EFI Boot

I have Boot Camp installed and it has always been working normal. But today, I shut down Windows (XP) and I wanted to boot Snow Leopard again. Usually I have the option to choose between 'Mac' or 'Windows'. However, 'Mac' was now called 'EFI Boot'. And to make things even worse, when I clicked on it, a gray loading bar appeared at the bottom of the bootscreen. After it fully loaded, a blueish screen appeared with only my 'Gmail manager' icon at the top and NOTHING else! So, I'm a panicking quite a bit now.. Could anyone tell me what to do please, it'd be very much appreciated.

My system is a mbp (early 2008) and runs the latest version of SL.

UPDATE:
So I launched in EFI boot mode. Somehow, quicksilver did work and I managed to launch firefox, system preferences and a few other programs. However two things struck me as unusual. There's no finder. (when I click on the apple top-left and select force quit, there's no Finder)
Secondly, the system thinks my hard drive is full. When I try to download, install or even open a word file, I get the following warning message: "There is not enough room on the disk to save.." etc.

Are you using any kind of boot menu or boot loader software? Or do you hold down the "Option" key and then choose which OS to boot? I ask because you said that usually you have the option to choose between Mac or Windows.

Regards.

I hold down the option key, that's when I can choose between Mac or Windows.
See my post for new information. Your help is much appreciated.

I've never seen that one before, usually, it just won't boot. Have you been keeping up with backups? Time Machine? Because it looks like you've got a corrupt Snow Leopard install (files, folders) or the hard drive is acting up.

Boot the machine with your Snow Leopard DVD. After it boots, select Utilities from the top menu. Then select Disk Utilities. Run a verify and repair on the hard drive. Also repair permissions.

Post back the results.

Regards.

Hmm.. you can try that but I don't think that's the issue. I simply think you have the wrong directory blessed blessed. Open system preferences and select Mac as the startup disk. Reboot, don't hold down option and let us know what happens.

If that works then reboot and hold down option and let us know what happens.

I suspect that might not do much so if it doesn't we're going to have to do some stuff with 'bless'. If you're familiar with the command line you can start to familiarize yourself with bless by reading it's man page.

type "bless --info" (no quotes) into terminal and let us know what it says. also do a "bless --getboot" and let us know. We can work from there.

However, it would be really nice if simply repairing the disk fixes it (=

A little update.
I was able to backup my drive through Time Machine. When that was done, I booted from my SL dvd. I tried to repair the drive, but it gave an error. So I just formatted the drive then and did a clean SL install. After that I copied the files I needed from the Time Machine backup via Finder. I hope this won't happen to me again.

Sennec said:

A little update.
I was able to backup my drive through Time Machine. When that was done, I booted from my SL dvd. I tried to repair the drive, but it gave an error. So I just formatted the drive then and did a clean SL install. After that I copied the files I needed from the Time Machine backup via Finder. I hope this won't happen to me again.

Click to expand...

^^Probably the quickest fix (= Although, I was looking forward to working though/solving this one.

EFI? Do you also have a Hackintosh? I know that was a bootloader program I used when making my mini9 run 10.5 You may have accidently installed on your actual mac.

tropic said:

EFI? Do you also have a Hackintosh? I know that was a bootloader program I used when making my mini9 run 10.5 You may have accidently installed on your actual mac.

Click to expand...

EFI is the preOS environment all Macs use. It's superior to a BIOS/MBR configuration because the EFI environment can be modified on the fly by the OS. It was developed by Intel in the 90s I believe. It is NOT native to Hackintosh.

similar problem

Hello,

I've read all the posts on this topic but so far it does not help me...
I have a MacBook Pro, late 2006, that i used with OS X Tiger and Win XP. Several days ago, without any warning it restarted by itself and couldn't boot. Holding the option key during startup, instead of choosing between Macintosh HD and Windows, the options were EFI Boot and Windows. Choosing any of those two, my mac froze.

I booted my mac in Target mode using another mac and i was able to acces my HDD and save all the data. I checked the disk with disk utility...it was ok. Resetting the PRAM had no efect. I tried booting from an install disk...it freezes. I formated the disk via target mode, making a second partition, bootable...same result. I checked the memory chips. I have two, without any the led bliks (normal response for lack of memory), with one of the two chips or both i get the same result...

Does anyone have any clue what i'm dealing with? and, hopefully, an idea how to solve it?

eagle29 said:

Hello,

I've read all the posts on this topic but so far it does not help me...
I have a MacBook Pro, late 2006, that i used with OS X Tiger and Win XP. Several days ago, without any warning it restarted by itself and couldn't boot. Holding the option key during startup, instead of choosing between Macintosh HD and Windows, the options were EFI Boot and Windows. Choosing any of those two, my mac froze.

I booted my mac in Target mode using another mac and i was able to acces my HDD and save all the data. I checked the disk with disk utility...it was ok. Resetting the PRAM had no efect. I tried booting from an install disk...it freezes. I formated the disk via target mode, making a second partition, bootable...same result. I checked the memory chips. I have two, without any the led bliks (normal response for lack of memory), with one of the two chips or both i get the same result...

Does anyone have any clue what i'm dealing with? and, hopefully, an idea how to solve it?

Click to expand...

This is much closer to what I'm experiencing on my 2009 MacBook Pro. It's similar to the OP's issue, but I'm not sure if they're the same or different issues.

My original OS was getting bad, so I formatted and installed a new image on the drive. I was unable to boot from the optical drive or via bootable FW drive. I ended up doing it from another Mac via Target mode. Now when I boot with Option, I get EFI Boot as the volume name, but it freezes when I attempt to boot.

same problem

I had the same issue TWICE with dual-boot on mac: using windows then switching to max = EFI boot replacing MAC HD (though I can still boot on windows)

Apparently, the only solution is brutal formatting or Time Machine.

Does anyone else have a shorter solution or knows the root of the problem?
(mac developers?)

...I would gladly PAY for it because I need to work on windows too.

anyone?

Have you guys (eagle29, sprale, and stanley2010) tried dcow's suggestions in post #5 above? i.e.

Open system preferences and select Mac as the startup disk. Reboot, don't hold down option and let us know what happens.

If that works then reboot and hold down option and let us know what happens.

I suspect that might not do much so if it doesn't we're going to have to do some stuff with 'bless'. If you're familiar with the command line you can start to familiarize yourself with bless by reading it's man page.

type "bless --info" (no quotes) into terminal and let us know what it says. also do a "bless --getboot" and let us know. We can work from there.

Click to expand...

sprale said:

This is much closer to what I'm experiencing on my 2009 MacBook Pro. It's similar to the OP's issue, but I'm not sure if they're the same or different issues.

My original OS was getting bad, so I formatted and installed a new image on the drive. I was unable to boot from the optical drive or via bootable FW drive. I ended up doing it from another Mac via Target mode. Now when I boot with Option, I get EFI Boot as the volume name, but it freezes when I attempt to boot.

Click to expand...

A quick Google search reveals:

Boot Options Change To ‘efi Boot’ In Mac

Apple - Support - Discussions - EFI Boot Bug - Disk Warrior 4.2 ...

Boot drive options change to include 'EFI Boot' | MacFixIt - CNET Reviews