Yosemite Time Machine HELP! Urgent

[coryjuba]

Hey guys!

So I have a late 2013 iMac that came with Mountain Lion on it. I upgraded to Yosemite (stupidly not doing a backup) and now ProTools will not run correctly. I can't open a session without crashes. So I need to revert to Mountain Lion.

I have a 5TB external that I could do a time machine back up of but I don't want it to be of Yosemite. Is there any way to keep all of the data as is but just with the old OS?

I would hate to have to manually copy everything over and then reinstall ALL of my programs and do everything from scratch again.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!!

 

[RadDave]

Hey guys!

So I have a late 2013 iMac that came with Mountain Lion on it. I upgraded to Yosemite (stupidly not doing a backup) and now ProTools will not run correctly. I can't open a session without crashes. So I need to revert to Mountain Lion.

I have a 5TB external that I could do a time machine back up of but I don't want it to be of Yosemite. Is there any way to keep all of the data as is but just with the old OS?

I would hate to have to manually copy everything over and then reinstall ALL of my programs and do everything from scratch again.

Hi Cory..... - welcome to the forum! I don't use 'Pro Tools' and not sure if there is an upgraded version that works w/ Yosemite - have you checked?

Also, other than what is mentioned above, are you having other issues w/ Yosemite? Just trying to determine if you installation is fine except for just one app? Dave

 

[coryjuba]

Hi Cory..... - welcome to the forum! I don't use 'Pro Tools' and not sure if there is an upgraded version that works w/ Yosemite - have you checked?

Also, other than what is mentioned above, are you having other issues w/ Yosemite? Just trying to determine if you installation is fine except for just one app? Dave

Hey Dave!

Other than ProTools, everything is fine. Unfortunately, this is imperative to my work. Avid has said they will eventually support Yosemite, but it won't be until next year. As this is my studio computer, I need it back in working order ASAP.

How can I rectify this fiasco?

Thank you so much.

 

[dtravis7]

I have not done this in ages but I think if you backup with Time Machine, then reinstall Mountain Lion and use Migration Assistant from the TM backup, you can get the documents, Pics, Movies and apps back on Mountain Lion.

I am quite sure this would do it for you but if anyone knows different, speak up.

 

[coryjuba]

I have not done this in ages but I think if you backup with Time Machine, then reinstall Mountain Lion and use Migration Assistant from the TM backup, you can get the documents, Pics, Movies and apps back on Mountain Lion.

I am quite sure this would do it for you but if anyone knows different, speak up.

Ah! That may do it! But I have never tried this before. So should I do a clean reinstall of Mountain Lion or restore from TM backup when I reinstall? I would assume clean install and then use Migration Assistant? If it's that simple, this is a lifesaver. Thanks!

Does anyone else have any input? Really need it here.

 

[RadDave]

Other than ProTools, everything is fine. Unfortunately, this is imperative to my work. Avid has said they will eventually support Yosemite, but it won't be until next year. As this is my studio computer, I need it back in working order ASAP.

I have not done this in ages but I think if you backup with Time Machine, then reinstall Mountain Lion and use Migration Assistant from the TM backup, you can get the documents, Pics, Movies and apps back on Mountain Lion.

Hi again Cory.... - I'm assuming that before migrating to Yosemite, you had no backups of your important files, i.e. no Time Machine, no cloned drives (i.e. Carbon Copy Cloner or Super Duper), or even you crucial data saved to another storage device - correct?

If so, all you can do is follow the advice of Dennis, i.e. backup your important files whether to Time Machine and/or (I would say AND) to an external storage device whether a HD or a USB flash drive.

THEN, you'll need to get an older OS X onto your computer using a bootable source - now you likely do not have a USB boot disk for your older OS (i.e. Mountain Lion), so you may have to first go back to Snow Leopard (OS X 10.6), a $20 purchase from the Apple store and then upgrade online to a newer OS - then try to migrate your files from the TM backup - just not sure what would be carried over?

Now I may be wrong here and hopefully others will 'chime in' w/ simpler options? Dave

 

[coryjuba]

No other backups. I have a 3TB Fusion drive thats about full and only a 5TB external so I can't back up a copy of the files AND a Time Machine backup. Which is better? Should I just do manual backup? Or risk it with the Time Machine backup?

This is a mess! Please help get this sorted out!

 

[MacInWin]

No need for Snow Leopard. Once the backups are done, just boot into the Recovery partition and reformat the HD and then install Mavericks from the Mac App Store. It's a big download, so it will take some time.

As for the backup, if this is a work machine, it would seem practical to invest in a new external drive for this recovery. It just needs to be the same size as the internal drive as you'll be using it only once for this process. However, if you also want to use it for a second backup drive, make it twice the size of the internal and it should do nicely. For the backup you can use TM and then Migration Assistant to recover data and software or you can just copy your home directory over and then reinstall all your software from the original disks. A couple of notes: If you have software that is registered, you may need to de-register it before you do this. Adobe and Microsoft both track the installations this way to prevent piracy. Others do as well. The second note is that when you reinstall Mavericks and it boots for the first time, it will offer to use Migration Assistant to move your files. Do that then. If you bypass that, press on and create an account and come back to it later, the MA process will not put your files in the new account, even if it has the same name as your current account. But if you do it at the first prompting to do so, then MA will create the account you have now and put your stuff in it exactly where it is now.

