best way to go back to Chimera from Clover? Help needed

[marten48]

Hello all,

I got myself into some trouble trying to upgrade the Yosemite partition of my SSD to macOS Sierra. The other partition is running Windows 10.

I started by following the UniBeast guide for macOS Sierra installation. After upgrading my Yosemite installation to macOS Sierra (note that I did a "upgrade" installation and did not erase the Yosemite partition before installing macOS Sierra), I used MultiBeast (Sierra version) to install Clover legacy (I'm using an old Series 6 z68 board). Previously I was using the Chimera bootloader with Yosemite but thought that I needed to install Clover in order to get macOS Sierra to work.

I was able to boot into macOS Sierra off my SSD via Clover, but that's when I noticed two new problems. 1. I wasn't able to get into BIOS because it was suddenly password protected. 2. I couldn't boot into Windows. When I selected my Windows 10 partition in Clover it said an error occurred and told me to Ctrl Alt Delete.

Note that all this time, I also had my old HDD (with an 10.7 Lion partition and a Windows partition) connected. I probably should have disconnected this drive before messing with the SSD. I'm not sure if this has anything to do with the problems I've been having.

I read on this forum that Clover doesn't work with a Mac and Windows partition on the same disk, so I then tried to revert from Clover to Chimera. I used Chameleon Wizard to hopefully install Chameleon over Clover on the SSD. But when I restarted it was still Clover and not Chameleon. Next, following this guide, I tried to reformat my EFI partition in Terminal and install Chimera to the EFI. For some reason, (it was very late last night), I restarted before doing steps 4 and 5 (copy files to the EFI partition and set the EFI partition as active). At this point, I couldn't boot anything (not even my UniBeast USB drives). Neither Chameleon/Chimera or Clover would load. However, after I disconnected my SSD, I am able to boot from my old HDD via Chimera.

I'm really hoping that there's a way I can make my SSD bootable again without having to wipe it clean. I realize that I dug myself into this hole by making some rookie mistakes. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Edit: I forgot to mention. After my SSD became unbootable, I tried resetting the CMOS of the BIOS by taking out the battery. This got rid of the password problem, so I'm now able to get into BIOS. But the SSD is still unbootable.

Also, in order to get Sierra to successfully boot off the SSD, I copied the Clover EFI from the UniBeast USB into the EFI partition, overwriting the Legacy Clover installed by MultiBeast.

 

[marten48]

An update. I booted from my Lion UniBeast USB with the SSD unplugged, then reattached the SSD once I was in the Lion installer. I used the Restore from Time Machine feature to restore my Yosemite backup to the SSD. The Yosemite backup still wouldn't boot, however.

Next I used this simple solution to erase the EFI partition of my SSD. It worked! I'm finally able to boot my old Yosemite install without the USB.

Windows 10 on the SSD still won't boot, however. I get an error message saying that I should use a recovery disk to repair it.

 

[drho2004]

Hello all,

I got myself into some trouble trying to upgrade the Yosemite partition of my SSD to macOS Sierra. The other partition is running Windows 10.

I started by following the UniBeast guide for macOS Sierra installation. After upgrading my Yosemite installation to macOS Sierra (note that I did a "upgrade" installation and did not erase the Yosemite partition before installing macOS Sierra), I used MultiBeast (Sierra version) to install Clover legacy (I'm using an old Series 6 z68 board). Previously I was using the Chimera bootloader with Yosemite but thought that I needed to install Clover in order to get macOS Sierra to work.

I was able to boot into macOS Sierra off my SSD via Clover, but that's when I noticed two new problems. 1. I wasn't able to get into BIOS because it was suddenly password protected. 2. I couldn't boot into Windows. When I selected my Windows 10 partition in Clover it said an error occurred and told me to Ctrl Alt Delete.

Note that all this time, I also had my old HDD (with an 10.7 Lion partition and a Windows partition) connected. I probably should have disconnected this drive before messing with the SSD. I'm not sure if this has anything to do with the problems I've been having.

