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r997788552

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 24, 2012
4
0
I need to return to the old operating system from 10.8, I have tried to download Lion from the mac app store but it wont download, i get this message : You can’t upgrade this version of Mac OS X because a newer version is installed. So does anyone know how to reinstall Lion?
 

Blipp

macrumors 6502
Mar 14, 2011
268
0
You either wipe and reload or your restore from a Time Machine backup that contains Lion.
 

r997788552

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 24, 2012
4
0
Doesnt work

It wont let me wipe the hard drive and the restores from before mountain lion have disappeared, i am still connected to the time capsule and it either cannot find the backup file or they dont exist anymore
 

r997788552

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 24, 2012
4
0
Well

I am new to the mac development program, after 2 days i cant really know how to deal with this, i have tried all the ways that i know
 

Krazy Bill

macrumors 68030
Dec 21, 2011
2,985
3
I am new to the mac development program, after 2 days i cant really know how to deal with this, i have tried all the ways that i know
Boot into your 10.7 clone. The one all developers make before being stranded with a beta OS.
 

r997788552

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 24, 2012
4
0
Boot into your 10.7 clone. The one all developers make before being stranded with a beta OS.

As you can probably guess i did not make a clone drive as i didnt know to, its been a good learning curve but is there any way to get back to 10.7 without the clone drive
 

sha4000

macrumors regular
Feb 19, 2012
139
1
We all know he is not a REAL developer so why all the sarcastic comments. I'm pretty sure all you guys/gals are REAL developers so why not just help out instead of stating the obvious.

Download the lion dmg from one of THOSE other sites, there are plenty around. Then go into disk utily and create a second partition on your disk and name it Lion or whatever you like. Once the partition is created try to install Lion and when it asks which disk click show all disks and choose the partition that you just created. I hope that helps and if not keeps asking questions and maybe some helpful ppl will come along and give advice. By the way you should be able to delete the ML partition in disk utility after you create the new one.
 
Last edited:

ct2k7

macrumors G3
Aug 29, 2008
8,382
3,439
London
We all know he is not a REAL developer so why all the sarcastic comments. I'm pretty sure all you guys/gals are REAL developers so why not just help out instead of stating the obvious.

Because the preview is meant for developers, who should have prior experience in OS management.

OP will need to wipe clean if TM isn't working and restore from a TM backup through that.
 

r0k

macrumors 68040
Mar 3, 2008
3,612
76
Detroit
As you can probably guess i did not make a clone drive as i didnt know to, its been a good learning curve but is there any way to get back to 10.7 without the clone drive

I have a suggestion for you. First of all, get crashplan. Install it and when it asks for java, allow java to install as well. Point crashplan to a usb, firewire or network drive and back up your entire home folder or at least your Documents and Downloads folders. If you have music and photos you might want to back up your Music and Pictures folders. All of the above is done using Crashplan free version. If you want your stuff backed up to Crashplan's cloud, you will need to buy a subscription. The reason I suggest Crashplan is it is not tied to a particular OS version and unlike Time Machine you can back up from 10.8 and restore to 10.6 if you want to. I don't know if you have other files scattered around your system such as source code in Xcode. You will have to figure out how to back that stuff up as the file locations depend on how you installed Xcode. For a while, everything was in /Developer. More recently, I've been keeping stuff in my Documents folder but somehow the newest Xcode decided to put my builds in my Library folder. So take your time making sure you really have everything backed up.

Once everything is backed up, go ahead and wipe and install Lion. If you don't have a working Lion recovery partition you might have to go all the way back to Snow Leopard and download Lion all over again. This time make yourself a Lion recovery USB stick.

Once you're done getting back to Lion, go ahead and allow Crashplan to restore all your stuff. Next time use Carbon Copy Cloner to make a clone of your Macintosh HD before tinkering with a "beta" or "preview" OS.
 
Last edited:

pmz

macrumors 68000
Nov 18, 2009
1,949
0
NJ
Time Machine Restore = bad idea.

Carbon Copy or any other OS back up suggestion = bad idea.

The only thing you should ever do is format and install clean, and set up as new. No reason why this can't be done. Takes a few hours to reinstall your apps, tweak settings, etc. not a big deal. But a much smarter way of doing things.

Every single Restore From Backup option available is fraught with uncertainty, unreliabiity, and unecessity.
 

illini71

macrumors member
Dec 28, 2010
71
2
Time Machine Restore = bad idea.

Carbon Copy or any other OS back up suggestion = bad idea.

The only thing you should ever do is format and install clean, and set up as new. No reason why this can't be done. Takes a few hours to reinstall your apps, tweak settings, etc. not a big deal. But a much smarter way of doing things.

Every single Restore From Backup option available is fraught with uncertainty, unreliabiity, and unecessity.

100% Agree. Make a boot disk.
 

shanimal

macrumors member
Mar 12, 2011
89
0
assuming your already have the the installesd.dmg (if not, you right click the "install mac os lion", or whatever the name of the file you downloaded, and click Show package content; open Contents, and i think its in SharedSupport. If not, just look around in the folders for it. Drag it out of the folder.)

1. partition smallest amount of space in disk utility (mine was 34gb; it wouldnt go any lower. if yours does, make it atleast 5gb.)
2. restore the the "installESD.dmg" to the partition with disk utility (click partiton; source will be the dmg and the destination is the partition)
3. reboot in the "Mac os X" drive (your partition you made)
4. use disk utility to format drive you want to install Lion on as extended (journaled)
5. leave disk utility
6. install lion
7. ???
8. profit
 

maflynn

macrumors Haswell
May 3, 2009
73,682
43,740
If you didn't create a clone, the best way to get back to 10.7 is to reinstall the OS as fresh install. Once SL is installed then you get use Time Machine to retrieve your documents and data.

In the future, I'd suggest using Carbon Copy Cloner to make a clone of your current system before loading a beta OS.
 

db1408

macrumors member
Jun 11, 2011
56
0
If your mac started with Leopard/SLeo put that disk/USB in and fresh reformat from boot (google, to avoid any mess ups - 'Install from boot (insert OS and computer model))... after you've stashed your important files of course, just incase you can't get TimeMachine to function post the event.

Real pain the the arse having to spend hours booting back into Lion from earlier version, consider it a lesson learned and have a back up before you decide to do a full install. it's always advised to do a partition boot to ensure stability etc if your cocky enough to use as your main OS. The biggest annoyance is time, it isn't difficult to navigate, lets hope you Lion user files are still on time capsule after the boot. They should be recognisable at the 'Lion installed' point.


**Sorry if this is a repeat example, responded whilst offline.**
 

littleasian

macrumors member
Jun 20, 2009
61
0
here's an alternative way to recover your files.

use one of the posts above to clean install lion. then plug in your TM backup but when it pops up just hit cancel/ignore. manually open up the TM disk, double click "most recent backups" and you should find your entire saved filesystem. browse through the disk until you find the folders you need (ex. /time machine/recentbackups/user/userid/documents) and then manually drag/drop them into your desktop into its correct location (ex. ~/documents).

now you have a clean installation of lion + all of your data.

then boot up disk utility, find your TM partition and erase it. now create a new backup on TM using lion. boom, back to square 1.
 

l.a.rossmann

macrumors 65816
May 15, 2009
1,097
372
Brooklyn
We all know he is not a REAL developer so why all the sarcastic comments. I'm pretty sure all you guys/gals are REAL developers so why not just help out instead of stating the obvious.

The last thing I ever wanted to see was this forum turn into UNIX IRC channel. :(
 
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