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Lion and rEFIt
- Thread starter gnhaku
- Start date
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I had to reinstall rEFIt after Lion on mine (am tripple booting for now until I'm happy with it).
2 reboots later and rEFIt showed its familiar face with my SnowLeo, LionTest and Winslowz volumes.
2 reboots later and rEFIt showed its familiar face with my SnowLeo, LionTest and Winslowz volumes.
So rEFIt works just fine with Lion? Maybe you could chime in on my thread? Thanks.
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1196014/
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1196014/
I can't get it to work at all. Tried reinstalling, rebooting several times and still nothing. Hopefully an update will be available soon.
Now I hold down the option key on restart to get the Apple boot selector and "Macintosh HD" shows up twice along with the Windows icon. I thought maybe one icon was for the Lion Recovery partition, but both Macintosh HD icons boot into Lion.
Anyone else run across this? Solutions?
Now I hold down the option key on restart to get the Apple boot selector and "Macintosh HD" shows up twice along with the Windows icon. I thought maybe one icon was for the Lion Recovery partition, but both Macintosh HD icons boot into Lion.
Anyone else run across this? Solutions?
Where, exactly, did you get the code brutuspa? If you are going to post a command that screws ppl's computer, don't post it. I don't know how you got it to work, but all of my machines are stuck in loading screen, thanks to you. why did I try it on almost all macs? Because I wanted to see if my MacBook Pro was the one causing the problem. Now, booting into safe mode won't even let me log in.
EDIT:
I had to boot into the small partition created once Lion is installed, load Disk Utility, and repair disk and repair disk permission to get my computer working again. I found some sources about the command "sudo /efi/refit/enable-always.sh" but I don't think it will work on Lion? No idea how all of my machines just froze up even after restarting 5 times.
EDIT:
I had to boot into the small partition created once Lion is installed, load Disk Utility, and repair disk and repair disk permission to get my computer working again. I found some sources about the command "sudo /efi/refit/enable-always.sh" but I don't think it will work on Lion? No idea how all of my machines just froze up even after restarting 5 times.
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Worked for me
Thanks for the pointer to enable-always.sh brutuspa that finally got refit showing up for me again.
Seong any file that ends in .sh is most likely a shell script which means it is probably going to run a succession of commands in your terminal.
Open the file, take a look at what its doing, if you don't understand or don't trust the source of the file then don't run it.
Thanks for the pointer to enable-always.sh brutuspa that finally got refit showing up for me again.
Seong any file that ends in .sh is most likely a shell script which means it is probably going to run a succession of commands in your terminal.
Open the file, take a look at what its doing, if you don't understand or don't trust the source of the file then don't run it.
Another solution...
After trying all the above mentioned methods, I tried something a little different. I read somewhere that the auto install pkg from refit also installs startup items as well as the efi folder in the / directory. Apparently, this can cause an issue. So, I booted into an install disk of Lion (not the recover drive, but a custom install disk) and repaired the disk and disk permissions. Then, I removed the efi folder, and the start up items. (they are in a folder that is like /Library/Startup Items/refit or something like that...) Then I shut down the computer for the night and waited until the next day to try the following... and I do not know if the waiting overnight actually did anything, but just wanted to through it out there... So the next morning, I installed refit manually exactly by the directions on the refit site. Worked like a charm! When I shut down the computer and turned it back on, low and behold refit popped up! I have been working on this for a couple weeks now, and out of everything, this is the only thing that has given me consistent results, it boots to refit every time now.
Let me know if this works for anyone else!
After trying all the above mentioned methods, I tried something a little different. I read somewhere that the auto install pkg from refit also installs startup items as well as the efi folder in the / directory. Apparently, this can cause an issue. So, I booted into an install disk of Lion (not the recover drive, but a custom install disk) and repaired the disk and disk permissions. Then, I removed the efi folder, and the start up items. (they are in a folder that is like /Library/Startup Items/refit or something like that...) Then I shut down the computer for the night and waited until the next day to try the following... and I do not know if the waiting overnight actually did anything, but just wanted to through it out there... So the next morning, I installed refit manually exactly by the directions on the refit site. Worked like a charm! When I shut down the computer and turned it back on, low and behold refit popped up! I have been working on this for a couple weeks now, and out of everything, this is the only thing that has given me consistent results, it boots to refit every time now.
