Apparently this is one way of doing it: http://falkenmire.com/blog/2012/3/12/mountain-lion-to-lion-rollback.html
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How can i downgrade from osx 10.8 to 10.7
- Thread starter ojc123
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Hopefully this is newb friendly enough and helps someone who needs its
I had the same issue ML killed my backup so i couldn't simply revert do to the kernel panic or whatever it was so what worked for me was doing the following
First as always backup any and all info you need...
1) goto utilities and then goto disk utility once there you should see on the left hand side of the disk utility window your hard drive (ie 500.11 GB toshiba etc) click on that then.
2)goto the tab that says partition and click on it you should have one visible partition even if you have a backup it wont be shown here so dont worry. (at least mine didn't even so you can also create a backup later which i recommend)
Once there click on the whole box which represents your partition at the bottom there are a + and - you wanna click the plus now create 3 partitions.
Make sure that on the right side of the disk utility window the partitions are formatted in the MAC OS Extended format not any of the others.
Also this is important one of these partitions need to be big enough to have a copy of OSX loaded you can resize them by yourself manually by simply clicking on the gaps and sliding them to your desired size ..so to be safe make it 30 GBs (name it something like Lion or whatever your installing
The others can be 5 a peice whatever its not that important.
Once your done with that click apply this might take awhile depending on your HD or computer so make sure the battery is plugged in and let it do its thing.
3)Ok now you should have 4 partitions on your drive one holding mountain lion and 3 others with nothing on them...
4)Now to go back to a previous version of OSX I used a copy of snow leopard since it was all i had but I'm sure lion will work fine so you will need one of those disks.
Insert the disc in your superdrive with mountain lion running once it recognizes the disk it should pop up now in the disk utility window in the section where your hard drive is as a little white box.
Next you need to goto the tab that says RESTORE click on that and over on the left side you should grab the osx file thats under supder drive and drag it to the SOURCE BOX if it jumps out drag it back once it stays then in the DESTINATION box drag in the partition you have made for lion or whatever and once thats there click restore.
your machine should now be installing a copy of OSX onto the specified drive feel free to use your machine while it does this.
Now if you did everything right you should have a stable version of OSX installed on your newly made partition and you can import all the stuff you backed up to this partition of OSX before you delete the others
And maybe learned your lesson about upgrading to beta software go back to disk utility and goto your hard drive again now highlight the partition with mountain lion and goto the erase tab
To start up your new partition simply restart your machine holding the option/alt key which will bring up a menu of partitions now select your lion/snow leopard whatever partition and double click that to boot into a stable version of OSX
****Lastly if you want to delete the mountain lion partition from your hard drive ****
(!!!MAKE SURE THIS IS THE MOUNTAIN LION PARTITION NOT THE LION OTHERWISE YOU WILL HAVE TO REPEAT EVERYTHING AGAIN!!!)
click erase and let it erase once again it might take some time make sure your battery is full or your plugged in once it gets deleted you should have the 4 partitions which now only one of them has anything on them you can delete the others and resize your hard drive into one or whatever you want to
If your still having trouble let me know and im willing to help anyone who needs more or doesn't understand something
I had the same issue ML killed my backup so i couldn't simply revert do to the kernel panic or whatever it was so what worked for me was doing the following
First as always backup any and all info you need...
1) goto utilities and then goto disk utility once there you should see on the left hand side of the disk utility window your hard drive (ie 500.11 GB toshiba etc) click on that then.
2)goto the tab that says partition and click on it you should have one visible partition even if you have a backup it wont be shown here so dont worry. (at least mine didn't even so you can also create a backup later which i recommend)
Once there click on the whole box which represents your partition at the bottom there are a + and - you wanna click the plus now create 3 partitions.
Make sure that on the right side of the disk utility window the partitions are formatted in the MAC OS Extended format not any of the others.
Also this is important one of these partitions need to be big enough to have a copy of OSX loaded you can resize them by yourself manually by simply clicking on the gaps and sliding them to your desired size ..so to be safe make it 30 GBs (name it something like Lion or whatever your installing
The others can be 5 a peice whatever its not that important.
Once your done with that click apply this might take awhile depending on your HD or computer so make sure the battery is plugged in and let it do its thing.
3)Ok now you should have 4 partitions on your drive one holding mountain lion and 3 others with nothing on them...
4)Now to go back to a previous version of OSX I used a copy of snow leopard since it was all i had but I'm sure lion will work fine so you will need one of those disks.
Insert the disc in your superdrive with mountain lion running once it recognizes the disk it should pop up now in the disk utility window in the section where your hard drive is as a little white box.
Next you need to goto the tab that says RESTORE click on that and over on the left side you should grab the osx file thats under supder drive and drag it to the SOURCE BOX if it jumps out drag it back once it stays then in the DESTINATION box drag in the partition you have made for lion or whatever and once thats there click restore.
your machine should now be installing a copy of OSX onto the specified drive feel free to use your machine while it does this.
