I made a huge mistake

[jackoloki]

I apologize if this is not the appropriate place to post this. Please advise me if this should go somewhere else. It just seems that the people who post here might be able to help me.

I was on my legit iMac Mojave system — trying to create bootable Clover USB drive for my *hackintosh* system — and I did the stupidest thing… two stupid things actually. First, I set the Clover installation ***onto my legit iMac Mojave system*** instead of the USB (I had been up since 2:30 a.m., and I just should not have been at a computer.)

Anyway, the Clover installer (Clover_v2.5k_r5070.pkg) said ‘installation failed’. And, at first, nothing seemed odd. So I went along thinking that everything was gonna be okay. But then, a few hours later, I did the second stupid thing… I installed the most recent Mojave 2021 Security update, which required a restart.

But it didn’t restart… it wouldn’t… not without booting up in safe mode. And still, in safe mode, my system is acting all slow and screwy.

So I don’t know what is causing the problem…a Clover element or the Mojave Security update. But I’m thinking it’s the former.

Attached is a picture of the installation selections I had made. I’m wondering if anyone out there can tell me, based on the selections shown, what might have gotten installed, and where, and how I might uninstall it?

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[P1LGRIM]

Mount the EFI partition and remove all of the Clover files so that it looks similar to this :

 

[jackoloki]

Thank you P1LGR1M. So, I noticed that there is another boot file — with the same date — outside of the EFI folder. That can't be a coincidence... throw it out as well? Anything else?

I tried to see where the original of the EFIROOTDIR alias, but it didn't take me anywhere.

 

[jackoloki]

And when you say, "mount the EFI partition", you're referring to the partition on which my Mojave system resides, right? There is only the one partition.

I apologize for my lack of knowledge here. I don't know what is what, as I haven't messed with a hackintosh in quite some time. I was just trying to see if I could could get my old hackintosh/PC to boot from a Clover flash drive, and I was preparing said drive on my iMac.

 

[P1LGRIM]

Thank you P1LGR1M. So, I noticed that there is another boot file — with the same date — outside of the EFI folder. That can't be a coincidence... throw it out as well? Anything else?

I tried to see where the original of the EFIROOTDIR alias, but it didn't take me anywhere.

Each time that you install Clover it backs up your entire /EFI folder from the EFI partition to the system disk in a folder called /EFI-Backups. You can delete it.

And when you say, "mount the EFI partition", you're referring to the partition on which my Mojave system resides, right? There is only the one partition.

Your drive boots from the EFI partition which does not show until it is mounted, so no I'm not referring to the partition on which your Mojave system resides.

 

[jackoloki]

My apologies for being somewhat thick-headed with all this, but again, I’m in unfamiliar waters, and if there is a chance that my system can be rescued by making all the correct moves going forward — and not making another blunder — I’d like that. I do thank you for tolerating this.

Anyway, I’m still stuck on this “mount the EFI partition”. Being invisible until mounted, I was unaware that I even had such a partition. So, I had Terminal list all mounted drives (see screenshot), and I see 3 EFI partitions come up, none of which appear to be associated with the volume on which I have Mojave installed (which is named ‘Mojave’). Perhaps because they are APFS volumes?

Did the Clover installer create those EFI partitions, or is that a Mac system thing that’s always been there?

So which EFI partition do I mount? I don’t see an EFI partition on the Mojave volume.

 

[P1LGRIM]

Did the Clover installer create those EFI partitions, or is that a Mac system thing that’s always been there?

When a drive is formatted as GUID the EFI partition is created automatically.

So which EFI partition do I mount? I don’t see an EFI partition on the Mojave volume.

Use an app such as EFI Mounter to mount the EFI partition.

 

[jackoloki]

So, disk4 is not showing up in EFI Mounter. I'm assuming its not a GUID partition. It says APFS, which is the new Apple proprietary formatting I guess. Have I hit a dead-end?

 

[P1LGRIM]

In all probability you have installed Clover to one of these EFI partitions.
Mount each one in turn until you find the one with Clover in it and then deal with it.

 

[jackoloki]

There doesn't appear to be any Clover files on any of those drives.

And I'm pretty sure it went onto the Mojave system/disk...that was the default destination.

The first time I went to run the Clover installer, it defaulted to Mojave, and I selected the USB drive. But then the Customize button went away, so I backed out, and quit, and then launched the installer again. That time, I hit Customize first, but I then failed to select the destination, and just mindlessly hit Install. So, I'm pretty sure it tried to install onto the Mojave system/disk.

Is it possible the installation said "failed" because there was no EFI partition on Mojave disk into which it could install? It not being GUID format?