[SOLVED] Update to 10.3.3 Caused Clover boot options to be Wiped - Nothing / Nada

[Deleted member 188658]

The update to 10.13.3 was bugging me for the past week each time I logged in. This evening I decided to the update.

I'm booting from Clover on a GA-Z97MX MB. I've been running 10.13.2 for a month or so, with no problems. The system only has OSX installed so I usually just have two boot choices, the OS, or the Recovery.

I let the 10.13.3 update restart the system, the Install disk became the option, it booted into the install spent 10 minutes doing the install, and restarted the system. The boot stopped at the Apple splash screen about 1/3 way in to the boot. I waited 10 minutes no change, waited some more and eventually hit reset. At this point my CLover still had the same boot options.

I thought it was the Nvidia load so I turned that off, same result, hung on the splash screen. I could only do a Safe boot. So I downloaded the Mac OS 10.13.3 installer in Safe mode and ran it again - thinking that it would fix the install.

But no, the install ran for 45 minutes and rebooted. Now the Clover has NO boot options, nada, nothing. I can see that the OSX partition still exists but Clover doesn't see it.

I can boot from a USB installer disk, and run the Install Mac OS 10.13.3 and get into recovery mode, but I don't think this is going to fix my boot problem.

Anyone any suggestions on how to fix the Clover boot? bcfg boot dump just shows the EFI partition of Clover, no other bootable partition.

What are my options?

 

[P1LGRIM]

What are my options?

Clone your drive if possible.

Then boot from recovery and reinstall the OS over the top of your existing installation without formatting.
This should preserve all of your apps and data.
When you get to the desktop reinstall Clover.

 

[Deleted member 188658]

When you get to the desktop reinstall Clover.

Thanks. This confirms what I was thinking of doing - tonight or when I can get to it.

So if I can boot to a terminal from the USB, mount the EFI drive (mount -t msdos /dev/disk0s1 etc) can you advise me on how I could save/copy the existing EFI partition back out onto the same USB drive - thus saving all the work I did in the config.plist / patches / kext etc for the originial OS? In short how do I access the USB drive from the terminal?

Again, appreciate the help.

 

[P1LGRIM]

So if I can boot to a terminal from the USB, mount the EFI drive (mount -t msdos /dev/disk0s1 etc) can you advise me on how I could save/copy the existing EFI partition back out onto the same USB drive - thus saving all the work I did in the config.plist / patches / kext etc for the originial OS? In short how do I access the USB drive from the terminal?

Not sure what you are driving at but each time that you install or update Clover a copy of your /EFI folder is saved to your system disk in /EFI-Backups.

 

[Gigamaxx]

Maybe you originally had HFS+ mode and the update installed in APFS mode. Do you have apfsEFI in your Clover Drivers64UEFI folder? I think 13.3 no longer gives you the option of HFS or APFS it automatically installs apfs if you have a SSD or NVME drive.

IF I don't have apfsEFI in clover drivers64UEFI folder I can't see my main partition as an option in clover.

 

[Deleted member 188658]

Maybe you originally had HFS+ mode and the update installed in APFS mode.

Yes that's correct! I went to the effort months ago to keep HFS+ mode on the drive, and now you're telling me 10.13.3 forces APFS mode. I will experiment and find out if that's true, and report. Thanks for the help!

 

[Gigamaxx]

Yes that's correct! I went to the effort months ago to keep HFS+ mode on the drive, and now you're telling me 10.13.3 forces APFS mode. I will experiment and find out if that's true, and report. Thanks for the help!

The easiest fix will be to add apfsEFI to your clover Drivers64UEFI folder it should show your partitions if this is the case and allow you to boot. It’s happened to me several times and I keep an extra USB boot loader around with apfsEFI just in case.

Note with this added to your clover it will still detect and boot older OS versions. I put it in my Sierra drive clover so I can boot into Sierra or HS 13.? To do custom edits. So it’s a good idea IMO to have it on any drive with clover.

 

[Deleted member 188658]

The easiest fix will be to add apfsEFI to your clover Drivers64UEFI folder it should show your partitions i

Quick question, should I REMOVE the HFSPlus.efi from my Drivers64EFI folder on the USB Clover boot drive? Does it's presence cause a conflict?
Of course I could experiment, but hoping you're still online......

 

[Gigamaxx]

Quick question, should I REMOVE the HFSPlus.efi from my Drivers64EFI folder on the USB Clover boot drive? Does it's presence cause a conflict?
Of course I could experiment, but hoping you're still online......

No, they are compatible, it will only make apfs files readable and won’t cause any bugs with the other drivers.

 

[Deleted member 188658]

make apfs files readable and won’t cause any bugs with the other drivers.

This solved the problem of starting with a HFS 10.13.2 and upgrading to 10.13.3 - and Clover not seeing the boot options:

Thanks to Gigamaxx!!

1. I took my USB installer and added apfs.efi to it's EFI partition Drivers64UEFI, alongside HFSPlus.efi.
2. Booted from this USB installer on my mixed up machine
3. Immediately saw all the boot options again - with the addition of Installer, FileVault Prebooter, and Install Prebooter
4. Mounted the system EFI partition - mount -t msdos /dev/disk0s1 /Volume/Disk_EFI
5. Copied apfs.efi from the USB EFI partition (# 1 above) onto the /Volume/Disk_EFI...../Drivers64UEFI
6. Rebooted to disk EFI - there I saw all the boot disk options again.
7 Selected my original boot option, and it took another 16 minutes to complete the update to 10.13.3.
8 Rebooted and viola I have 10.13.3


One more issue, that would only bug us nerds, my Clover boot menu now contains two options I would like to get rid of:
FileValue Preboot, Install Preboot.

Other than listing them in the Clover config.plist as skip / ignore boot options is there a way of getting rid of these? Are they a simple artifact that everyone has?