Let me know if this works for anyone else!
works great! thanks a lot man...
scottd70192,
just wanted to confirm that your method works great. I did exactly follow your procedure (with the exception that I just shutdown and restarted instead of give it a whole night cool-down) and it works right from the start.
Great work and thanks again!
Cheers
scottd70192,
just wanted to confirm that your method works great. I did exactly follow your procedure (with the exception that I just shutdown and restarted instead of give it a whole night cool-down) and it works right from the start.
Great work and thanks again!
Cheers
I have Lion and Bootcamp with Win 7.
Not only rEFIt broke my Bootcamp, it also broke my mac os installation.
Uninstalling rEFIt was a pain, and now I'm left with an unusable Bootcamp partition, and a broke Lion partition. I can't repair my Lion disk with Disk Utility, and I can't install Lion to a USB key (something I have done many times before).
Seriously, keep away from rEFIt... IME it's a POS. YMMV.
Not only rEFIt broke my Bootcamp, it also broke my mac os installation.
Uninstalling rEFIt was a pain, and now I'm left with an unusable Bootcamp partition, and a broke Lion partition. I can't repair my Lion disk with Disk Utility, and I can't install Lion to a USB key (something I have done many times before).
Seriously, keep away from rEFIt... IME it's a POS. YMMV.
Yes Scott, it works perfect. I have been struggling the last weeks to install rEFIt and the standard installation method did not work and the manual install by the terminal give me just one good EFI boot and the next time it was gone again. I followed your method by the letter and now it works every time. I even see my usb/firewire disk at (after) startup. Thank you very much for this simple method.
I have only one comment. I suppose that a lot of people like myself try to install EFI by rEFIt-0.14.dmg. That did not work with me. But doing this has the consequence that the rEFItBlesser will be installed also. This could be the problem. As you mentioned in your text to remove in the folder /Library/Startup Items/ the map -> rEFItBlesser (it was the only one in my case) is probably the solution.
In that case the only thing to do is:
remove rEFItBlesser in /libary/Startup Items/
Restart computer or shut down and open
Open Terminal
type:
cd /efi/refit
./enable.sh
fill in your (computer login) password....
exit
And it works.
I did not test this without the repairing disk and disk permissions with a install CD. I am so glad it works now finally.
MakkerM
hello, do I know if your install of refit works well on new macbook pro 2011 please? I'm afraid to broke my current install of os x lion.
cordially
cordially
I just recently installed refit myself using the provided installer package and what a disaster it's turned out to be for my late 2011 MBP with Lion.
Not only does the Refit menu not appear, but my system hangs at every second reboot; which can only be solved with a hard boot (forcefully powering off the system) - and that doesn't help in any way with the longevity of my MBP!
I now want to uninstall refit which requires that i either delete or rename the EFI folder. Except that I can't. Any attempt to either rename the folder or move it to the trash results in "Operating Cannot be Completed. An unknown error occurred" after keying in my account password.
Great! So not only is refit royally screwing up my OSX partition, but I can't even uninstall it!
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Not only does the Refit menu not appear, but my system hangs at every second reboot; which can only be solved with a hard boot (forcefully powering off the system) - and that doesn't help in any way with the longevity of my MBP!
I now want to uninstall refit which requires that i either delete or rename the EFI folder. Except that I can't. Any attempt to either rename the folder or move it to the trash results in "Operating Cannot be Completed. An unknown error occurred" after keying in my account password.
Great! So not only is refit royally screwing up my OSX partition, but I can't even uninstall it!
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Yes Refit is working for us with Lion 10.7.2 and Windows 7 SP1. I installed it performed 2 reboots then ran the command:
sudo /efi/refit/enable-always.sh
Refit appears to be stable and a good solution for us since bootpicker has ended support. We will use in our labs this week. Thanks!
sudo /efi/refit/enable-always.sh
Refit appears to be stable and a good solution for us since bootpicker has ended support. We will use in our labs this week. Thanks!
It seems to have broke with 10.7.3
I have tried everything and it just won't work. If anyone has any suggestions/solutions, please chime in here... thanks
Same here!
