Restoring late 2009 White MacBook

You may still have the recovery partition interfering.

Try repartitioning;

Boot from your grey installer DVD disc 1 (hold down the C key on startup or hold down Alt/option on start and choose the installer disc).

OK the language page (if present). From the installer screen, go to the menu bar Utilities menu and choose Disk Utility.

In DU, select your internal drive in the sidebar (the top item with the makers name and serial no.). Run Repair Disk. If that comes up as disk OK, click the partition tab.

Select the partiton from the drop-down above the graphic; 1 partiton is all you need. Go to the options button and ensure that the partition scheme is GUID and the file system to Mac OS Extended (Journalled). Name the partiton (usually Macintosh HD), click Apply.

When that's finished, select the new volume in the sidebar (indented to the right below the drive) and go to the Erase tab, select Security options and select zero data (one pass is more than sufficient). Click erase. That will take quite some time; probably measured in hours and dependant on the size of the drive.

When that's completed, close DU and continue with the installation.

I do not undestand how you tried and did not work. If you had Lion, and want to downgrade using the SL disk(s), you boot from the installer disk (the first one if the original ones) and, before installing, you must run Disk Utility prior to installation proper, repartition disk with 1 partition (or more, as you wish), which means erasing the disk and creating a new partition. Close Disk Utility, and revert to the installer. It should work without any problem. I did that recently and was OK.

I do not undestand the description: ‘I am able to completely erase the hard drive, but the system won't let me restore the MacBook to its original state, using the install disks. After erasing the hard drive, the only options are to restore from time machine or use network. ’ How did you erase and what you did afterwards?