Time Machine backup not working on Big Sur

Question

Level 1

9 points

Time Machine backup not working on Big Sur

Please help me

I recently upgraded to the public beta of Big Sur and I wanted to go back to Catalina after a couple days so I went to Recovery Mode to restore my Mac back to Catalina so I follow the steps and then when I get to the “Select destination Disk” I click on my ssd (Macintosh HD) but instead of restore option button like every video I have watch it just says unlock so I click on it And it’s asks for my password I enter it then the selected disk goes grey like it’s loading and then back to blue and does absolutely nothing and it’s just stuck like that so I clicked it again thinking maybe it just didn’t work and over and over again it still does the same thing goes grey and then back to blue like nothing happened and so I restart my Mac and tried again and still doing the same thing. And yes I have my backup on an External HDD.

MacBook

Posted on Aug 11, 2020 3:15 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Best reply

Grant Bennet-Alder

Level 10

127,105 points

Aug 24, 2020 9:31 AM in response to NotPhonies

In General, you can not install any MacOS OLDER than the version currently running, unless you completely ERASE the drive (by its immutable device-name not by its Macintosh HD or Disk3s2 Volume-name.)

Of course this also removes all your files, so you will need to already have a Trusted backup on hand.

Re-Install the older version of MacOS from the internet or a Bootable USB-stick, then use Setup Assistant at first run to bring your files and added Applications over from backup. If you miss the "at first run" window, you can use Migration Assistant later, but it may leave you with an "extra" admin account.

.

Reply

Answer 2

John Galt

Level 10

141,060 points

Aug 11, 2020 7:06 PM in response to NotPhonies

Is this an appropriate place to discuss prerelease macOS versions?

Please refer to Restore shipping software.

Reply

Answer 3

Aug 24, 2020 9:17 AM in response to NotPhonies

Same thing happened to me. I got stuck in Mac Recovery Utility loop. I would "restore" from Time Machine....it would take 20 minutes or so, then boot back up to the same Mac Recovery Utility. After a day of trying different things I called apple help desk. We decided to use "Disk Utility" which is a choice on the Mac Recovery Utility. Selected the top drive Apple SD....and erased it. took a few minutes. Then went back and used recover from Time Machine backup...navigated through the responses and hit "recovery". Took a while to complete...maybe 45 minutes? Then it booted up in my old Catalina OS with all my files in tact.

Reply