Suddenly won't boot without usb stick

RyzeCooker

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Hi, I am scratching my head with an odd problem: I wanted to try the Bluetooth-injector kext, added it to my folder on the usb stick, added it to config.plist (on the usb stick) to do a dry run before adding it to the actual boot EFI.

So far so good. However, when I rebooted, removed the usb drive to boot from the SSD, it suddenly went to Windows. It can't find the OpenCore boot AT ALL. I need to boot from the usb stick (which then correctly shows the OpenCore boot with Macintosh SSD as default and Recovery 10.15.6) and the OS then boots fine. I cannot however get it to boot without first using the usb stick all of a sudden.

Thinking maybe some files were damaged I added all the OpenCore essentials to the EFI folder on the SSD from a new download, but without the usb stick present, my bios will only find and boot to Windows.

I'm kinda out of ideas what could have caused this (I only added the one kext which was not the problem during boot but have since removed to be sure) and I'm obviously eager to get my system back to booting without the aid of the usb stick. Have set the Startup Disk in macOS (only one option) but that doesn't change anything.

So, kinda stumped. Any ideas what I could/should try? I am thinking about a reinstall but would rather not use that nuclear option.
 

Aluveitie

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Did you check the boot order in BIOS?
 

RyzeCooker

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Yes, checked bios settings, but doesn't see OpenCare as a bootable option at the moment. On startup without a stick I just see Windows Boot Manager. Rebuilt my EFI from ground up just in case, no change.

I came across posts from people who have Linux/Windows dual boot setup. Windows is apparently pretty sloppy when it does some updates - and it can seriously interfere with boot priorities and so on.

The partition is fine, I can boot from it fine using the stick... but it's somehow lost the bootable flag and I have no clue how to fix that at the moment. Windows sees it, a program called EasyUEFI saw the partition 'OpenCore' and said it was hidden. Sadly it was a trial that wanted 30 euros for the privilege to set it bootable again. :cautious:

For now I'm using the stick.
 

RyzeCooker

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While trying to troubleshoot this problem, I came across an old(ish) Clover issue that sounded similar. Documenting it here should someone run into the same issues. The advice was to navigate to

/EFI/Microsoft/Boot

and rename bootmgfw.efi to bootmwfw-orig.efi thereby forcing Windows to 'give up it's hold', so to speak. And whaddayaknow, OpenCore boots from the SSD again. However, I now no longer have Windows as a boot option in either the OpenCore menu or directly through the bios boot menu... but that is something I'll look into tomorrow.

At least it's fixable. And Microsoft should do better.
 

rx3700

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I had a pretty hard time setting up dual boot without WIndows taking over as boot manager when I first setup my system, too. I finally did so by physically removing the Windows drive until OpenCore was setup correctly, but it took me hours and multiple attempts to get it right. Kinda tricky, but I can confirm: its definetly Windows who is doing the damage. Always good to have it on a seperate hdd for that reason alone.
 

RyzeCooker

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Weird thing is, they are on two separate drives. In the end I got it working again, but only after booting with a live usb stick of Ubuntu, resizing the Windows drive, deleting and recreating (!) the Windows EFI partition and imaging it with the repair options of Windows 10, using the command line. Any automatic repairs are doomed to fail it seems - I have never heard anyone who restored their Windows 10 boot with Automatic Repair.

I'm mildly optimistic it will stick this time around, next time there's a major update. I was so relieved to not have to reinstall and redownload all my Steam and Epic games (easy 150 gigs I think). :)
 
Last edited:

H4L9000

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Typical Microsoft Micky Mouse show going on - that's why I fully switched to macOS years ago.
They don't think it's your machine and ask you before they change such settings, it just happens.
The Linux guys have been fighting with that for years but no change from MS.
 

RyzeCooker

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Yeah, amazing! When I was researching how to fix it, I came across countless posts of people dualbooting with Linux who had their boot configs b0rked. That monopolist streak whatdoyoumeanpeoplewanttorunothersystems is hard to stamp out...
 

Vye

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Hello mates I have an Intel 3rd gen Ivy Bridge CPU with a ASRock H61m-S1 plus motherboard...I had the same issue Because My motherboard BIOS is dumb so it won't recognize the EFi in my HDD so I a Reddit Post which helped me to make a boot Entry for OpenCore....If some have this issue You can try this hope this helps someone in future...

I know this a AMD OS X Forum....But that solved my issue...Happy to share this Solution And Hope this helps...
 
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