How to get back my old OS X 10.8.5 Mountain Lion?

[itismelee]

Hello guys,

I'm new to Mac problems although an old Mac user.

I installed the new Yosimite in my MacBook Pro and it cerated a bit of nightmare!

Important applications stopped working. The machine became slow and started hanging.

I want to downgrade to my old system: 10.8.5 Mountain Lion.

When I try to install the old version I get the alert: "This copy of the "Install OS X" application is too old to be opened on this version of OS X."

I had the 10.8.5 downloaded on my hard drive since the original CD is not functioning anymore - full of scratches.

Can you please help me getting my old system?

Thanks,

Lee

 

[LexS]

Have Backups !
Download 10.8.5 from Appstore/Purchased
Use DiskmakerX to make a bootable stick with 10.8.5.
Then with CMD+R into RecoveryPartition, choose DiskUtility from the menubar, format the internal HDD correctly Mac OS Extended (journaled).
Restart while holding the Alt(=option) key and choose to start from the bootable stick with 10.8.5, install 10.8.5.
Restart the mac, copy the user data from your backups.

 

[pigoo3]

I had the 10.8.5 downloaded on my hard drive since the original CD is not functioning anymore - full of scratches.

Mountain Lion (OS 10.8) never came on disk. So if you have an "original disk"…then Mountain Lion is not the OS version that is on it.

If it is an original OS install disk…then the "newest" OS version on it would be is Snow Leopard (OS 10.6). And if your Mac is newer (newer than approx. Early 2011)…then OS 10.6 would not install…since the computer is too new to run 10.6.

- Nick

 

[RadDave]

Have Backups !

@ Lee - do you have any type of backup from your previous OS X installation, whatever the version? Time Machine is built-in and easy to use and many of us also have a program (Carbon Copy Cloner one popular recommendation) that creates a 'bootable clone' on an external HD - this would have allowed you to simply boot and restore your old installation exactly and in a matter of minutes.

NOW, in the absence of any backup and before you try to revert back to an older OS X, try to copy your important data to an external HD or USB flash drives. Once you successfully return to the previous operating system, you will then need to reload all of your old programs and then hopefully their backed up data - good luck. Dave