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Mac Yosemite Downgrade Gone Wrong

I have to downgrade Yosemite from my Macbook Pro. I honestly don't have any preferences to which OS X I want to downgrade to as long as I will get rid off Yosemite.

I have 15-inch, mid-2009 MacBook Pro, disc version 1.1 that came with Mac OS X 10.6.3 but just before installing Yosemite I have had Mac OS X 10.6.8 installed. So I was always working on Snow Leopard.

My original plan was to downgrade Yosemite with internet recovery so I went to OS X Utilities to Disc Utilities and erased my disc and all the free space. But after doing that that I have found out that on 2009 MacBook Pro internet recovery is unavailable.

I did not back my system up with Time Machine because I don't have needed hard drive and to be honest I didn't understand how important this is (until now) so I just stuffed all my data into millions of old USBs so even though I won't lose anything I can't downgrade using Time Machine Backup.

I have also heard about downgrading Yosemite with Mavericks bootable USB but I have read that if you didn't download Mavericks in the past, there is no way of getting in now because it's no longer available so I guess this option is out too.

I have also tried to turn on my MacBook Pro with my original Mac OS X 10.6.3 installer CD and than press "C", I could hear that the computer was trying to read the CD but than the CD just came out by itself and the screen was white all the time.

When I go to Reinstall OS X in OS X Utilities the only option is to reinstall Yosemite which I really don't want to do.

I don't know what to do now...I am starting to feel out of options. If any of you have any ideas or suggestions please let me know because I am honestly losing my mind over this.

Thanks everybody 🙂

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.8), MacBook Pro mid 2009, disc 1.1

Posted on Jun 10, 2015 9:50 AM

20 replies

Drew Reece

Level 6

10,660 points

Jun 10, 2015 4:57 PM in response to joannaloves1

A GUID partition table is what you need 🙂

The cruical parts to erase the disk & make a new partition table are…

Boot from the 10.6 install disk (you can't do this in recovery mode).

Select Disk Utility from the top menu (it is a few screens in if I remember correctly).

Select the disk (that 320GB Hitachi at the top of the list).

Select the Partition tab

Change the 'Partition layout:' on that disk, change it to two & then swap back to one (you have to edit it to make a new table).

Make that new partition to be 'Mac OS Extended (Journaled)' format

Click the options button, set it to use the GUID partition type (should be default).

Apply the settings to reformat the disk - deleting all data on the disk.

I don't know why you can't install to the Macintosh HD, it may be because your disk has no journal - it isn't entirely clear to me from the images. you could try enabling a journal (recovery mode can do that). Thay may allow you to install 10.6, however my preference is to write a new partition table with the 10.6 disk.

Target disk mode is not an option for you, I wasn't sure if you had another Mac & the correct leads available.

If you can;t get into the 10.6 install disk we may red to think again. I'm assuming this disk is the one that shipped with the Mac that you mentioned at the start.

joannaloves1 Author

Level 1

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Jun 10, 2015 5:07 PM in response to babowa

Ok sounds like an idea! ...I am excited to try it maybe this will work:) But just to clarify how can I be sure that I booted from the CD? I am not sure what you mean. I only do two things:

- I put CD in, turn computer on and hold "C" and try to install which doesn't work. The only thing I can do when I put CD in is proceed with install there are no other options

- or I turn computer on hold command+r and go into Disk Utilities where I can't erase disk (I mean I can but inly the partition not the main thing)

When I turn computer on and do nothing it's just white screen with grey no sign on it

So when you say "You need to be sure to be booted from the CD" which one do you mean?

I am sorry if I don't know much or don't fully understand, I live in Poland, my computer is in polish, I speak polish and english is my second language so even tho I speak fluently sometimes I am just not sure, especially that technology is super complicated for me

Drew Reece

Level 6

10,660 points

Jun 10, 2015 5:19 PM in response to joannaloves1

When the original 10.6 CD is booted up you should see the introduction to the installer, it looks like this…

http://image2.quickpwn.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/install-mac-os-x-snow-leop ard.png

Click continue.

There may be a language selection screen too.

The top menu will appear a few screens into the process, from that top menu select 'Utilities > Disk Utility' to edit the disk.

joannaloves1 Author

Level 1

0 points

Jun 10, 2015 5:47 PM in response to Drew Reece

Yes there is an language option I go English when I am trying to follow your instructions and Polish when I am trying to figure someting out 🙂

Anyway I did try to partition but I got: "Partition failed with the error: Couldn't unmount disk" 😟

By the way yes, this is a CD that my MacBook Pro came with 🙂

So now I am putting CD in and trying to go to Utilities there and see what would happen

YAY!!! I was able to erase the main disk!! What is interesting tho I can't do partition...there is just no option like this in here

but anyway I will try to install now.......AND IT WORKS!!!! OMG THANKS SO MUCH!!

I can't belive I was doing it wrong the whole time! I was going into wrong Disk Utilities...I had no idea that there are two options...😊 Silly me😊

I would like to thank everybody here who was trying to help me:Drew Reece,babowa, OldGnome, Eric Root, cdhw you guys are the best!

I know you help a lot of people so you don't rally care but honesty it means so much, I don't have anybody around me who I could ask for help and I couldn't do it myself.

So again thank you so much and best regards from Warsaw 🙂

Drew Reece

Level 6

10,660 points

Jun 10, 2015 8:10 PM in response to joannaloves1

joannaloves1 wrote:

I know you help a lot of people so you don't rally care but honesty it means so much, I don't have anybody around me who I could ask for help and I couldn't do it myself.

So again thank you so much and best regards from Warsaw 🙂

Hehe, that's what these forums are for 🙂

I'm glad you got it sorted in the end.

Mac Yosemite Downgrade Gone Wrong