Reinstalled on MBpro-no idea what I did

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Your Mac's Specs
2023-14" M3max MBPro, 64GB/1TB, iPhone 15 Pro, Watch Ultra
I got this brilliant idea from someone else's post to install Virtual Box on my MBpro to run the Windows 10 tech preview. Well after messing with it and getting frustrated I realized I had not set the OS at the start of set up to Windows 8.1 - it defaults to XP and I had no idea what to do with the chip selection.

So in my brilliance I deleted the Windows 10 in Virtual Box to start over BUT I now had 100 GB (I know too much) that thought it was the old Windows 10 install that I could not use and that bugged me. I tried to convince it to let me use it but no way. I realize now what I should have done was just change the OS to 8.1 but too late now.

I decided to let CCC roll me back. I did the whole recovery according to online instructions and it seemed to go okay except it ran SO SLOW!!! And I had no network connections. Both WiFi and Ethernet would not connect.

I tried using a USB of Yosemite to re-install the OS. That got so far and would not continue. It just froze.

Since this computer is not holding anything essential and I have legit copies of all the software had I added, I decided to do an over the internet install of Yosemite (a NEW experience!)

I started the install and went home (the computer is at work). When I came back in it looked like it was hung up again. The bar had stopped moving and after waiting awhile it was in the same place. So I did a forced restart (held down the power button) She came up and booted slowly but fine. The shocker was that all my programs and documents were there.

QUESTION: I thought it would erase everything?? The warning screen I thought said it would. Was it because I have a Time Capsule on the network and it was backed up to it, could that have restored my stuff?

I have noticed a couple of things that were added that day are missing like Virtual Box was not installed anymore and is not in my downloads folder although if I look at the downloads icon on the dock it shows up. The extension pack does not.

Also I noticed Google drive, which was a recent install, did not seem to be installed. The app was in the app folder but not working. When I tried to re-install it I got an error message that the location for the Google Drive folder is not writable and to fix it. So I deleted the old Google Drive folder which was there but had a red corner and let it create a new one. Now it works.

It started out running a bit slow but I ran disk utility and fixed permissions (lots of problems there) and repaired the disk (no issues found) plus did a rest of the PRAM and ran Onyx. That seems to have her back to her semi-perky self. Now if I could put an SSD in her.....

So I want to still try Virtual Box - I have done this on a Windows machine many times. I think, being relatively new to macs I am not sure how to set it up correctly. Any suggestions? I don't plan to plunge full steam into this time. I plan to read a bit more and look for YouTube how to's first. Any suggestions would be appreciated!

I really posted all this so you all can have a laugh and remember back when you were new and made a mess of one of your macs. And also to say I would never had made it through this process without all the information I have learned on this forum. Still stumbling a little but I know this is how I will learn! Thanks!

Lisa
 
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Your Mac's Specs
Silver M1 iMac 512/16/8/8 macOS 11.6
Spot on Lisa. We all do this. I recall quite distinctly when first using BootCampformatting the wrong partiion NTFS and have my iMac running Windows 7 only, and having to format and start all over again. Did I feel a chump, but it is not hard to do (at least that is my defence still).

Thank goodness for backups.
 

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