Can I downgrade from Mountain Lion?

I want my music studio's iMac to run Pro Tools 8. I'm new to it and learning a lot from my producer, who only works in version 8. I have 8 installed myself, but upgraded to Mountain Lion for iCloud, etc. without knowing they weren't compatible. So because staying in PT8 is so important to me, can I downgrade my iMac (mid-2011 with Mountain Lion) to Snow Leopard?

Last version compatible with PT8 was OS X 10.6.7. Thanks.

Since you 'upgraded' to Mountain Lion, yes, you can downgrade to whatever your mac came with from Apple. You do know this pretty much requires a wipe and install from scratch right? Got a good backup?

Yes you can downgrade to an earlier version of the Mac OS (depending on your MBP model)...but it is a pain in the butt.

- Nick

The problem with going back to earlier builds is at some point you are left behind when other APP's you want or need requires a current OS like having the latest iTunes so things will work with iPhone/iPad and some apps that are in the App Store.
Wonder if you could partition the drive and run the older OS in there someone correct me if not possible.
Also if your machine dies and you have to purchase a new one there is no going back to earlier releases than what came on the Mac.

osxx said:

Wonder if you could partition the drive and run the older OS in there someone correct me if not possible.

Click to expand...

Yes you can, some developers do this. I actually have an external hard drive with 10.6.8 on it for my MBP that I can boot up for when I want to play my older Rosetta games like Call of Duty and Sim City 4.

@OP If you have a clone of the earlier OS it is relatively easy to go back to it otherwise Nick's right it's a pain.

OSXX's suggestion of partitioning the drive and having two different OS versions installed is one solution. There are a couple of things to keep in mind if you are contemplating that option:

1. You can't generally go further back than whatever OS was included on the computer.

2. AS OSXX suggested you need one partition for each different version of the OS.

3. When changing from one OS to the other you will need to reboot the Mac.

4. Not really familiar with Logic so the following may be a moot point: If logic stores some of its temporary /scratch files on the same partition as the program make sure you leave enough space on the partition for those files. Keep in mind that's over and above the normal swap file space OS X needs