Why I reverted to Snow Leopard from Lion....

Mac Mini (Late 2009)
2GHz Processor
2G RAM
320GB Hard Drive
I've loved this computer from the moment I got it....used...on eBay...Leopard disk included, but wiped clean by seller. My second Apple purchase after the iPhone 4. I loved the way that Apple products did away with the annoying "thinking time" so familiar to PC users....they just worked (bleugh!). They didn't get sick, they didn't slow down, they made your whole computing experience less computational and more creative.
Snow Leopard, when it came out, made my second hand Mac even better, took up less space and just seemed to run extremely smoothly. As a musician, I record into CPU-intensive programs like Ableton, and yet, my ickle 2 Gig box handled the loads superbly.
Lion, on the other hand has turned out to be a major disappointment....
After the initial 'excitement' of side-swiping webpages had worn off, I began to notice that the computer was very slow, with that beachball appearing much too frequently for my tastes...I got several spinning hourglass flashbacks! I thought I had left those days behind me....Ableton started using massive amounts of CPU and doubling it's RAM consumption, to the point where the mouse would freeze, drop-down menus would appear blank, basically the whole system freezing until I closed the offending program...in this case Ableton. I was seriosuly considering upgrading my RAM, but my gut instinct was that Lion was causing it. I checked the forums, and found a few incidents of people with similar problems, saying Lion was the culprit. They were being arrogantly dismissed as fools for daring to criticise anything Apple related. I'm no expert, but I know when my computer is not working the way it should. So I searched YouTube for the method of reverting to Snow Leopard...sat up late last night completing it...but it was well worth it. I'm back on 10.6.8
I now love my Mac Mini again.....all my programs run faster, RAM and CPU usage is down, no more spinning hourglasses, I mean BEACHBALLS
My verdict:
Snow Leopard is a fantastic operating system.
Lion is not.
I don't know or care for the politics of why it is not, but a few gimmicky tricks and full-screen apps do not even begin to make up for the frustration of using a slow, buggy operating system, that developers say was rushed out and no't tested properly...I believe them!
I have heard a few people refer to possible power management problems with Lion....sounds plausible
Lion is Apple's Vista.
Cheers for reading my first post
Paul

Welcome to the crowd.
I reverted my MBP 3,1 back to Snow and the Lion black death and video artifacts are gone.
Yes, Lion certainly needs to go back into the oven for more cooking, unfortunately they release it and inflict millions with it and don't have a easy, user friendly method to revert.
Not only that they make UI changes that people just have to blindly accept, with no option to turn them off.
Things needs to change, even Windows has System Restore and some measure to revert some features back to what they were and let change be accepted gradually.
Storage drives are fat, some with as much as 750GB, there isn't a reason in the world not to provide two OS''s on one drive to ease the transition between the two. Let those who can afford to beta test with arrows in their backs do so.
Let the rest of us who just want our computers to work left alone, we don't want new features if it they don't work reliably yet.
The way it is now, when a new OS is about to be released, one has to run out and buy new hardware prematurely because the whole next year will be nothing but misery.
Really nice way to treat newcomers to the Mac experience.
Change and improvement is welcome, but it has to be gradual and reliable. Not sudden and drastic.

Similar Messages

Can i revert to snow leopard from lion without a time machine backup?

can I revert to snow leopard from lion without a time machine backup?

You can with a Snow Leopard DVD, but if you don't have that or a Time Machine backup there's no way.

Can't find iPhoto photos after downgrading to Snow Leopard from Lion

I had my photos on my External Hard Drive being used as a backup for TIme Machine.
After downgrading to Snow Leopard from Lion (my computer was running rediculusly slow likely due to being so close to the minimum requirements), I can not access any of my Time Machine dates prior to the date I downgraded. I have reinstalled Lion to try to access the files that way, but am having issues finding my old photos.
Any help would be appreciated as I've got about 15000 photos of my kids on there.