I can't get it work on my MBP with Mac OS X 10.7.3. After the installation, the rEFIT menu didn't appear at startup and after the second reboot I wasn't able to boot to Mac OS X!
I had to start from the recovery partition and run the disk utility to "repair" the disk. After that it was possible to boot Mac OS X again (but still without any appearance of the rEFIT menu).
All the methods from above didn't work!!
Does someone has a solution for that???
I've got rEFIt to work with 10.7.3. I'm multibooting with Ubuntu at the moment. My receipe is given below. You need to install rEFIT manually. Otherwise it won't work.
Disclaimer: Use the following instructions at your own risk. I'm not responsible if you lose any data or if something goes wrong with your Mac. A backup is strongly recommended before starting. These are not step by step instructions which you can follow blindly. You will need to adapt this method to suit your particular configuration. I suggest you read thru the instructions from A to Z before deciding if you want to try this or not. I have a Mac Mini 2009 edition. I only tested this with Ubuntu 11.10 and have no idea whether it will work with Windows or not.
Preliminary Note: there is a bug in the Disk Utility program shipped with some versions of Lion which prevents partitions from being resized properly. The method given below requires Disk Utility version 12.1 rev 348 (or higher). This can be obtained by creating a bootable drive using these instructions (from MacWorld):
http://www.macworld.com/article/161069/2011/07/make_a_bootable_lion_installer.html
A manual method to get rEFIt working with 10.7.3
To install Linux, I decided not to use Boot Camp. Instead, I shrunk my existing OSX partition using Disk Utility. With the disk space gained, I created a Linux partition and a small Refit partition.
After repartitionning my disk with the Lion bootable thumb drive (made using the link given above), I ended up with this:
I installed rEFIt manually on the small partition I created above (disk0s5), following the instructions provided on the rEFIt web site. Basically you need to copy the rEFIt folder onto the desired partition and then run ./enable.sh in that folder:
Because I installed rEFIt on a separate partition, it was necessary for me to bless that partition like this:
After I had done all this, I rebooted and saw the rEFIt menu. Then I installed Linux onto the paritition I created specifically for that (disk0s6). Note/edit: when you install your OS, make sure you don't overwrite your MBR. With Ubuntu there's an option to install the boot loader on your partition (rather than over the MBR), but in Windows I'm not really sure how that works. Proceed with caution... In Linux I installed the boot loader on /dev/sda6 (my partition) rather than on /dev/sda (the MBR) as shown below.
![]()
How to disable rEFIt using this method
To disable refit and have my Mac boot normally, all I need to do is to "move the blessing" from disk0s5 (my rEFIt partition) to disk0s2 (my regular Mac partition). This is done with these two commands:
Disclaimer: Use the following instructions at your own risk. I'm not responsible if you lose any data or if something goes wrong with your Mac. A backup is strongly recommended before starting. These are not step by step instructions which you can follow blindly. You will need to adapt this method to suit your particular configuration. I suggest you read thru the instructions from A to Z before deciding if you want to try this or not. I have a Mac Mini 2009 edition. I only tested this with Ubuntu 11.10 and have no idea whether it will work with Windows or not.
Preliminary Note: there is a bug in the Disk Utility program shipped with some versions of Lion which prevents partitions from being resized properly. The method given below requires Disk Utility version 12.1 rev 348 (or higher). This can be obtained by creating a bootable drive using these instructions (from MacWorld):
http://www.macworld.com/article/161069/2011/07/make_a_bootable_lion_installer.html
A manual method to get rEFIt working with 10.7.3
To install Linux, I decided not to use Boot Camp. Instead, I shrunk my existing OSX partition using Disk Utility. With the disk space gained, I created a Linux partition and a small Refit partition.