I read on this forum that Clover doesn't work with a Mac and Windows partition on the same disk, so I then tried to revert from Clover to Chimera. I used Chameleon Wizard to hopefully install Chameleon over Clover on the SSD. But when I restarted it was still Clover and not Chameleon. Next, following this guide, I tried to reformat my EFI partition in Terminal and install Chimera to the EFI. For some reason, (it was very late last night), I restarted before doing steps 4 and 5 (copy files to the EFI partition and set the EFI partition as active). At this point, I couldn't boot anything (not even my UniBeast USB drives). Neither Chameleon/Chimera or Clover would load. However, after I disconnected my SSD, I am able to boot from my old HDD via Chimera.

I'm really hoping that there's a way I can make my SSD bootable again without having to wipe it clean. I realize that I dug myself into this hole by making some rookie mistakes. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Edit: I forgot to mention. After my SSD became unbootable, I tried resetting the CMOS of the BIOS by taking out the battery. This got rid of the password problem, so I'm now able to get into BIOS. But the SSD is still unbootable.

Also, in order to get Sierra to successfully boot off the SSD, I copied the Clover EFI from the UniBeast USB into the EFI partition, overwriting the Legacy Clover installed by MultiBeast.

Hello! i did something similar but not quite, maybe you can assist.

i tried installing Clover on a usb external just to test to see if my ssd with yosemite would boot with clover. It actually did, and i removed the usb from the system and proceeded to reboot....well to my surprise the clover boot screen showed up again...so i tried booting into the ssd that has my yosemite install and nothing, no boot get black screen with the familair white letters (dont have pic with me) luckly i was able to boot to my ssd with w10 on it so i have working computer in that sense. questions is, how do i remove clover from my yosemite boot disk (and how it got installed in the first place??) and bring back chimera so that i can boot back to my mac? thank you!

 

[marten48]

Hmm ... maybe try wiping the EFI partition following the method linked in my post above. Clover is probably installed on that EFI partition. Not sure how it got there. Maybe the UniBeast stick installed it. If you wipe the EFI partition then your system might revert to the Chimera bootloader on your Yosemite SSD.

 

[drho2004]

Hmm ... maybe try wiping the EFI partition following the method linked in my post above. Clover is probably installed on that EFI partition. Not sure how it got there. Maybe the UniBeast stick installed it. If you wipe the EFI partition then your system might revert to the Chimera bootloader on your Yosemite SSD.

thank you for the followup marten48! hmm seems i need terminal to be able to wipe the EFI partition based on the link above, sadly the only bootable OS i have right now is windows10...do you know any other way to 'wipe' the EFI partition? thanks!

 

[drho2004]

thank you for the followup marten48! hmm seems i need terminal to be able to wipe the EFI partition based on the link above, sadly the only bootable OS i have right now is windows10...do you know any other way to 'wipe' the EFI partition? thanks!

ok i am able to access my ssd with yosemite installed, i see the EFI folder and inside is clover stuff. would manually deleting this folder get rid of clover? or is alittle more involved? thanks!

 

[marten48]

ok i am able to access my ssd with yosemite installed, i see the EFI folder and inside is clover stuff. would manually deleting this folder get rid of clover? or is alittle more involved? thanks!

Erasing the EFI partition worked better for me than manually deleting the folder. You can get terminal by booting from a UniBeast USB. After you boot from it, instead of installing the OS, check the menus and you should find terminal there somewhere. You should be able to erase the EFI partition from there following the method that I linked to.

 

[drho2004]

Erasing the EFI partition worked better for me than manually deleting the folder. You can get terminal by booting from a UniBeast USB. After you boot from it, instead of installing the OS, check the menus and you should find terminal there somewhere. You should be able to erase the EFI partition from there following the method that I linked to.

aha! thank you for the explanation, of course Unibeast would have it in there! didnt think about it. thank you sir i will try it when i have a moment.