There are issues with iphoto which changes versions..
I would strongly recommend you do an archive of the TC before you do any more playing.
I presume the TC is the only place you have these photos stored??? So your entire library is hard disk erase from total annilahation.. not good!!
Load a real utility into Lion.. archive is not present on the new version.. why apple why??
http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1482
You can then do a full restore to an external drive.. or something fancy..
Pondini is the saviour here.
http://pondini.org/TM/15.html
There is a specific section on iphoto and its pain.
I strongly suggest you read the entire section from Q14-18 so you actually understand what TM does.

Can I restore to Snow Leopard from Lion using time machine?

Can I restore to Snow Leopard from Lion using time machine? I did not make a new partition on my external HD. My reason for doing this is to import data from Quicken 2007 to Quicken Essentials and then upgrade back to Lion. Can I restart and hold down the "OPTION" key upon start up that will take me to Apple Recovery HD and recover from time machine? I'm a noob at these sort of things. I appreciate your comments and suggestions.

Probably not. See Kappy's going back to SL from Lion guide.

How to revert back to Snow Leopard from Lion?

Foolishly I just jumped straight in, downloaded Lion and installed it, and well... I really don't like it. It's not a patch on SL.
So I'm trying to work out the best way of reverting back to Snow Leopard.
I have:
My Snow Leopard install disc.
A SuperDuper, bootable backup from 48 hours pre-upgrade.
A Time Machine backup from 48 hours pre-upgrade.
I'm fairly sure that just putting the SL install disc in, isn't going to work.
I think I have a couple of options.
1. Erase the hard drive completely, and then do a fresh SL install, then restore the last TM backup.
2. Boot from the SuperDuper backup, then restore the last TM backup.
I'd prefer option 1, as this gives me a clean install (I hope).
Before I go ahead, can anyone:
a) See any problems with carrying this out, or
b) Suggest a better, safer method?
I'm a bit concerned that SL was an upgrade to an existing OS, rather than a complete OS in itself, so I'm very wary of what might happen if I wipe the drive then put the disc in, hoping it'll give me a nice new version of SL. Might need to go and do a bit more reading up.
Thanks.

For ref.
Dragged and dropped copies of important files (Docs, Pictures, Downloads, Movies etc) to a spare drive.
Printed off any docs that I absolutely could not afford to lose.
Shut down Mac.
Attached USB drive with SuperDuper backup, and powered up drive.
Powered up Mac, and immediately pressed the option key.
From the window that popped up, chose my USB drive as the boot disk and pressed return.
Mac powered up running Snow Leopard from USB drive.
Started Disk Utility, and erased the disk labelled 250.06 GB Fujitsu.... etc In the 'name' field, entered 'Macintosh HD'
Started up SuperDuper! and copied my backup over Macintosh HD.
Incidentally, the first step it took was to erase Macintosh HD anyway, so I could probably have skipped the first erase.
Let SuperDuper! do it's thing for 90 mins.
Once it had completed, closed the machine down (it wouldn't let me eject the USB drive, as presumably it was still using that as the boot disc).
Detached and powered off USB drive.
Pressed Mac power button and crossed fingers...
And goodbye annoying Lion, hello again, good old Snow Leopard!
Didn't even need to restore the last Time Machine backup.
I may take another look at Lion again, further down the road, when hopefully Apple will have realised that OS X and iOS are two completely different animals, and that we don't all want our Macs behaving like our iPads.
For now though, I'm sticking with SL.

How do I revert to Snow Leopard from Mountain Lion? I do not have the setup disk that came with my MacBook but I do have the Snow Leopard software.

I upgraded to Mountain Lion and very much regret this move. I cannot use Parallels or Bootcamp for Windows XP which I need for some of my 'older' accessories. How do I revert from Mountain Lion back to Snow Leopard? I have the Snow Leopard software but I do not have the original setup software disk that came with the MacBook (leant to a friend and never seen again).

