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How do I uninstall Lion

How do I uninstall Lion?

Posted on Jul 22, 2011 1:25 PM

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176 replies

Sep 8, 2011 3:28 PM in response to thomas_r.

Yeah... PC's break down...... this is a funny discussion!


I too love PC's, because they break down all day, every day, keeps the paycheck coming in.


For all my Mac clients, I have them finely tuned and the Mac's don't break, bad for paycheck!


Either way, it doesn't really matter, I'm fully busy with both, but I do much, much prefer a Mac, even buggy Lion, it is far, far better than any PC version.


Linux, on the other hand, if it only had some serious Applications for video editing, graphics and the, like Final Cut Pro, and Adobe products, I might start spending more time with Linux....


BUT, I love my Mac's too much to change! (I have ALL varieties).


Plus I develop APP's for iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch and I would only want to do that on a Mac!


Seriously!


John Avatar (search in APP store to see my APP's) and the new one is almost available this week?

Sep 8, 2011 4:29 PM in response to Kappy

Yeah, and what are you supposed to do when Time Machine has declared that its backup needs updating and has wiped out your Snow Leopard backups?


The only option is a clean install and losing quite a lot of stuff which is not retroactively compatible such as Mail archive and, given the new versions feature, possibly a lot of documents.


When I installed Lion it proved to be extremely problematic for me. One problem was that it would not connect to my Time Machine backup due to WiFi issues. When those issues were fixed in 10.7.1 several weeks later, Time Machine deleted all my old backups saying that they needed updating. I was given no choice, it was either 'now' or 'later', so I was forced to bite the bullet.


I never really had a realistic option to go back to SL without forfeiting my backups. For that, I'll not forgive Apple in a hurry. As my e-mail archive is essential, I am stuck with this lumbering creature which used to be like a Ferrari.

Sep 8, 2011 4:52 PM in response to Alf Megson

Alf Megson wrote:


Yeah, and what are you supposed to do when Time Machine has declared that its backup needs updating and has wiped out your Snow Leopard backups?



I'm sorry for all the trouble you had with Lion, honestly it sounds like a nightmare.


But as with ANY major update to an OS if you have any data that's essential to you then you need to have at LEAST one full backup of it before doing the update.


For instance, I did a full bootable backup of my internal drive before even considering the update. I considered backing up my time machine drive as well but decided it wasn't necessary since there's not much on there I can't live without, I have multiple backups of everything in other places, TM is just another type of safety net for me.


But if your TM drive contained critical info for you you should have backed it up first.

Sep 9, 2011 6:38 AM in response to Micah D.

@ Micah: i thought TM was my backup! After my Lion disaster, i erased my HD, reinstalled and updated SL. Then with migration assistant i wanted to reinstall all my data and user account from TM. This doesnt work because TM isn't recognized by MA.

Finder does recognize this though, and i see the files and data if i click on the time machine-logo in the dock.

I did use this TM with LION, but it also contains backups from before.

Any ideas what to do?

Sep 9, 2011 8:12 AM in response to huubd

@huubd: I'm on Lion now so I don't know for sure, but instead of performing a clean install and then using migration assistant can you restore the computer from TM? Maybe this article will help, it claims to have info on restoring a new computer from TM...


http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1427


If that doesn't work, the next thing I'd do is try to get the TM drive to play nice with whatever new system I'm running and then enter TM, go back to my "Home" folder at the point I was happy with everything and restore the entire home folder? I'm not even sure if TM can restore that large of a chunk of data in one swoop, but it's worth a try.


If that doesn't work I'd try to restore via TM my critical documents, then make a bootable clone of my HD so at least I have a backup of what I've done so far. Then I'd just start updating the new computer with all the settings etc. I need.


If that doesn't work I'd start doing google searches on how to erase part of your TM backup without corrupting the other data and try to figure out which parts of the TM backup are lion and erase just those.... but be SURE to backup the entire TM drive before doing that though, unless you can afford to lose it.


As you're in the middle of discovering TM is *not* a robust, reliable backup. It's useful for sure, but not as a main backup in the event of disaster, it's too complicated for that IMO.


I strongly urge anyone who relies on their computer to have TWO external hard drives: One is only used for TM, the other is only used as a bootable clone of your internal HD and is backed up on a preferably daily schedule. Superduper is great for this, very easy and you can schedule it to run at a certain time every day. That way even if your computer completely fries you will lose no more than 24 hours worth of work. Also then you have your system "as is" that you can return to if you install an OS update that you don't like... just be sure to update and unplug that bootable clone BEFORE you upgrade your system! For me, I do a clone update, unplug the drive, then immediately upgrade to the new os. Now if I hate the new OS I can simply clone the backup and I'm exactly where I left off the minute before the OS upgrade.


I've been where you are. That's why I have TM, two bootable clones of my internal HD which are both updated every day, all my data is backed up in the cloud using Crash Plan and I also keep a bootable clone of my internal hard drive in a safe deposit box, updated once a month.


Having 5 separate backups of my data may sound excessive, but once you've been through the absolute **** (apparently the grown up version of "heck" is too much for the apple forums, that's just absurd) of losing *everything* and having to start from scratch... it won't seem so crazy any more.

Sep 9, 2011 9:29 AM in response to Micah D.

I just consulted with the folks of CCC (carbon copy cloner). they have always been very helpful, and for one, their software is very reliable...

This is what I wrote:


I browsed the internet, and I found out that it is very hard to revert from Lion (L) to a previous system like Snow Leopard (SL).
Still, I think I want to do that, because Lion is giving me a headache !!!

This is my current situation:
I have a TM from June 17 (SL), which should be able to revert completely
I have a TM, most probably from just before I changed (around half July - I cannot check, because it is on a WD NAS which is locked) also SL
I have a TM (Lion) current situation.
All TM's are on separate disks ...
All my e-mail is on MM.

this is what I intend to do:
- make a full back-up (clone) of my Lion disk (current situation) with CCC - revert to SL if I can. If not I can return to Lion using my TM or CCC. - if successful, I open my latest TM and reinstall that SL-state - open CCC and extract all current data that has been changed since the last TM

Questions
- am I overlooking something? or is this thinking correct? - is there an alternative, better way? - how do I determine which files from my CCC clone are newer, so that I don't miss out on anything important?

It seems this is a good course of action...


They also gave me this link. http://tiny.cc/if3qo

Useful.

(http://tiny.cc/kycnw)

How do I uninstall Lion

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