<< Solved >> Catalina won't boot after Clover upgrade

[Christein]

Hi, in preparation for installing Ventura i updated Clover to version 5150.
Now my pc won't boot into Catalina anymore.
What can I do to figure out what's wrong and how to fix it?

Honestly, it's been a few years since I did any OS updates to my pc and visited this site, so i'm not really up to date with the whole process.

 

[P1LGRIM]

In the newer versions of Clover the folder structure has changed, make sure that you have all of your drivers in the new location. /EFI/CLOVER/drivers/UEFI.

There is also the addition of a Quirks section in the config.plist which means that you cannot just take your old config.plist and use it with newer versions of Clover.

Rather than learning the newer variations of Clover which incorporate elements of the OpenCore boot loader, it would be advantageous to switch to OpenCore now which is better documented/supported.

Remember that each time that you update Clover a full backup of your /EFI folder is saved on the system disk in /EFI-Backups. You should be able to restore the backup and get back to where you started from.

 

[MHSchaap]

Hi, in preparation for installing Ventura i updated Clover to version 5150.
Now my pc won't boot into Catalina anymore.

I ran into these issues over a year ago as well. Around r5120 or something, significant changes were made to Clover. Indeed as @P1LGRIM mentions relating to folder locations and kext locations. If I recall correctly, the whole /S/L/E path became obsolete. So for this normally simple Clover update, you need to change quite a lot. But if you search for information, there is quite some available.

I was in the same situation until November 2022. I ran Catalina but with Clover r5119. I attempted an upgrade once, ran into these problems, and remained with r5119 since.

In November, I wanted to upgrade to Ventura (successfully). However, I did a clean install and migrated to OpenCore in parallel. A decision I do not regret. My system is rock-solid as before, but OpenCore is better for the future. However, that's my impression. Several pages describe the differences, so everyone should decide what suits them best. Maybe you still prefer Clover.

OpenCore had a steeper learning curve, but now I understand what happens in the background much better. For keeping it up to date, I prefer OpenCore in particular.

 

[Christein]

Thank you both. I think I am going to try to switch to OpenCore.


Update: It worked! The OpenCore install guide worked perfectly for me.