If you do revert to Snow Leopard, be aware of this "feature" I used with my 2009 MacBook Pro:
When it had the original OS (Leopard, I believe) I set up Bootcamp with Windows XP. I also installed Parallels and use the Bootcamp partition for Windows XP within Parallels.
I then upgraded to Snow Leopard and all was fine.
I then upgraded to Lion and still my Bootcamp partition works for Windows XP and also for Parallels.
I have not upgraded to Mountain Lion so I cannot speak to whether or not the Bootcamp paritition of Windows XP will continue to work. If you do and it works, LET US KNOW!

How can I revert to Snow Leopard from Mountain Lion on a 2013 iMac?

I have a brand new 27" 2.9Ghz iMac, bought a few days ago, equipped with Mountain Lion. I'm using it for recording, and at the time, my recording software and hardware are incompatible. On Snow Leopard, however, it all runs flawlessly. I know I can't simply revert to Snow Leopard, as there is some sort of firmware that blocks these types of downgrades. Can I partition the internal hardrive and install Snow Leopard and boot from that partition? I have no real use for Mt. Lion for the time being, so I wouldn't need to boot them both simultaneously or even go back and forth. I just want Snow Leopard...any help would be much appreciated. Thanks

Welcome to the Apple Support Communities
You have different problems with a Late 2012 iMac and Snow Leopard:
1. The firmware doesn't allow you to run it.
2. Snow Leopard isn't compatible because it hasn't got the drivers for the hardware of the iMac. Furthermore, you can only run OS X 10.8.1, 10.8.2 or 10.8.3 on a Late 2012 iMac at the moment, because older versions haven't got the drivers it needs.
3. It's illegal.
As you can see, you can't run Snow Leopard natively. If this is a requirement, I suggest you to return your iMac and search a Mid 2011 iMac with Snow Leopard (there are some Mid 2011 iMacs that came with Snow Leopard, although most of them came with OS X Lion). If you don't find anything, buy a Mid 2010 iMac.
Another possibility is to buy Snow Leopard Server and install it on a virtual machine, but I doubt it's legal

Can I revert back to Snow Leopard from Lion?

Hey guys,
Last night i upgraded to Lion. Have since found out my Focusrite 24 DSP audio interface wont work with Lion (No Drivers yet).... can i simply re-install Leopard from the install discs that came with my imac until such time as drivers become available for my hardware, then re-install Lion? Can this be done without clearing my entire hard-drive and starting again?
Cheers
Sean

mscys wrote:
If you have a complete Time Machine backup of your previous Snow Leopard system, going back to SL is really quite easy.
Just boot from the Lion Recovery partition (option key at startup) and choose to restore from Time Machine backup. (You'll be able to see your last dated and identified SL backup, even if you'd already been using TM with Lion.) It will erase the drive for you and restore a bootable SL. No DVD required.
Works great.
(If you don't have a complete TM backup, then you'll have to wipe the drive, install SL and updates, then use Migration Assistant to bring over your partial TM backup, ie: does not include system and apps.)
Thanks very much for this. I've just restored Snow Leopard from Time Machine, and it only took 30 mins. Worked perfectly. Now I have an OS that works properly (hooray!).
Bob.

Re-install snow leopard from lion

I want to return to snow leopard as Lion has disabeled many of my programs. Can I just reinstall from the snow leopard disc?

