Clover starting up but not recognizing MacOS drives

[wutkernel]

Been running High Sierra on a Samsung EVO SSD for a little over two years now side by side with another EVO that has Windows. Everything worked great. Do my video editing on the Hackintosh during the day, switch over to game on Windows some nights. No big issues for two years.

I didn't change anything about my Hackintosh setup last night and it was all running great yesterday. (I have been fine with my version of High Sierra for a long time, haven't done any updates for about 6 months or so). After work yesterday, shutting down the Hackintosh seemed normal. No errors/issues/crashes. I played on Windows later and when I went shut down Windows, it had an update that was required with shutting down, which has happened without incident for all two years. Went to boot up the Hackintosh this morning and Clover starts up but just will not show either of my MacOS drives as boot options. My main OS SSD and my media scratch HDD have disappeared from Clover and it's no longer auto-booting into MacOS. (Both drives are still functioning: Clover is on that main OS SSD and all the data comes up when I plug both drives into my MBP.) It's only giving me the option to boot my Windows drive. I don't know if this was because of some update Windows did, but that's the only thing I can think of that changed.

I pulled all the Windows drives out, spent some time searching this website (but it seems other similar issues have come from updating something Hackintosh side), tried a few fixes, but I'm running up against a wall. The hard thing is, I have a deadline for an edit tonight, so ideally, I'd like to find a fix where I can just reconnect the drive in Clover or something and get to work. I have lost or given away the USB I used to install the Hackintosh OS a couple years ago, but I'm going to buy a new one right now. I'd love any advice or links you guys might think have something to do with the problem.

And I'm very sorry if I posted in the wrong place or if there's already a fix I missed or if I need to give more info about my build. I'm trying to hurry and get back to work as soon as I can, so I apologize for anything I missed.

MacOS: High Sierra (10.13.5 or maybe 10.13.6)

Clover Version: 2.4k rev 4630
Build: 2018-08-01 17:45:08
EFI Revision: 2.60
Platform: x86_64
Screen Output: Graphics Output (UEFI), 1920x1080
Firmware: American Megatrends rev 5.12

Hardware:
Mobo: Gigabyte Z370 Gaming Aorus Wifi
CPU: i7-8700K
GPU: PNY GTX 1080Ti Blower
Storage: Samsung EVO SSD - 500GB, Seagate HDD - 4TB
RAM: Crucial Ballistix Sport LT 2400MHz 4x16GB

 

[UtterDisbelief]

Been running High Sierra on a Samsung EVO SSD for a little over two years now side by side with another EVO that has Windows. Everything worked great. Do my video editing on the Hackintosh during the day, switch over to game on Windows some nights. No big issues for two years.

I didn't change anything about my Hackintosh setup last night and it was all running great yesterday. (I have been fine with my version of High Sierra for a long time, haven't done any updates for about 6 months or so). After work yesterday, shutting down the Hackintosh seemed normal. No errors/issues/crashes. I played on Windows later and when I went shut down Windows, it had an update that was required with shutting down, which has happened without incident for all two years. Went to boot up the Hackintosh this morning and Clover starts up but just will not show either of my MacOS drives as boot options. My main OS SSD and my media scratch HDD have disappeared from Clover and it's no longer auto-booting into MacOS. (Both drives are still functioning: Clover is on that main OS SSD and all the data comes up when I plug both drives into my MBP.) It's only giving me the option to boot my Windows drive. I don't know if this was because of some update Windows did, but that's the only thing I can think of that changed.

I pulled all the Windows drives out, spent some time searching this website (but it seems other similar issues have come from updating something Hackintosh side), tried a few fixes, but I'm running up against a wall. The hard thing is, I have a deadline for an edit tonight, so ideally, I'd like to find a fix where I can just reconnect the drive in Clover or something and get to work. I have lost or given away the USB I used to install the Hackintosh OS a couple years ago, but I'm going to buy a new one right now. I'd love any advice or links you guys might think have something to do with the problem.

And I'm very sorry if I posted in the wrong place or if there's already a fix I missed or if I need to give more info about my build. I'm trying to hurry and get back to work as soon as I can, so I apologize for anything I missed.

