<< Solved >> Only bootable from USB

[lagoo]

My recent setup was working fine for awhile - not sure exactly what happened but now when I boot up it just stalls on my motherboard screen.
I am able to go to the boot options and load up through a USB but am not sure how to fix this? I've tried every boot option, my Windows partition will load and I can boot into clover via USB but cannot seem to get it to launch otherwise.

From the USB boot I've tried running MultiBeast again and installing Clover, but not sure where to go from here.
My config.plist and generated boot log from Clover are attached. If anything else is needed let me know!

 

[UtterDisbelief]

My recent setup was working fine for awhile - not sure exactly what happened but now when I boot up it just stalls on my motherboard screen.
I am able to go to the boot options and load up through a USB but am not sure how to fix this? I've tried every boot option, my Windows partition will load and I can boot into clover via USB but cannot seem to get it to launch otherwise.

From the USB boot I've tried running MultiBeast again and installing Clover, but not sure where to go from here.
My config.plist and generated boot log from Clover are attached. If anything else is needed let me know!

Hi there.

If you can boot to the main High Sierra installation using your UniBeast USB stick then double-check the version of MultiBeast you are going to use to make the main drive bootable, is 10.4

If you have tried this and it hasn't worked then run Disk Utility on the main drive to check it has no problems and is in the correct format.

Also remember you will need to install the appropriate version of Nvidia Web-Drivers. You can often get around them not being there initially by booting using Safe Mode (from the Clover menu press the SpaceBar to bring up the list of Options where you will find Safe Mode).

If none of that works run the utility EFI Mounter v3 to see if there is an EFI folder on the main drive. If it lists only one option then that will be the USB stick.

 

[lagoo]

I believe I've gone through everything and EFI Mounter v3 only shows 1 EFI folder. It says it's src is the proper disk0s1, my main drive, though. Which makes me think like the boot process got messed up some how...

 

[UtterDisbelief]

I believe I've gone through everything and EFI Mounter v3 only shows 1 EFI folder. It says it's src is the proper disk0s1, my main drive, though. Which makes me think like the boot process got messed up some how...

Okay, well if disk0s1 is the main drive then why can't we see the UniBeast EFI partition in there too?

That almost suggests that the main drive is booting fine and not the UniBeast stick.

I am now confused as to what the problem actually is?

 

[lagoo]

Basically I can't boot into Clover without using a USB stick - it crashes/stalls right after my motherboard logo. My actual build is working fine, I just can't get into it without using a USB stick to boot.

EDIT: I've gone into my Boot Manager and tried all the options but they all crash out (that would load into Clover). My Windows Partition still boots separately and I am able to get into my Mac partition with the USB I made.

 

[UtterDisbelief]

Basically I can't boot into Clover without using a USB stick - it crashes/stalls right after my motherboard logo. My actual build is working fine, I just can't get into it without using a USB stick to boot.

EDIT: I've gone into my Boot Manager and tried all the options but they all crash out (that would load into Clover). My Windows Partition still boots separately and I am able to get into my Mac partition with the USB I made.

Then it just sounds as though your main drive EFI partition has been corrupted or damaged. If the screen grab above from EFI Mounter v3 was of the UniBeast's partition then there isn't one on the main drive, basically. Clearly the main drive has an installed macOS though.

Go to Terminal and type: "diskutil list" this will show you just what is available, your UniBeast stick and the main drive. You should see both EFI partitions in the list. They would be about 200MB in size.

 

[lagoo]

Here is the output.. not sure what to do with it.

 

[UtterDisbelief]

Here is the output.. not sure what to do with it.

Well your main macOS drive looks like disk1, with an EFI partition at disk1s1. APFS puts this main OS in a "container" which is disk3. All part of the new Apple scheme.

Windows is at disk2 formatted as NTFS.

I can't see a USB flash drive in that list. There are no "external" drives showing, but disk0 being 60GB, looks as though it might be a flash drive. But as is it a Microsoft partition maybe it's a part of windows.

So why was disk0s1 showing in EFI Mounter v3 in that earlier screengrab?

I'm missing something here. From a boot perspective, the main macOS drive has the EFI and should boot (if it's not damaged). There is no other EFI in that list for booting macOS.

 

[lagoo]

Thanks for your assistance so far...!
I've taken screenshots of my start up process, not sure what is happening... dont know why all screens come out flipped upside down from my phone....

 

[lagoo]

There seem to be EFI-Backups in my Apple drive, but no EFI folder .. could it have been corrupted and deleted?
If I renamed a backup to an EFI folder and put it in my Apple drive would that reset it what it was?

Or should I try replace folders from the EFI-Backup into the EFI folder? see what happens?

Sorry about the images.... I tried rotating in Preview but seems like its default to show upside down?