Downgrade Yosemite problem

[macca1980]

Trying g to downgrade to mountain lion from Yosemite.

All guides I have read say cmd option R then install os x . It should give what originally was installed on machine.

I only have option to install Yosemite.

What's happening ?,where is the mountain lion option?

 

[DeltaMac]

When you boot with Cmd-Option-R, do you see the rotating globe - which tells you that you are booting directly from Apple's servers? Or, do you just see the usual Apple icon, meaning that you are booting locally.
If you see the rotating globe during boot, but Yosemite is still offered, then that's all you can get through that process.
Which model Mac do you have?

 

[macca1980]

It's an old 2008 iMac think it is just booting locally

 

[macca1980]

Didn't see a rotating globe , maybe internet recovery not available on mine ?

 

[DeltaMac]

Yes, a 2008 iMac is too old for the Internet recovery. Oldest for that feature are 2010 models.
(note: your 2008 iMac would have originally had OS X 10.5.x (Leopard), about 4 years before Mountain Lion was released )
If you have purchased Mountain Lion, it will show up in your App Store, Purchases tab. You can download it again, assuming that the Mac can boot to Mountain Lion. If you are running Yosemite, App Store will warn you that you can't run the Mountain Lion installer, which is true - but you can still download it. Once the download finishes, you will have the Mountain Lion Installer app in your Applications folder. Next step is to create a bootable USB flash drive from that app. You will need an 8GB flash drive for that. You can follow steps to create the bootable installer, or just download DiskmakerX, which makes the process simple.
And, you will have a permanent copy of the ML installer that you can use again, without waiting for the long download…
Or, another option is to actually purchase the Mountain Lion installer from Apple.

 

[macca1980]

So I take it when I updated to Yosemite, it also updated my recovery folder to be Yosemite as well?

 

[b0fh666]

So I take it when I updated to Yosemite, it also updated my recovery folder to be Yosemite as well?

yes!

 

[redheeler]

So I take it when I updated to Yosemite, it also updated my recovery folder to be Yosemite as well?

Yes, the Recovery partition is updated to Yosemite as well.

Your Mac didn't originally ship with ML and doesn't support Internet Recovery, so if you want to downgrade to it you'll have to follow @DeltaMac's advice above.

 

[macca1980]

Thanks guys