Revert to Yosemite - can i restore from Time Machine?

[mixel]

As much as I'm loving El Capitan, even though its a beta.. I may need to restore to Yosemite. (Wacom drivers not working yet in el capitan DP2, among other things)

If i do a clean install of Yosemite, will I be able to restore the data from my El Capitan time machine? Or will that cause a minor catastrophe? I'm guessing things like Mail might not like going back in time.

Otherwise I'll wait it out and cross my fingers for the next DP. Ho hum!

..

PS: No need to give me the whole "you shouldn't use betas on an important/production machine!" thing.. I enjoy the experimenting, and the faffing about. I have other machines I can use instead if it comes to it.

 

[jonblatho]

Time Machine backs up the entire system, if I'm not mistaken, so it'd just (presumably) throw you right back to El Capitan. You're likely better off just backing up what you need to keep, doing a clean install, then dragging and dropping those folders/files back as appropriate.

 

[mixel]

Time Machine backs up the entire system, if I'm not mistaken, so it'd just (presumably) throw you right back to El Capitan. You're likely better off just backing up what you need to keep, doing a clean install, then dragging and dropping those folders/files back as appropriate.

Can't you use the transfer wizard thing to restore settings and files from a TM drive?

I just have this weird feeling that the mailboxes will go completely crazy as a result.

 

[!!!]

Can't you use the transfer wizard thing to restore settings and files from a TM drive?

I just have this weird feeling that the mailboxes will go completely crazy as a result.

Back up your mac, erase, install Yosemite.
Step 2: In the setup process it should ask if you want to transfer from Time machine. It may or may not work.
If it fails, just set up a new user and drag & drop from time machine. To do so, go to your disk > backups > (computer name) > latest.
Hope this helps.

 

[Weaselboy]

How long have you been on El Capitan? What you can do it option key boot to the TM disk then use Disk Utility to erase the internal drive and click restore. That will bring up a window where you can choose a date to restore from. If you pick date back from when you were still on Yosemite, it will put Yosemite and all your apps and data back like they were that date. The down side it, it will not restore for example any documents that were created between that date and now. If it is just a handful of documents you could manually restore those afterwards.

Migration Assistant is not going to be able to import El Capitan data into a clean install of Yosemite.

 

[mixel]

Migration Assistant is not going to be able to import El Capitan data into a clean install of Yosemite.

Thanks, this is good to know and saved me from trying.

I've worked around it as I normally run my iMac off an external TB-connected SSD with (usually) no functional osX installation on the internal drive. It's 80% HFS+ 20% Bootcamp though, used for storage, so I've installed Yosemite on the internal drive, leaving my El Capitan DP2 on the SSD, ready for the next DP which will hopefully fix stuff again!

 

[Reno Richter]

Weaselboy, Was away for a computer I want to roll back from 10.4.4 to 10.4.3 since June 3. So if I do what you are say do I have to go thru the serial stuff again with all Adobe products all over again and I seem to recall when I used Migration Assistant when I set up this puter I had to do a clean install of all the MS Office Suit. Or does this method prevent that. Internal disc has system and apps only. No user data including itunes media is elsewhere

TIA
Gary

 

[Weaselboy]

Weaselboy, Was away for a computer I want to roll back from 10.4.4 to 10.4.3 since June 3. So if I do what you are say do I have to go thru the serial stuff again with all Adobe products all over again and I seem to recall when I used Migration Assistant when I set up this puter I had to do a clean install of all the MS Office Suit. Or does this method prevent that. Internal disc has system and apps only. No user data including itunes media is elsewhere

TIA
Gary

I know when you restore to new hardware like a new drive, the Adobe apps will detect the new hardware UUID and make you reregister. But what you are doing is restoring back to the same hardware, so it should not require this. But honestly, I have never tested this scenario with Adobe, so I am not sure.

 

[Reno Richter]

WeaselBoy everything more or less went as expected, except my Adobe products required a fresh reinstall.