Clover won't read EFI on the booted disk

[rotalume]

Hi everyone,

I have a question about booting from multiple disks with several EFI partitions in single computer. I would like to know how I can change the EFI partition reads by Clover.

I have 5 disk installed on a computerGigabyte X58A-UD3R, non-UEFI BIOS)

1. 1T HD: EFI(Clover v4741 installed and marked as GPT Protective Partition in Windows), HPFS+(10.13 installed), NTFS(Windows 10 installed)
2. 512G SSD: EFI(Chimera installed and marked as GPT Protective Partition in Windows), HPFS+(10.10 installed), NTFS(Windows 10 installed)
3. 512G SSD: EFI(Clover v4741 installed and marked as EFI Partition in Windows), HPFS+(10.12 installed)
4. 2T HD: NTFS data partition
5. 2T HD: NTFS data partition

For those marked as GPT Protective Partitions are recognized as EFI partitions and be still readable by Clover Configuration Manager.

For each bootloader above, I can boot from them if I remove all other disks, ex: I can boot from 3rd disk by removing first two disks physically.

The question is that, when I have all 5 disks installed. Even I choose the 3rd disk to boot from BIOS, it still reads the EFI partition from 1st disk and disregards the EFI partition at 3rd one. Is there any way that I can force clover to read from 3rd one without pullout the 1st disk?

I know the most easy way is to remove all other bootloaders so that I can make sure that there will be only one EFI partition get loaded. But I would like to keep them in case any disk rescue is required.

Regards

 

[jpz4085]

Even I choose the 3rd disk to boot from BIOS, it still reads the EFI partition from 1st disk and disregards the EFI partition at 3rd one.

I've seen this while experimenting with legacy booting but it doesn't always do this at least not on my UEFI systems. Since your system is BIOS maybe changing the drive order in the BIOS setup and/or disabling the unwanted drive ports might help.

I know the most easy way is to remove all other bootloaders

It might be easier to create a rescue USB configured for all operating systems and eliminate the other bootloaders.

 

[rotalume]

I've seen this while experimenting with legacy booting but it doesn't always do this at least not on my UEFI systems. Since your system is BIOS maybe changing the drive order in the BIOS setup and/or disabling the unwanted drive ports might help.



It might be easier to create a rescue USB configured for all operating systems and eliminate the other bootloaders.

Thank you. Actually now it is the 3rd SSD in the first boot sequence as it now becomes the primary usage of this computer. The order above is just for explanation. And I forgot to mention that it was fine few days but I am not sure if it was caused by the upgrade of clover or any settings of it. I tried to reset clover settings but in vain. So I don't know if any thing is related to the EFI partition.

I do have bootable usb but it may not be that usable as I have different settings in EFI partition to keep them work. Also usb disk now does not have good performance as HD/SSD nor the quality of itself for incident usage.

Regards.

 

[jpz4085]

And I forgot to mention that it was fine few days but I am not sure if it was caused by the upgrade of clover or any settings of it.

Possibly. You might want to revert to your previous Clover version and see what happens. You could try a newer version as well.

I do have bootable usb but it may not be that usable as I have different settings in EFI partition to keep them work.

You can use separate config.plist files for different macOS/OSX versions requiring different settings and Clover will merge them. They can be specified in custom entries under GUI in the main config file. Search for more information.

Also usb disk now does not have good performance as HD/SSD nor the quality of itself for incident usage.

The rescue USB is only for temporary/emergency usage. Once you have a working config with one bootloader on one EFI partition for all operating systems copy it to the USB in case you need it in the future.