MacOS: High Sierra (10.13.5 or maybe 10.13.6)

Clover Version: 2.4k rev 4630
Build: 2018-08-01 17:45:08
EFI Revision: 2.60
Platform: x86_64
Screen Output: Graphics Output (UEFI), 1920x1080
Firmware: American Megatrends rev 5.12

Hardware:
Mobo: Gigabyte Z370 Gaming Aorus Wifi
CPU: i7-8700K
GPU: PNY GTX 1080Ti Blower
Storage: Samsung EVO SSD - 500GB, Seagate HDD - 4TB
RAM: Crucial Ballistix Sport LT 2400MHz 4x16GB

Hi there,

I'll probably move this tread to the Multi-Booting forum

Okay, you need to mount the EFI partition on the macOS drive, if you can. Do you still have a UniBeast installer USB stick to boot from? I'm guessing not.

This problem is usually caused by Windows (UEFI version) writing to the EFI partition macOS uses. Though you have a separate drive for Windows, if the macOS SSD is connected when Windows boots, it senses that the macOS drive is the default and writes boot configuration changes there.

If you can get into your macOS system drive using your MacBook Pro then mount the EFI folder of it and take a look. There's good chance you'll see MS's footprints all over the place. (If you can't do this with your MBP, there are Windows tools that can mount and open an EFI partition but I'm never happy recommending that).

Once you've mounted your system drive then either replace the EFI folder tree with a back-up if you have one, or remove the Microsoft items hiding in there.

 

[wutkernel]

Hi there,

I'll probably move this tread to the Multi-Booting forum

Okay, you need to mount the EFI partition on the macOS drive, if you can. Do you still have a UniBeast installer USB stick to boot from? I'm guessing not.

This problem is usually caused by Windows (UEFI version) writing to the EFI partition macOS uses. Though you have a separate drive for Windows, if the macOS SSD is connected when Windows boots, it senses that the macOS drive is the default and writes boot configuration changes there.

If you can get into your macOS system drive using your MacBook Pro then mount the EFI folder of it and take a look. There's good chance you'll see MS's footprints all over the place. (If you can't do this with your MBP, there are Windows tools that can mount and open an EFI partition but I'm never happy recommending that).

Once you've mounted your system drive then either replace the EFI folder tree with a back-up if you have one, or remove the Microsoft items hiding in there.

Awesome. Thank you, this is a huge help. Digging into this now.

Quick question: I don't have a backup of the EFI folder, will I have to do a complete reinstall? I'm gonna try to remove anything Windows-related, but if it's rewritten anything, is that the only way to restore it?

I got a flash drive earlier, I'm making a Unibeast installer right now.

And thank you for the relocation!

 

[wutkernel]

Little update, I made an installer and mounted the EFI partition on my MBP. Couldn't find anything Windows related or that looked suspicious. Just in case, I copied/replaced the folders and items that don't have to do with kexts or the config.plist from the Unibeast flash drive over to the actual EFI.

Also made a backup EFI of what it looks like now, just in case.

But totally at a loss. Everything looks like it should for the most part. But turn on the computer, Clover comes up and I have no drives to boot up with (still have the windows drive unplugged).

 

[UtterDisbelief]

Little update, I made an installer and mounted the EFI partition on my MBP. Couldn't find anything Windows related or that looked suspicious. Just in case, I copied/replaced the folders and items that don't have to do with kexts or the config.plist from the Unibeast flash drive over to the actual EFI.

Also made a backup EFI of what it looks like now, just in case.

But totally at a loss. Everything looks like it should for the most part. But turn on the computer, Clover comes up and I have no drives to boot up with (still have the windows drive unplugged).

Okay. If you are happy nothing has changed in your EFI or config.plist, that the SSD is not damaged (run First Aid with Disk Util ec.) AND you have disconnected he Windows drive, then perhaps you could re-flash the BIOS. Remember to adjust to macOS defaults when back up and running.

If that doesn't help I don't see anything else to give us a clue as to what has happened right now, sorry.

 

[wutkernel]

Okay. If you are happy nothing has changed in your EFI or config.plist, that the SSD is not damaged (run First Aid with Disk Util ec.) AND you have disconnected he Windows drive, then perhaps you could re-flash the BIOS. Remember to adjust to macOS defaults when back up and running.

If that doesn't help I don't see anything else to give us a clue as to what has happened right now, sorry.

Ok, cool. Thank you so much for your help, UtterDisbelief! Have a good weekend!

If anyone else is looking for the same solution, I'm gonna attempt to the above and anything else I can find on the internet. If I'm successful, I'll post what worked.