title: Made a mess of the tree, how to go back w/o merge?
body: <p>I accidentally committed several files scattered around multiple directories.  The good news is nobody else has committed anything to the repository yet.  The bad news is my clumsy attempts to revert the files have been digging me in an ever-deepening hole.  </p>
  
  <p>I'd right-click the file in Windows Explorer, do TortoiseSVN -> Show Log, select the old, good version, right-click, and experiment with Save revision to..., Revert to this revision, and Revert changes from this revision.  Either the revert merges in crap I don't want, or it seems to work and I commit but the commit doesn't match the right revisiony, or the commit complains the file's in conflict and makes me merge to commit, and then my manual merge is rejected.</p>
  
  <p>If I had been smart I would have come here first for advice, because I've found nice clean instructions on how to revert, but my hacking around seems to have thwarted the system.</p>
  
  <p>The proper way appears to have been to go to the top of the tree, show log, select the checkin that started my problems, and "Revert changes from this Revision".  When I try that now, though, the guru meditates a while and then tells me it can't merge in changes from the future.</p>
  
  <p>I don't really want to merge anything, I want to take an axe and chop off the crap. </p>
  
  <p>How can I go back in time now?</p>