Install rEFInd boot manager
Revision as of 18:38, 11 October 2014 by Aymeric Mansoux (talk | contribs)
Purpose
To install an alternative EFI boot manager on an Apple machine.
Details
The default EFI boot manager from Apple is very limited. This recipe will show you how to install rEFInd, a fork and successor of the now unmaintained rEFIt. With rEFInd you will be able to boot from different operating systems, located on different drives, including external storage, like you would expect from any EFI compliant system.
Step by Step recipe
- Boot into OS X (assuming an intel x64 architecture)
- Go there http://sourceforge.net/projects/refind/files/ and download the latest binary version of rEFInd, for instance refind-bin-0.8.3.zip
- Open terminal and type:
cd Downloads unzip refind-bin-0.8.3.zip sudo mkdir /Volumes/esp sudo mount -t msdos /dev/disk0s1 /Volumes/esp # adjust disk ID accordingly if system on external disk
- If /Volumes/esp/EFI is missing (likely if running a clean install), then create it:
sudo mkdir /Volumes/esp/EFI
- Copy rEFInd to the EFI partition:
sudo cp -rv refind-bin-0.8.3/refind /Volumes/esp/EFI/ # adjust path accordingly sudo rm -rf /Volumes/esp/EFI/refind/drivers_ia32 sudo rm /Volumes/esp/EFI/refind/refind_ia32.efi sudo mv /Volumes/esp/EFI/refind/refind.conf-sample /Volumes/esp/EFI/refind/refind.conf sudo bless --mount /Volumes/esp --setBoot --file /Volumes/esp/EFI/refind/refind_x64.efi
- Test your new boot manager: reboot and if all goes well the rEFInd menu should be visible