<< Solved >> help! osx EFI booter altered, is my install lost?

hi i was recently installing a linux based OS to a usb stick, i knew what i was doing, and only targeted the usb - unfortunately it randomly installed a linux EFI onto my macOS ssd drive, and now my perfect mac os high sierra install for PC was rendered unbootable. Im wondering if there is an easier way to recover it...


is my mac os install rendered null and void? can i get my data / os back?
can I somehow delete the linux EFI bootloader and replace it with clover using some tool and be able to boot mac os as usual?

my boot options for that mac SSD are now as follows:
PNY SSD 120 GB
linux EFI - PNY SSD 120 GB

luckily the stupid linux installer didnt overwrite my windows OS! i would be so mad.. already mad though. is there any fix? thanks for any help with solutions...

problem is i dont want to re download mac high sierra 6,3 GB and do it all over again, effectively reinstalling the OS. can i create a bootable clover configurator usb stick, boot into mac os, and as you say run multibeast. that would be the best.

kingfitz said:

problem is i dont want to re download mac high sierra 6,3 GB and do it all over again, effectively reinstalling the OS. can i create a bootable clover configurator usb stick, boot into mac os, and as you say run multibeast. that would be the best.

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Each time that you update Clover it saves a copy of your /EFI folder to your system disk in /EFI-Backups.
If you have previously updated Clover it is possible that there is a backup that you can use to reinstate your /EFI.

sounds like a nice idea, but I have no idea how the hell to do that. this has been a disaster, apparently linux installs GRUB EFIs randomly on any connected drive and wrecks your entire FKING system. im so mad right now. this is a nightmare and GRUB EFI is a damn devil. cant believe this crap.

ok wow after days of headache and forum digging i was able to remove the linux grub efi by mounting the osx drive with clover configurator, and deleting the Linux EFI folder. god why was there only literally an obscure ****** post about this? only thing i could find on the net. everything is so fking complicated. now I still cant boot my macosx drive normally - have to have the unibeast USB installer plugged in and select boot macOS with the clover menu. i tried running multibeast again and installing clover EUFI boot option to the system. no change. I tried copy/pasting the EFI folder from EFI-Backups to the hard drive, overwriting the current EFI folder. no change. what do i do? previously I could just select the ssd in my bios boot menu and it would automatically boot into macos. my windows entry boots automatically just fine. anyone ideas?

kingfitz said:

previously I could just select the ssd in my bios boot menu and it would automatically boot into macos. my windows entry boots automatically just fine. anyone ideas?

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You should just need to add a boot option for Clover to your bios boot menu. You can do that by starting the system off your install USB (make sure you select the UEFI option) then open the UEFI Shell and use the bcfg boot command to create an entry pointing to \EFI\CLOVER\CLOVERX64.EFI or you could also use efibootmgr from a live Linux USB and another way would be to use vulgo's bootoption utility. This should prevent any future issues.

Could you elaborate exactly how to do this? Because I have a boot entry it says 'PNY – macOS 120 GB' but it is not
'UEFI: PNY - macOS 120GB' . Previously had workin as i said, then after the linux EFI which screwed stuff up, when i select at boot menu PNY macOS 120 GB, nothig happens and windows boots. Ty for help

kingfitz said:

Could you elaborate exactly how to do this? Because I have a boot entry it says 'PNY – macOS 120 GB' but it is not
'UEFI: PNY - macOS 120GB' .

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No not the SSD. You want to boot from the Unibeast USB in UEFI mode assuming you configured it that way originally. From your post above I understand that's the only way you're able to at the moment. Then you can use my first suggestion.

Boot from UniBeast USB or emergency Clover recovery USB if you created one. If you do not have one suggest you make one - instructions are on the site somewhere - search is you friend.

Once you have booted from the USB to desktop look in root directory for Clover EFI-Backups folder.
Download latest version of Clover and install it or use UniBeast to install it. Reboot and see if that does not take care of the problem.

Ok I got it finally. I mounted and deleted current EFI, copied the working backup EFI in its place, then multibeast loaded clover uefi. Rebooted and in bios I had to enable UEFI: OS option in boot. It had eluded me. All back to normal now, yay. Thanks