I have no idea how this has happened apart from the fact 3 10 year old boys were involved...
My iMac OS seems to have been rolled back from 10.8.2 (Mountain Lion) to 10.6.8 (Snow Leopard).
The user files seem to be up to date.
How do I reset it back to Mountain Lion? The system is backed up with Time Machine.
Please help!
iMac, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2), iMac late 2007
If you purchased Mountain Lion at the app store, simply go there (to your purchases tab) and download it again. Then put a strong password on your computer 10 year olds can't crack easily, LOL.
Either restore the Time Machine backup, or upgrade to Mountain Lion the way you did the first time. You won't be charged again.
(77827)
Another suggestion once you get this mess straighten out is to create a guest account for the 10 year olds to use. Hopefully that will limit the harm they can do.
Allan
I like the idea of restoring from the Time machine backup as I don't relish the prospect of having to re-download Mountain Lion and repeting the entire installation process again! It took me hours to do this in the New Year!
So, how do I do it? I have tried to enter time machine, but I am not sure what folder to click on in the resulting Finder window. In the devices list I am presented with my iMac and also my Macintosh HD. When I click on the iMac I get a folder entitled Macintosh HD. But when I click on Macintosh HD in the devices list I get a list of subfolders.
The thing is, it doesn't look loke I need to restore any user data or applications at all because they are all there and up-to-date. I just want to restore the OS. Can I do this with TM?
I have no idea how this happened. My son does not have my login credentials and his user account is restricted.
There may be something wrong with the iMac. I have checked the integrity of the HD and everything looks fine. I do remember getting a screen offerring up disk utility once when the iMac booted up. I restarted and it then booted up fine. From talking to my son about what happened he did mention a grey screen and some questions to which they cannot remember what they did apart from click "continue" a number of times.
Thanks in advance.
I tried to restore from the TM backup but it just says there is not enough space to restore the Macintosh HD.
It is as though TM is trying to copy all the files from the Time Machine backup. The thing is I don't want to copy the files from the TM backup. I want to reset the iMac to the state it was in yesterday: OS, mail accounts, settings, applications and user files.
Any help would be really appreciated.
Just in case anyone is wondering, the solution is not on this discussion thread here and the advice given was way off the mark, most likely because the question I asked was pretty ambiguious and on the wrong OS forum.
Because I wasn't geting any more assistance here, I re-posted the question on the Mountain Lion forum and got the quick and easy fix I needed there. Here is the link...
How can I reset my iMac to the state it was in yesterday with Time Machine
Topher was inciteful and accurate with his response even though the solution didnt require Time Machine in any way!
Indeed. Good bit of lateral thinking from Topher. 🙂
Had there been any other answer, you could have probably made a small fortune selling the solution to all the disgruntled upgraders who've been trying to find a way of doing this ever since Lion came out. If only it were that simple as letting a trio of 10-yr olds loose on your mac! 😁
This wasn't the solution to the problem as it turned out. Thanks anyway.
Glad to hear it was that easy; I have 3 partitions on my hard drive, but unless you specifically mention that information in your question, I would not assume that everyone does; most users just have one.
Operating system has somehow been rolled back
