It doesn’t ship with one, but you can download it here: http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1433 http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1433 (That link is placed on this page

It doesn’t ship with one, but you can download it here: http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1433 http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1433 (That link is placed on this page about OS X recovery, so it’s not hard to find: http://www.apple.com/osx/recovery/ http://www.apple.com/osx/recovery/ – though it’s important to note that this wouldn’t have solved his particular problem. You can only use this app on a system that already has Mountain Lion installed, so you have to think of this before you encounter the problem – or have a second Mac at hand with the right OS.) Current Macs also come with Internet Recovery, meaning it’s always possible to boot into the Recovery Manager, even with an empty HDD.