downgrade from mavericks to lion

What was installed when you got the machine? If it was Lion then:

Install or Reinstall Mavericks, Lion/Mountain Lion from Scratch

Be sure you backup your files to an external drive or second internal drive because the following procedure will remove everything from the hard drive.

Boot to the Recovery HD:

Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.

Erase the hard drive:

1. Select Disk Utility from the main menu and click on the Continue button.

2. After DU loads select your startup volume (usually Macintosh HD) from the

left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.

3. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Optionally, click on

the Security button and set the ZeroData option to one-pass. Click on

the Erase button and wait until the process has completed.

4. Quit DU and return to the main menu.

Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion: Select Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion and click on the Install button.

Be sure to boot from the Lion Recovery HD, if you have one. Otherwise, Mavericks will be reinstalled.

Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet if possible

because it is three times faster than wireless.

Please explain procedure how to roll back from Mavericks to Mountain Lion on Mac Mini (late 2012).

I´ve tried with format HDD and boot from recovery partition, but unfortunatelly Mavericks created Recovery Partition 10.9 which allows ONLY Mavericks installation !!!

I know that is possible via Time Machine but I didn't do it before upgrade to Mavericks.

Is there any other possibilities to create Recovery Partition 10.8 and clean install Mountain Lion?

Please note that MacMini late 2012 only allows installation from recovery partition.

Install Mavericks, Lion/Mountain Lion on a New HDD/SDD

Be sure you backup your files to an external drive or second internal drive because the following procedure will remove everything from the hard drive.

Boot to the Internet Recovery HD:

Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND-OPTION- R keys until a globe appears on the screen. Wait patiently - 15-20 minutes - until the Recovery main menu appears.

Partition and Format the hard drive:

1. Select Disk Utility from the main menu and click on the Continue button.

2. After DU loads select your external hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. 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. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed. Quit DU and return to the main menu.

Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion. Mavericks: Select Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion, Mavericks and click on the Install button. Be sure to select the correct drive to use if you have more than one.

Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet if possible because it is three times faster than wireless.

This will install the system that was pre-installed on your computer provided it was Lion or Mountain Lion.

Not if you download OS X installer and save it to a flash drive.

You may have to go with 10.9 and then look in your purchases and redownload Lion or Mountain Lion.

And yes you can have both 10.7/.8 - don't have any idea or experience with 10.9 though.

This forum is for a Mac none of you have, and might want to try other Communities.

MacBook Series Forums
https://discussions.apple.com/community/notebooks?view=discussions

Mac OS X Forum
https://discussions.apple.com/community/mac_os?view=discussions

http://macperformanceguide.com/Mac-HowToClone-backup.html

http://macperformanceguide.com/Mac-HowToClone.html

http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/7032/carbon-copy-cloner

http://www.macperformanceguide.com/blog/2012/20120711_2-MacPro-internal-clone-ba ckup.html

Using Cloning as a Backup Strategy

Create an OS X Lion Install disc

How to create an OS X Lion installation disc MacFixIt

Migration Assistant Update for Mac OS X Snow Leopard

http://www.apple.com/support/lion/installrecovery/

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-20080989-263/how-to-create-an-os-x-lion-ins tallation-disc

http://www.coolestguyplanettech.com/how-to-make-a-bootable-osx-10-8-mountain-lio n-disc-or-drive-from-the-downloaded-mountain-lion-app/