After repartitionning my disk with the Lion bootable thumb drive (made using the link given above), I ended up with this:
Code:
diskutil list /dev/disk0
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *320.1 GB disk0
1: EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1
[COLOR="Red"] 2: Apple_HFS Macintosh HD 265.6 GB disk0s2[/COLOR]
3: Apple_Boot Recovery HD 650.0 MB disk0s3
[COLOR="Purple"] 4: Apple_HFS rEFIt 939.5 MB disk0s5[/COLOR]
[COLOR="DarkGreen"] 5: EFI 52.4 GB disk0s6[/COLOR]
[COLOR="Red"]Red = Mac paritition[/COLOR]
[COLOR="Purple"]Purple = rEFIt partition[/COLOR]
[COLOR="DarkGreen"]Green = Linux partition[/COLOR]
All other partitions = danger don't touch !I installed rEFIt manually on the small partition I created above (disk0s5), following the instructions provided on the rEFIt web site. Basically you need to copy the rEFIt folder onto the desired partition and then run ./enable.sh in that folder:
Code:
cd /Volumes/rEFIt/efi/refit
sudo ./enable.shBecause I installed rEFIt on a separate partition, it was necessary for me to bless that partition like this:
Code:
sudo bless –device /dev/disk0s5 –setBootAfter I had done all this, I rebooted and saw the rEFIt menu. Then I installed Linux onto the paritition I created specifically for that (disk0s6). Note/edit: when you install your OS, make sure you don't overwrite your MBR. With Ubuntu there's an option to install the boot loader on your partition (rather than over the MBR), but in Windows I'm not really sure how that works. Proceed with caution... In Linux I installed the boot loader on /dev/sda6 (my partition) rather than on /dev/sda (the MBR) as shown below.
How to disable rEFIt using this method
To disable refit and have my Mac boot normally, all I need to do is to "move the blessing" from disk0s5 (my rEFIt partition) to disk0s2 (my regular Mac partition). This is done with these two commands:
Code:
sudo bless -folder /System/Library/CoreServices/
sudo bless -device /dev/disk0s2 -setBoot
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Disk Utility 12.1 rev 346 came with my Lion install and it has a bug: you can't resize partitions properly. The reason I created the bootable thumb drive was to get Disk Utility 12.1 rev 348 (which doesn't have the bug).
Getting rEFIt installed is actually the easy part. It's when you install your OS that things get tricky because you have to make sure you don't overwrite the MBR. With Unbuntu I had the option to install the boot loader on the newly created partition (and not overwrite the MBR). With Windows, I imagine you can do the same, but I'm not sure how. So a good backup is definitely needed...
Most Helpful \ Least Helpful \ Thoughts on rEFIt
I would like to nominate AirThis for the most helpful post...
and pier for least helpful...
I have installed rEFIt on no fewer than a dozen machines and although I don't completely understand the EFI boot chain, with the help of the author or these forums I always manage to get a beautiful interface that provides functionality I can't get anywhere else.
Christoph Pfisterer, the rEFIt author, is an excellent coder and a great person. When the first Macbook Air was released I sent him some reports from my machine and he built a new verision of rEFIt without even seeing a Macbook Air.
Yeah, I would love to have a utility to install and configure rEFIt as a general purpose UEFI multiboot tool without MBR support, maybe even one that manages partitions, but I am not going to disparage anyone's genuine efforts in this forum.
I would like to nominate AirThis for the most helpful post...
and pier for least helpful...
I have installed rEFIt on no fewer than a dozen machines and although I don't completely understand the EFI boot chain, with the help of the author or these forums I always manage to get a beautiful interface that provides functionality I can't get anywhere else.
Christoph Pfisterer, the rEFIt author, is an excellent coder and a great person. When the first Macbook Air was released I sent him some reports from my machine and he built a new verision of rEFIt without even seeing a Macbook Air.
Yeah, I would love to have a utility to install and configure rEFIt as a general purpose UEFI multiboot tool without MBR support, maybe even one that manages partitions, but I am not going to disparage anyone's genuine efforts in this forum.
Windows 8 Preview you are able to install using it's UEFI Loader, i think it has to be install on separate partition. Or at least that the way i got install, i did not try any other way. You should follow this thread for UEFI on Mac's, check out the newer post.
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/696523/
To install Linux using EFI check these links out.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UEFIBooting
http://www.rodsbooks.com/ubuntu-efi/index.html
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/696523/
To install Linux using EFI check these links out.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UEFIBooting
http://www.rodsbooks.com/ubuntu-efi/index.html
It's possible to install Windows the normal way on a Mac.
If someone is interested in setting up a triple-boot Mac with Mac OS X 10.7, Windows 7 and Ubuntu 11.10 using rEFIt, I wrote a small how-to about it.
It's available here:
zefixblog.blogspot.com
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