08-27-2011, 02:54 AM

Ok so I just recently got this imac 21.5 inch and it came with os x snow leopard I think it is, or the one that came before os x lion, and I recently installed os x lion, and ever since, this imac has seemed slower and choppy. If I want to go back to snow leopard should I just insert the software disc for the os x snow leopard, that came with my imac? Also is there any way to not lose my data without having to put it on a external hard drive or on a flash drive?

08-27-2011, 03:13 AM

1. Why aren't you making backups? You are guaranteed to lose data at some point if you don't back up your data to an external hard drive or some other media.

2. Lion is not making your iMac slow and choppy.

What you really ought to do is clone your current install to an external hard drive (for backup if nothing else), boot from the clone and ERASE the original boot drive, then clone everything back. That will almost certainly solve the issue. If by chance it's still not performing right, I'd suggest re-installing Lion.

If you really want to go back to Snow Leopard, yes you can boot from your disk and (maybe) do this, but I strongly caution you that without a backup your risk of losing data becomes very high. There's no way I would attempt such a thing without a backup (of course, there's no way I would have upgraded in the first place without a backup either).

08-27-2011, 03:21 AM

What exactly do you mean by "What you really ought to do is clone your current install to an external hard drive (for backup if nothing else), boot from the clone and ERASE the original boot drive, then clone everything back. That will almost certainly solve the issue. If by chance it's still not performing right, I'd suggest re-installing Lion"

Also I really don't have any important files to lose, just music and photos, which are both on a PC I have as well.

08-27-2011, 03:22 AM

I meant use a clone program such as SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner to make a bootable duplicate of everything on your hard drive to an external so you can boot from the external (waaaay faster than booting from the disc).