Now if you did everything right you should have a stable version of OSX installed on your newly made partition and you can import all the stuff you backed up to this partition of OSX before you delete the others
And maybe learned your lesson about upgrading to beta software go back to disk utility and goto your hard drive again now highlight the partition with mountain lion and goto the erase tab
To start up your new partition simply restart your machine holding the option/alt key which will bring up a menu of partitions now select your lion/snow leopard whatever partition and double click that to boot into a stable version of OSX
****Lastly if you want to delete the mountain lion partition from your hard drive ****
(!!!MAKE SURE THIS IS THE MOUNTAIN LION PARTITION NOT THE LION OTHERWISE YOU WILL HAVE TO REPEAT EVERYTHING AGAIN!!!)
click erase and let it erase once again it might take some time make sure your battery is full or your plugged in once it gets deleted you should have the 4 partitions which now only one of them has anything on them you can delete the others and resize your hard drive into one or whatever you want to
If your still having trouble let me know and im willing to help anyone who needs more or doesn't understand something
To be fair, you don't have to be a developer to have access to ML. I'm not a developer but I was invited into the AppleSeed program for both Lion and now ML.
Having said that, to the OP; you really need to be on the AppleSeed Discussion forums instead of here, which you would have access to if you got ML legitimately. All the resources you need are there.
This happens with every developer release.
Why on god's good earth would anyone throw a beta OS onto a perfectly working system?
Clearly they have nothing better to do. I on the other hand did it fully expecting the worst. I was lucky, it wasn't bad until it started freezing (Im talking DP4 U1 here) then I just got jack of it and decided to revert back to 10.7.4. There were a few dramas there. Lets just say the password encryption system in 10.8 has changed dramatically... bingo bango... restoring Time Machine data (even without any computer settings) can seriously lock you out of your newly restored MBP. Heh, whodathunkit?
Happy to say its back up and running in virgin 10.7.4 right now though. Me SMRT.
I was able to use the 10.8 recovery partition to restore Lion using a time machine drive. I know it was the 10.8 recovery partition because I deleted the lion recovery partition before I even installed Mountain Lion. I thought I was going to have to use the Lion install USB drive to restore my machine, but I didn't have to, it just worked.
I know when I tried to restore Snow Leopard using the Lion recovery partition though, that didn't seem to work for me.
I know when I tried to restore Snow Leopard using the Lion recovery partition though, that didn't seem to work for me.
Easy!
Just take a thumb drive and use disk utility to put mountain Lion on it.
Once you have a bootable mountain lion install thumb drive plug it in, hold option down while booting up and select it.
When it loads it should look exactly like the normal mountain lion recovery mode.
Now go to disk utility and erase the macs "Machintosh HD" hard drive completely.
Then load lion onto your thumb drive and boot up holding option and select it. Now install lion on your empty hard drive!
You will lose all your data... but it's not to hard to backup.
Only way I could find to do it.
Just take a thumb drive and use disk utility to put mountain Lion on it.
Once you have a bootable mountain lion install thumb drive plug it in, hold option down while booting up and select it.
When it loads it should look exactly like the normal mountain lion recovery mode.
Now go to disk utility and erase the macs "Machintosh HD" hard drive completely.
Then load lion onto your thumb drive and boot up holding option and select it. Now install lion on your empty hard drive!
You will lose all your data... but it's not to hard to backup.
Only way I could find to do it.
Revert to snow leopard from mountain lion
I am hoping someone can help me. I have always backed up (to external drive) with time machine. I recently upgraded from snow leopard to mountain lion. It is not compatible with 50% of my programs and will not connect with my external Internet hard drive. I really need to revert to snow leopard. Can anyone help me? Thanks for any suggestions,
I am hoping someone can help me. I have always backed up (to external drive) with time machine. I recently upgraded from snow leopard to mountain lion. It is not compatible with 50% of my programs and will not connect with my external Internet hard drive. I really need to revert to snow leopard. Can anyone help me? Thanks for any suggestions,
I am hoping someone can help me. I have always backed up (to external drive) with time machine. I recently upgraded from snow leopard to mountain lion. It is not compatible with 50% of my programs and will not connect with my external Internet hard drive. I really need to revert to snow leopard. Can anyone help me? Thanks for any suggestions,
You do a clean install with your Snow Leopard installation medium, be it a grey Restore DVD (#1) or the 29 USD Upgrade DVD.
To create a Clean Install (formerly known as Erase & Install) of Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard (the 29 USD Upgrade DVD is a fully working retail version of Mac OS X and does not need a prior installation of Mac OS X on the Mac), follow one of the following guides:
- Short version: Clean Install of OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard
- Long version: Mac OS X v10.6 Snow Leopard: How to Erase and Install
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Thanks for this, simsaladimbamba, it saved my butt! So now, how do I get my refund from
? 
If you do a clean install, everything on the drive, including your apps, gets erased.