Rolling back to El Capitan?

[Doc Horrorshow]

Whilst Canon figure out a patch for their now non-functioning printers, I'd like to roll back my Sierra installation for a few days. I restarted my iMac (late 2013) holding down Command + R, I selected my back-up external HDD for a date two days before I installed Sierra and then an empty drive as Destination. The roll-back (or whatever it was doing) took a couple of hours before automatically restarting the iMac to complete the procedure. Or so I thought. What do I now have? Well, I still have Sierra. Where did I go wrong? Can anyone explain what I ought to've done?
Thanks,
Doc

 

[CoastalOR]

I did a quick Google search on "how to revert from Sierra to El Capitan". Here are the first 3 links shown that will hopefully help:
http://osxdaily.com/2016/10/02/downgrade-macos-sierra/
http://www.macworld.co.uk/how-to/ma...ierra-el-capitan-remove-macos-sierra-3581872/
http://www.imore.com/how-downgrade-macos-sierra-back-os-x-el-capitan

 

[Left4DeadBoy]

hi Becau-se Canon is nonfunctioning currently Id recommend that you buy a new printer when its convenient for you; of course not until that time . You can remember to do that in the future for easy printing .

 

[Doc Horrorshow]

I did a quick Google search on "how to revert from Sierra to El Capitan". Here are the first 3 links shown that will hopefully help:
http://osxdaily.com/2016/10/02/downgrade-macos-sierra/
http://www.macworld.co.uk/how-to/ma...ierra-el-capitan-remove-macos-sierra-3581872/
http://www.imore.com/how-downgrade-macos-sierra-back-os-x-el-capitan

Many thanks for those. Regarding the osxdaily method. I used the Time Machine method, as described, but still ended up with Sierra again after the reboot. Do you know why this may've happened?

 

[golfnut1982]

I might be wrong here, and would like to be corrected If I am, but what I found out was you have to use the "latest full complete" time machine backup of your recent backup and not one that you made afterward (partial). For instance, I made a complete backup before I updated, then later in the day I backed up a partial. Then I updated to sierra. Had some weird issues with safari, then tried to restore using the last backup of el cap with time machine and nothing worked. Tried it again with the "first" complete backup then it worked. Let us know. If I'm wrong here, let me know.

 

[Partron22]

This is why I have a stack of removable terabyte drives, and a couple caddies.
They're a lot like zip disks used to be, cheap and with lots of storage space.
You just make a complete copy of your startup disk before updating.
If you don't like the update, you make a copy of it to one of your spare TB drives, and restore from the drive you made before doing the update.
I'd use Time Machine, but haven't trusted it since it broke on me back in OSX Mavericks.

 

[CoastalOR]

Many thanks for those. Regarding the osxdaily method. I used the Time Machine method, as described, but still ended up with Sierra again after the reboot. Do you know why this may've happened?

I can't tell you why it happened. TM is nice when it works for you, but sometimes it may not. It is good to have options.

If the method you tried did not work, then try one of the other link methods to get you back to El Capitan.

I use TM & CCC (Carbon Copy Cloner). I like having a bootable clone if needed. Again, having options. CCC has a fully functional 30 day trial.

 

[hallux]

Are you positive it booted to the restored El Capitan drive and not the Sierra drive? It sounds like you just need to hold Option during boot and select the drive containing your restored El Capitan install.

 

[Matty_TypeR]

i went back to el captain as sierra was just to buggy for me, lost my network HP printer in sierra, saw it but could send nothing to it

 

[Partron22]

lost my network HP printer in sierra, saw it but could send nothing to it

HP got up to some driver hyjinx: HP apologises for ink-blocking update. That might have been the cause of your troubles.

 

[Wando64]

i went back to el captain as sierra was just to buggy for me, lost my network HP printer in sierra, saw it but could send nothing to it

To be honest every time I upgrade I have problems with my HP Printer.
I don't think it is a Sierra issue as such as I have the same issues (with HP printer) when I upgrade to a new Windows version as well.