MacOS – Cannot boot to OS X using rEFInd

bootefimacospartition

I have installed rEFInd 0.8.7 on my 2015 13" MBP onto another partition however it does not detect OS X.

Here are my disk partitions:

/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *251.0 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            234.6 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s6
   4:       Microsoft Basic Data Linux                   15.1 GB    disk0s4
   5:                  Apple_HFS rEFInd                  423.7 MB   disk0s5

disk0s4 is where I would like to install Linux when I get rEFInd to work, while disk0s5 is where I have rEFInd installed to by using the command sudo ./install.sh --alldrivers --ownhfs /dev/disk0s5.

The issue I am getting is when I boot up it does not show Yosemite 10.3 (I only have accsess to the buttons at the bottom). To boot to OS X I have to reboot and hold the option key and select Macintosh HD.

How would I get rEFInd to detect OS X?

Best Answer

Edit this file:

/Volumes/rEFInd/System/Library/CoreServices/refind.conf

Add the following text to the end of the above file.

scanfor manual,internal,hdbios,external,biosexternal,optical,cd
dont_scan_dirs /System/Library/CoreServices
menuentry "Mac OS X" {
    icon \System\Library\CoreServices\icons\os_mac.png
    volume "Macintosh HD"
    loader \System\Library\CoreServices\boot.efi
    graphics on
}

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Thanks @Tetsujin. The listing looked a little screwy so I was a little hesitant to go mucking around with the command-line diskutil. But I ended up doing a

diskutil corestorage list

and then

diskutil corestorage delete [UUID of 50GB Logical Volume Group]

GUI Disk Utility correctly saw the 50 GB of empty space as part of the other Logical Volume Group and I was able to delete it and merge it back in fine.

MacOS – Uninstall rEFInd 0.8-3.7 on Yosemite

Note: El Capitan (OS X 10.11) prevents users from selecting rEFInd and common Linux distributions from the Startup Disk pane. The new preferred method is to install rEFInd into the an EFI partition. My answer, to an unrelated question, outlines this new preferred method to start the rEFInd Boot Manager and Linux operating systems. The answer, given below, applies to Yosemite (OS X 10.10) and possibly earlier versions of OS X.

Personally, I installed rEFInd on my computer to its own partition. This prevents the problems you are encountering. Everything ./install.sh installed went to this partition. If I want to remove rEFInd, I can simply erase or remove the partition. Of course both are unnecessary, because I can turn rEFInd on and off at will. I just go to the Startup window in System Preferences select my boot partition. This computer has OS X, Windows, Fedora and rEFInd installed.

I also can select the boot partition under Windows by using BootCamp and by holding the Option key down at startup. The command diskutil list produces:

/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.1 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Marlin                  300.0 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
   4:       Microsoft Basic Data Coelacanth              98.9 GB    disk0s4
   5:                  Apple_HFS Linux HFS+ ESP          209.7 MB   disk0s5
   6: 0FC63DAF-8483-4772-8E79-3D69D8477DE4               524.3 MB   disk0s6
   7:                  Linux LVM                         98.6 GB    disk0s7
   8:                  Apple_HFS rEFInd                  939.5 MB   disk0s8

Note, the rEFInd partition is ~ 1 GB in size. In fact, it can be as small as 100 MB. When I setup this computer, I used the Disk Utility application to create the rEFInd partition. If I would have used the gpt command, I could have created a smaller partition. Neither OS X, Windows, Fedora nor rEFInd use the EFI partition to boot the computer. In fact, there is nothing useful in the EFI partition.

Answer to your questions:

How do I uninstall rEFInd 0.8-3.7 using OS X 10.10.3? Read the ./install.sh file and undo whatever it did. I should of had you run the commands bless --info and bless --info --getBoot. These would have told where the .efi file was stored. Note: Almost everyone installs rEFInd to the OS X boot partition.

How would I go and reinstall it using different options if I cannot remove it? The author of the software never said rEFInd could not be removed. I suggested you just install it again to its own partition. This might be a good place to mention the gpt command has to be run while either booted to an external recover partition or while booted to internet recovery.

Could I simply remove the EFI partition or would that corrupt my Mac? Do not remove the EFI partition! It is not used to boot OS X, but it is used by OS X for other things.

Best Answer

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MacOS – Uninstall rEFInd 0.8-3.7 on Yosemite

Answer to your questions:

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