I'm in a pickle...

[Samrizzo]

Hey guys,

First time posting here, go easy on me.

So, long story short:

I had Mountain Lion on my system an wanted to downgrade to Snow Leopard (it's what I was used to) but after successfully downgrading I ran into a lot of compatibility problems with hardware and more importantly software. I made a back up whilst I was using Mountain Lion with time machine.

Now, I need to UPGRADE back to Mountain Lion. Right now I am sitting infront of the Mac OS X installer screen after booting the Snow Leopard disc (the one which originally came with my 2010 MacBook) and I have selected "restore with time machine backup". So, my question is: can I restore my system back to ML just like it was before I downgraded? Remember, it's a Time Machine backup, but a Snow Leopard disc. Because the current software on the mac is an earlier OS, will the system understand what OS is on the backup?

Any help would be great.

And thanks in advance.

Sam

 

[Luis2004]

Hey guys,

First time posting here, go easy on me.

So, long story short:

I had Mountain Lion on my system an wanted to downgrade to Snow Leopard (it's what I was used to) but after successfully downgrading I ran into a lot of compatibility problems with hardware and more importantly software. I made a back up whilst I was using Mountain Lion with time machine.

Now, I need to UPGRADE back to Mountain Lion. Right now I am sitting infront of the Mac OS X installer screen after booting the Snow Leopard disc (the one which originally came with my 2010 MacBook) and I have selected "restore with time machine backup". So, my question is: can I restore my system back to ML just like it was before I downgraded? Remember, it's a Time Machine backup, but a Snow Leopard disc. Because the current software on the mac is an earlier OS, will the system understand what OS is on the backup?

Any help would be great.

And thanks in advance.

Sam

I would suggest reinstalling a fresh copy of ML via Internet option, then restoring TM.

Seems like the safest way to go.

 

[DJLC]

AFAIK, Time Machine doesn't back up the system; just user data and apps. If this is the case, you wouldn't be able to restore ML from it. It's possible that SL would be able to restore it, but incompatible plists and etc could cause a few issues.

I think your best option would be to upgrade a clean SL installation to ML. Use a generic admin account for both, then restore your ML Time Machine backup manually using Migration Assistant. (If you make an account to begin with that has an identical name as that in TM you'll have issues restoring.)

 

[Bear]

Use internet recovery to install Mountain Lion fresh then during the initial setup, use TM to restore your data and such.

Or you can use Internet Recovery to restore from your last Mountain Lion Time Machine backup from before you installed Snow Leopard.

 

[Weaselboy]

So, my question is: can I restore my system back to ML just like it was before I downgraded?

Yes... very easily. Since Lion 10.7.2 a Time Machine backup is bootable and you can do a full restore.

Do this.

1. Plug in the TM USB drive and restart the machine.
2. Hold down the option key as it boots and select the Time Machine drive as the boot source.
3. Once that start run Disk Utility and select the drive name (like 1TB Seagate or whatever) and NOT Macintosh HD... then format as Mac OS Extended.
4. Now click restore and sit back and wait.

This will copy over the entire ML OS and all your data back from the Time Machine backup.