Niel wrote:
1. Copy out the entire iTunes folder, not just the iTunes Music.
The pathnames to the music are in the itunes library etc files. the playlists etc won't work, the user will have to match their exact user name as before, then if they overwrite their itunes playlist that will have to be rebuilt, another problem we will ahve to deal with.
2. Copy the entire iPhoto library. It shouldn't be copied piecemeal unless absolutely necessary, and then should be reassembled before use.
True, but Apple doesn't expect users to revert to earlier versions of it's OS, it's not uncommon for them to include changes in newer iLife programs.
If the user goes and replaces their iPhoto Library completely, then it replaces the older version one, then it's another problem.
6. Zeroing the entire drive isn't necessary, and leaving the Lion recovery partition won't hurt anything.
Zeroing isn't necessary, but it prevents a lot of bad sectors failing later and data issues in OS X etc which are hard to resolve after the fact. So let the software Zero and take in a movie or have the hassle of reinstalling something later or rebuilding the entire drive.
Also if the user goes to Bootcamp or DU and partitions, for some reason DU hangs on bad sectors. Mapping off those bad sectors ahead of time prevents a lot of issues with hard drives. IMO.
...leaving the Lion recovery partition won't hurt anything.
We don't know that, and Apple doesn't expect it to be there with Snow Leopard install, it can potentially cause problems later.
I'm more of the mind that keep things the way Apple expects them to be, rather than take a chance.
The OP can install 10.7 again from MAS by simply option clicking on Purchases and redownloading and running the installer, which will recreate the Lion Recovery Partition again.
But what if the LR is already there and they go try to install Lion again only to have it hose up on a pre-existing LR?
That's what I'm thinking along the lines of, trying to prevent issues from occurring later on and for the next tech or adviser who can't tell the LR is there or not.

Restore to snow leopard from lion

Lion has proven itself to be way to buggy at this stage and I would prefer to go back using Snow Leopard.

Downgrade Lion to Snow Leopard
1. Boot from your Snow Leopard Installer Disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Quit DU and return to the installer. Install Snow Leopard.
This will erase the whole drive so be sure to backup your files if you don't have a backup already. If you have performed a TM backup using Lion be aware that you cannot restore from that backup in Snow Leopard (see below.) I suggest you make a separate backup using Carbon Copy Cloner 3.4.1.
If you have Snow Leopard Time Machine backups, do a full system restore per #14 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions. If you have subsequent backups from Lion, you can restore newer items selectively, via the "Star Wars" display, per #15 there, but be careful; some Snow Leopard apps may not work with the Lion files.

How to revert to Snow Leopard from time machine on Yosemite Device.

Hello everybody,
Essentially I need to revert back to OS Snow leopard on my new macbook that has Yosemite installed (bought secondhand) as a few of my DJ programs (Rekordbox) are not co-operating with the new OS. I have the back up on a hard drive made with Time Machine, is there any way I can do this?
My old Macbook pro is still working, its just the backlight has gone out, so I have to use a torch on the back to see what I'm doing. Everything still functions correctly on my old device, and I can use the carbon clone copy if need be. Really just need my old laptop's os/files on this new device with Yosemite on it.
Thanks in advance.

Do a backup, preferably 2 seperate ones.
Revert to a Previous OS X
Revert to Snow Leopard
If you do revert, I'd use Setup Assistant to restore your data. This process takes a while, so do it when you won't need the computer for several hours, based on my experience.

How do I recover apps after switching back to Snow Leopard from Lion?

I upgraded to Lion, had problems with it, then went back to Snow Leopard. I now have no mail app, safari or app store app. I have downloaded all software updates and am at a loss as to what is next. Please help!

I wrote a user tip here how to revert your machine to 10.6
How to revert your Mac to Snow Leopard
However I don't use Mail, so I don't know how you can bring back the emails to 10.6.
Sometimes you can redownload them from the server again, or perhaps you can export the emails out of 10.7 mail in plain text or something and save them as text files.
If you use Mail to show the headers too, then "select all" and copy and paste (a lot of work)
Another method would be to swtich hard drives, put a new one in the machine and install 10.6. fresh on it.
http://eshop.macsales.com/installvideos/
How to erase and install Snow Leopard 10.6
Take the old internal drive and put it into a USB enclosure with it's own power supply (or cheaper SATA to USB adapter), you then can hold the option key down and select the 10.7 drive to boot from to access the old emails in Mail like before.
BTW, I totally agreee with you about 10.7 and 10.8.

