by Roderick W. Smith, rodsmith@rodsbooks.com
Originally written: 3/14/2012; last Web page update: 4/17/2012, referencing rEFInd 0.2.6
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This page is part of the documentation for the rEFInd boot manager. If a Web search has brought you here, you may want to start at the main page.
Once you've uncompressed a rEFInd binary zip file, you can copy the entire refind directory into your EFI System Partition's (ESP's) EFI directory on UEFI-based PCs, so that rEFInd resides in EFI/refind. If you've tried rEFInd using a CD-R image file, you can copy the files from the EFI/refind directory on the CD to create an equivalent directory on the ESP. To avoid confusion, though, you should delete the rEFInd binary file for the CPU type your computer does not use. To the best of my knowledge, all UEFI-based PCs use 64-bit CPUs, so you should keep the refind_x64.efi binary and delete the refind_ia32.efi binary. Most Intel-based Macs also have 64-bit EFI implementations, so you should do the same thing; but very early Intel-based Macs have 32-bit EFIs (and sometimes 32-bit CPUs), which require the refind_ia32.efi file. You can determine whether your Mac needs the x86-64 or IA32 build by typing the following command in a Mac Terminal window:
$ ioreg -l -p IODeviceTree | grep firmware-abi
The result should read either EFI32 or EFI64, indicating that you should use the refind_ia32.efi or refind_x64.efi binary, respectively.
Of course, before you can install the files, you must be able to access the ESP. The details of this task vary from one OS to another. If you have a choice, I recommend using Linux for rEFInd installation on UEFI PCs and OS X on Macs. (On Macs, you can optionally use OS X's main partition rather than the ESP for this purpose.) Windows provides relatively primitive tools for accessing the ESP and manipulating the EFI's boot list. I also describe some options for naming rEFInd that may be useful on some systems. Finally, I describe how to install some extra tools that you may find useful but that are not included with rEFInd.
Accessing the ESP is easiest from Linux: The ESP is usually mounted at /boot/efi. You can verify that this is the case by using the df command:
$ df /boot/efi Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on /dev/sda1 191284 16604 174681 9% /boot/efi
This example shows that /dev/sda1 is mounted at /boot/efi, which is a typical configuration. (The ESP can be on another disk or partition, but /dev/sda1 is the most common place for an ESP.) If your output shows /boot or / under the Mounted on column, then your ESP isn't mounted. If you get a df: `/boot/efi': No such file or directory error message, then the /boot/efi directory doesn't even exist. In such cases, you may need to jump through some extra hoops, as described on my EFI Boot Loader Installation page.
Assuming the ESP is mounted at /boot/efi, you can install the rEFInd files as follows (you must be root to issue these commands, or precede each of them with sudo):
Note the use of doubled-up backslashes (\\) rather than forward slashes (/) in the directory separators when using efibootmgr. This command will work on most systems that are already booted into EFI mode; however, it won't work if you're booted in BIOS mode. You may also need to add options if your ESP is in some unusual location or if your system is unusual in some way. Consult the efibootmgr man page if you need help.
On some systems, efibootmgr won't do what you expect. On such systems, you may have better luck renaming the rEFInd files, as described in the Alternative Naming Options section.
The procedure for installing rEFInd on a Mac is similar to that for installing it under Linux, except that you can (and probably should) install it to the OS X's system directory or some other HFS+ partition rather than to the ESP, and you must use the bless utility rather than efibootmgr. To be precise, you should follow these steps:
When you reboot, your Mac should bring up the rEFInd menu, and should continue to do so thereafter. If you make changes that break this association, you can re-run the bless command (if necessary, restoring the rEFInd files first). This might be necessary after installing system updates from Apple or if you upgrade rEFInd to a newer version.
If you're replacing rEFIt, you may discover that rEFInd works on the first boot, but the system reverts back to rEFIt or a direct boot to OS X on the second boot. To fix this problem, you can remove the rEFItBlesser program, which is located at /Library/StartupItems/rEFItBlesser. This program attempts to keep rEFIt set as the default boot loader, but it also has the purpose of protecting the computer from launching the wrong OS after waking from sleep. If you want that protection, my suggestion is to install rEFIt and rEFItBlesser and then replace the refit.efi file with refind_x64.efi or refind_ia32.efi (renaming it to refit.efi. Used in this way, rEFInd will still look for its own configuration file, refind.conf, so you'll need to move it but not rename it. If you don't move the icons from the rEFInd package, your icons will continue to look like rEFIt icons, and you'll be missing the new icons for specific Linux distributions that rEFInd provides.
If you want to remove rEFInd from your system, you can delete its files. The Mac will revert to booting using whatever standard boot loader it can find. Alternatively, you can use bless to bless another EFI boot loader. The GUI Startup Disk utility in System Preferences provides a simplified interface that enables you to select which OS X installation to boot, but it doesn't look for non-Apple boot loaders, so you can't use it to enable rEFInd.
To install rEFInd under Windows, you must first find a way to access the ESP, which Windows normally hides from view. One way to accomplish this goal, and to proceed forward once the ESP is accessible, is as follows:
At this point, when you reboot, rEFInd should appear as your new default boot program. One caveat: My only EFI Windows installation uses UEFI DUET, which "forgets" its boot options upon reboot. Thus, I'm unable to test the last two steps (which were provided by a helpful user) myself. If it doesn't work for you, you have several other options, such as:
Some EFI implementations do a poor job of honoring the boot options set via Linux's efibootmgr or other tools. You may also lack access to such utilities, such as if you must install rEFInd in Windows. In such cases, you may need to change the boot loader's name so that the EFI will see it as the default boot loader. rEFInd should then boot when your NVRAM lacks information on specific boot loaders to use. To do this, follow these steps:
When you reboot, rEFInd should come up. With any luck, it will detect your old boot loader as an option, if one was installed before.
rEFInd includes the ability to launch any EFI program; however, rEFInd detects only certain programs. These include boot loaders in traditional locations and a handful of other programs. To launch these other programs, you must download and install them separately from rEFInd:
I've seen links to other versions of these tools from time to time on the Web, so if you try one of these programs and it crashes or behaves strangely, try performing a Web search; you may turn up something that works better for you than the one to which I've linked.
copyright © 2012 by Roderick W. Smith
This document is licensed under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License (FDL), version 1.3.
If you have problems with or comments about this Web page, please e-mail me at rodsmith@rodsbooks.com. Thanks.
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