Using OS X Recovery to install Mavericks?

[kidscruff]

Sorry for the apparently n00b question, it seems downloading and 'clean' installing Mavericks from a USB drive is fairly well documented. However I'm wondering about using the OSX Recovery partition on my 2013 MacBook Air.

If I use the Recovery option on boot, will it automatically download and install Mavericks, or will it only use the pre-installed Mountain Lion?

If I install Mavericks from a USB drive, will it overwrite the Recovery partition?

I'm not sure how it's all linked together. Cheers

 

[Scythe]

As I understand if you use recovery, it will download the latest version of the OSX version you've installed, so it'll download the latest edition of Mountain Lion.

Installing from a USB drive will overwrite the recovery partition with the new Mavericks recovery partition.

 

[kidscruff]

Thanks. It seems there are quite a few guides to making a USB drive, but the only one that creates a recovery partition is the terminal command:

sudo /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ Mavericks.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/Untitled --applicationpath /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ Mavericks.app --nointeraction

I was keen on avoiding any potential hiccups formatting via USB, so contemplating 'upgrading' OSX and then rebooting and 'clean' installing from the updated recovery partition.