb-flash-drive

As these are not officially supported solutions, my suggested option would be a visit to an Apple store.