 

[RadDave]

No need for Snow Leopard. Once the backups are done, just boot into the Recovery partition and reformat the HD and then install Mavericks from the Mac App Store. It's a big download, so it will take some time..........

Thanks Jake for the clarification above - I was hoping for a simpler answer which you provided. Just learned that to obtain Mavericks, which is no longer available generally, that one needs to sign into the App Store and then go to 'Purchased' items - just looked @ my account and found it there. Should make our OP's transition back much easier! Dave

 

[coryjuba]

No need for Snow Leopard. Once the backups are done, just boot into the Recovery partition and reformat the HD and then install Mavericks from the Mac App Store. It's a big download, so it will take some time.

As for the backup, if this is a work machine, it would seem practical to invest in a new external drive for this recovery. It just needs to be the same size as the internal drive as you'll be using it only once for this process. However, if you also want to use it for a second backup drive, make it twice the size of the internal and it should do nicely. For the backup you can use TM and then Migration Assistant to recover data and software or you can just copy your home directory over and then reinstall all your software from the original disks. A couple of notes: If you have software that is registered, you may need to de-register it before you do this. Adobe and Microsoft both track the installations this way to prevent piracy. Others do as well. The second note is that when you reinstall Mavericks and it boots for the first time, it will offer to use Migration Assistant to move your files. Do that then. If you bypass that, press on and create an account and come back to it later, the MA process will not put your files in the new account, even if it has the same name as your current account. But if you do it at the first prompting to do so, then MA will create the account you have now and put your stuff in it exactly where it is now.

Ah! This all seems a bit chaotic. I don't want Mavericks though. Just Mountain Lion which came installed on my machine. My TM backup is finishing then I was going to do Internet Recovery of Mountain Lion. Then do I select TM backup? Will that just put on Yosemite again? And once I do the backup, how do I use migration assistant?

OR Internet Recovery of Mountain Lion and do not select TM backup. and then use Migration Assistant afterwards?

I simply want everything the same but with Mountain Lion instead of Yosemite. I have a 5TB external with a TM backup of my current Yosemite machine.

Any experts out there?

 

[lclev]

BTW: We upgraded the iMac 2013 at work to Maverick (which is a free upgrade) and ProTools is working fine. I have put off upgrading it to Yosemite for the very reason you are having trouble. I checked first and since I am the IT but I do not do the studio work on it, I wanted to make sure. Glad I did - hope you get yours back up and running.

I can check to see what version of ProTools we are running if that would be of interest, but I do know they recently offered a free upgrade but the guys didn't want to do that.

Lisa

 

[harryb2448]

Just be patient Cory. Sure ProTools will release a Yosemite compatible update quite soon. And Snow Leopard will not run on a 2014 model. Rule of thumb is no going backwards.

 

[coryjuba]

Just be patient Cory. Sure ProTools will release a Yosemite compatible update quite soon. And Snow Leopard will not run on a 2014 model. Rule of thumb is no going backwards.

I have a late 2013 iMac that came with Mountain Lion. And I cannot wait. I have work that is due on Monday and this MUST be fixed before then. ProTools will not be updated until December or early next year.

So what is the best option here?

I have the Time Machine backup ready to go....

 

[MacInWin]

Just do what I suggested, replacing Mavericks with Mountain Lion. Should work the same. You can also make a bootable USB stick out of an 8GB memory stick with the Mountain Lion installer on it. Search this forum for Bootable USB and you should find links to the steps to do that.

 

[coryjuba]

Will do, thanks Jake!

I planned on using Internet Recovery to reinstall Mountain Lion. Should be the same thing though. Then do I attempt to restore from TM backup? or skip that and then do a clean install and run migration assistant afterwards?

 

[coryjuba]

You guys, from what I have read online, sources are saying you cannot transfer "backwards" from new OSX to old OSX. It will ask me to upgrade my system to Yosemite again before adding the files and apps back.

WHAT IN THE WORLD DO I DO?!

 

[MacInWin]

OK, if you are afraid of what TM might or might not do, then attach your external drive and copy your home directory, in toto, to that drive. Once that is complete, if there are any of your important files anywhere that are NOT in that directory, copy them, too. Now boot from the recovery partition, format the HD with Disk Utility there and then install Mountain Lion from the Mac App Store. (Big download). When asked, create an account with your same name as before. Now you can install all your applications again (including ProTools) and finally copy back from the external your entire home directory and any other files. That process will take a very long time to complete, so I'd plan on an entire day spend getting it done.

Doing it this way will not involve TM, MA or any other product other than Finder. Of course, you will be offered the opportunity to upgrade to Yosemite again, which you can simply decline.

 

[schlagi]

(...)Now boot from the recovery partition, format the HD with Disk Utility there and then install Mountain Lion from the Mac App Store. (Big download). (...)

Generally agree with MacInWin; one minor addition, however: If you start your Mac into the Internet Recovery (as opposed to the recovery partition, which would install Yosemite again), you will be able to format your drive, and it will restore the OS X the Mac was delivered with, i.e. Mountain Lion in your case. You can force the system to go into the Internet Recovery rather than the normal recovery partition by pressing cmd + option + r at startup.

 

[MacInWin]

It think actually that from the recovery partition you can install Mountain Lion, but it doesn't really matter, you have to download it from the MAS in either case.

 

[schlagi]

I may be a bit confused by the wording, agree that in either case download will be required, but in none of the cases will the Mac AppStore be opened?