Contribute
Register

Pre-boot usage

Status
Not open for further replies.

Edhawk

Moderator
Joined
Aug 2, 2013
Messages
6,203
Motherboard
Asus ROG Strix X570-F Gaming
CPU
Ryzen 9 3900X
Graphics
RX 6700 XT
Mac
  1. iMac
  2. MacBook Air
  3. MacBook Pro
Mobile Phone
  1. iOS
Question: Do people use the Pre-boot or Preboot icon when booting their systems when running Clover bootloader?

I always add the 'Preboot' name to the list of volumes to be hidden when using Clover. So I have never tried or needed to use this icon to boot a system. To be honest I don't usually see the icon due to the Hide volume entry.

I have seen a few comments in different threads, where people have said they needed to boot via the Pre-boot icon before selecting the macOS icon on the next boot, usually as part of an OS update. When I run an update I always select the Boot from the 'Install macOS' icon, never the Preboot icon.

Is it common to boot from the Preboot or Pre-boot icon?
 
I always add the 'Preboot' name to the list of volumes to be hidden when using Clover. So I have never tried or needed to use this icon to boot a system.

Same here.

I'm not entirely sure why some people seem to need to used Pre-Boot. I never did, nor did I ever have a situation that made me want to experiment with it either.

:)
 
I think that with more recent versions of Clover and macOS, when you boot, you are booting from "Preboot" regardless of what it shows in the Clover boot menu.
 
@pastrychef Ok, that sort of makes sense.

I just wondered why people would be manually selecting the Preboot icon in order to run an update. As even with OC the name of the icon doesn't show as Preboot. It is the 'install macOS from .....' icon that is automatically selected when running an update with OC.
 
@pastrychef Ok, that sort of makes sense.

I just wondered why people would be manually selecting the Preboot icon in order to run an update. As even with OC the name of the icon doesn't show as Preboot. It is the 'install macOS from .....' icon that is automatically selected when running an update with OC.

When doing a macOS install or update, we should still choose the "install macOS..." option. With OpenCore, this is set automatically.

When booting normally, Clover now does the same as OpenCore in that they don't even show "Preboot" anymore. However, when choosing to boot in to macOS, it is booting from Preboot. I think this became a requirement to boot in to Big Sur or maybe even Catalina.
 
@UtterDisbelief @Edhawk

I think as @pastrychef says that recent versions of macOS boot from Preboot.

But when I try Clover with Big Sur or Monterey, I can boot macOS only from Preboot icon in Clover menu. I don't know why.
 
I have Mojave installed (after cloning it back from a dmg backup) without the other partitions (preboot and recovery), it works perfectly and updates seamlessly — actually, I never kept preboot and recovery on my machine until now. ;)

I'm wondering if the following MacOS versions can be booted the same way... (i.e. with no existing preboot partition)
I've seen people having an error message "couldn't create preboot" already in High Sierra, so I'm wondering if I'll be able in the future to create dmgs of a MacOS and restore them back the way I've always done?

EDIT 2022-01: to be accurate, I use Carbon Copy Cloner for restoring. On HFS, no issue. I've only tried once on APFS (a container amidst HFS partitions on a HD, not a whole disk) and CCC creates both Preboot and Recovery volumes inside the container. On boot, OpenCore only shows Preboot (and Recovery) so I have to boot from Preboot every time. If I delete Preboot, I'm even unable to select the APFS boot volume in the prefpane.
From what I've read around, creating a dmg backup of your APFS boot volume was still feasible in 10.15 (but very tricky...) then Apple's changes in APFS structure made it impossible: you install your OS once and if you want a clone on another machine (or if your drive dies) you can only reinstall it from scratch — the same if you only have a few bad blocks. :thumbdown
From https://support.apple.com/fr-fr/guide/disk-utility/dskutl11888/mac, it looks like Apple allows backups for data only but apparently not for the whole Macintosh HD – Data volume...
 
Last edited:
In the past when running a MacOS Update the the official reboot order was this :-
  • On 1st Reboot : Install Prebooter from Preboot
  • On 2nd Reboot : macOS install from XXXXX (MacOS system drive)
  • On 3rd Reboot : File Vault Prebooter from Preboot
This is what happened on real Macs and also a Hackintosh if native NVRAM is working correctly, however many users just selected "macOS install from XXXX" for every reboot which seemed to work as well. Personally I always went with whatever was automatically selected (the above boot order) and never had any issues.

Apple has changed the macOS update mechanism recently ... the new update procedure seems to do much of the update whilst the system is still running when it says "Preparing Update 15/10/5 mins remaining" ... it then creates a temporary volume called "Macintosh HD" and on the 1st reboot will boot from that to complete the update of the system volume.

After that all subsequent update reboots will boot from your normal system drive.

Cheers
Jay
 
Jay, I was one of those that booted from either the 'macOS install from XXXX' or more recently from the 'Macintosh HD' partition and then after a reboot reverted to booting the default macOS system drive.

I have never once intentionally selected Pre-boot or Prebooter as the update/upgrade installation or startup drive.

When using Clover I explicitly Hid the Preboot partition icon so it didn't appear on the boot screen.

An icon named 'Preboot' or 'Pre-booter' has never appeared on the OC GUI boot screen on any of my systems.

This was why I was asking why people would be intentionally selecting either of those partition icons when booting macOS. Your explanation on what happens when Native NVRAM is working correctly makes sense.
 
When using Clover I explicitly Hid the Preboot partition icon so it didn't appear on the boot screen.

I don't think you even need to do that anymore. "Preboot" shouldn't appear with the newer versions of Clover.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top