I want to downgrade to Snow Leopard from Lion

Hi
Can someone please tell me how I can downgrade from OSX Lion to Snow Leopard on my brand new 27" iMac.
I spoke to Apple over a week ago on the phone and explained that I wanted to downgrade to Snow Leopard and the chap I spoke to sold me the Snow Leopard upgrade disk and not the full installion DVD, I already own the Snow Leopard upgrade disk so now I have two copies and I can't use them to downgrade.
All I get when I insert the DVD is a message saying "you can't use this version of the application Install Mac Os X with this version of Mac OS X"...
Could someone please tell me exactly what Snow Leopard disks/ DVD I need to purchase (and where) for me to install Snow Leopard on my iMac. I have seen lots of different "versions" on eBay & Amazon with vastly differing prices but how do I know which disks I need to buy as I don't want to end up purchasing a third "Upgrade only" versionof Snow Leopard.
Thank you for any help you can give me with this...

I've already tried all of those methods using the 10.6.3 disks I bought, they simply don't work as I posted earlier.
All that happens is the machine constantly bleeps 3 times in a row and the DVD drive stops spinning. I know booting from a DVD install disk is a slow process but no matter how long I leave it nothing happens except for the 3 bleeping sounds.
Having scoured the net and spoken to Apple themselves all information tells me these 10.6.3 disks are actually for someone upgrading from Leopard to Snow Leopard.
I have no idea why Apple sold me this version as before I ordered it I explained fully to the sales person what I was wanting to do and they had all the details of this mid 2011 iMac I have bought. So unless the sales person didn't have a clue what they were talking about then I should be able to "downgrade" to Snow Leopard on this iMac as even the specs for this model clearly state on everymac.com that it originaly shipped with OS 10.6.6 (Snow Leapard)
http://www.everymac.com/ultimate-mac-comparison-chart/?compare=all-intel-macs&hi ghlight=0&prod1=iMacIntel041
So there must be somewhere I can purchase these 10.6.6 install disks to "downgrade". Trouble is on Ebay or Amazon where you can buy Snow Leopard most of them are 10.6.3 or "retail" versions with no actual version numbers to let me know I'm buying the correct disk.
Who would have thought setting up your computer could be a mission impossible task and why Apple don't help is simply a disgrace to be honest.

Can I revert to Snow Leopard? Lion took my Office

I have two Macs - one an iMac, the other a laptop MacBook Pro.
Both came with and run well on Snow Leopard 10.6.6
I downloaded OS X Lion for the laptop and lost my Office 2004 and Parallels 6.
Can I revert to a Backup from pre-Lion? Do I need to do a clean install and lose all my downloaded apps eg Pages?
My iMac is as I want but it is frequently monopolised by She Who Must Be Obeyed who uses it alongside her work-from-home computer.

Hello:
"She who must be obeyed" That broke me up - TY for the chuckle!
Anyway, the way I would proceed would be to restore the system from either a Time Machine bakup or a bootlable clone. I don't think you would be able to reinstall OS X 10.6 on a system that has already been updated to OS X 10.7.
Barry
P.S. I encountered the Office 2004 issue myself. I decided that Office 2011 was not worth $150, so I moved to iWork. iWork included a word processing program (Pages) which is fully compatible with Microsoft's Word. I like it better, but that is just my own reaction.

I'd like to go back to Snow Leopard from Lion.What should I look out for?

I downloaded OS X Lion from the Mac App Store back in February, and I'm getting sick of Lion so I'd like to go back to Snow Leopard. I have the install disc. Will all of my files be used in Snow Leopard, or will I have to save all of them?

Downgrade Lion to Snow Leopard
1. Boot from your Snow Leopard Installer Disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Quit DU and return to the installer. Install Snow Leopard.
This will erase the whole drive so be sure to backup your files if you don't have a backup already. If you have performed a TM backup using Lion be aware that you cannot restore from that backup in Snow Leopard (see below.) I suggest you make a separate backup using Carbon Copy Cloner 3.4.1.
If you have Snow Leopard Time Machine backups, do a full system restore per #14 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions. If you have subsequent backups from Lion, you can restore newer items selectively, via the "Star Wars" display, per #15 there, but be careful; some Snow Leopard apps may not work with the Lion files.

Why I reverted to Snow Leopard from Lion....

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