3 Cannot access boot utilities - greyed out EFI Boot - SOLVED!
OK, so I have a 2009 2.53Ghz MBP 5.5 from 2009.
I was all working fine with a dosdude Catalina patch until I decided to put a bigger SSD into it and to try to reinstall fresh. I erased the original SSD with the patched Catalina (A mistake for sure) and now All I get is a white screen and eventually a question mark folder. ALL boot recovery options are unavailable, nothing happens when I try to get any utilities such as Terminal or disk utility for example, and the EFI boot is greyed out. It only gives me an option to reinstall Catalina but if I click to install I get a no entry sign. I have reset PRAM and SMC numerous times but the same result persist. It cannot be the SATA cable (Swapped that over 2x) as the HDD can be heard spinning and is indeed recognized in the image attached below (Funny enough a SSD isn't recognized), I tried putting an SSD with Catalina already installed but that won't boot (Question folder). My only guess it the EFI has been corrupted or modified by the dosdude patcher, so HOW can I re-flash the EFI from the EFI Update for 2009 MBP file downloaded from Apple? This one has really got me! I don't have or can't seem to find what OS this originally came stock with) and more so a way to get it on USB to make a bootable (But my guess the same question folder will appear when tried).
Any help would be brill.
Update (02/21/24)
BRAINSTORM: Downloaded again the dosdude Patcher for Catalina.
Created a bootable patched Catalina USB
Plugged in the new SSD internally & the USB externally as you do.....
Booted with Option key and the EFI boot was functional and installation was a success!
Set up with exactly the same user name and password.... Bingo.
Conclusion.... Indeed the EFI was tweaked and cannot recognize any changes to hardware as I initially thought, pity I didn't do this before hand, I killed 3 days trying everything 10x.... Never give up :)
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Oh, the cable now has some electrical tape protection on the top and bottom side of the case where it could make contact.... no change.
livfe 의
I have also tried formatting to APFS and Journaled - no chang.
Installing Catalina via another Macbook - No change.
Using an SSD with an Installed Cataliana externally - No option to boot from it.
livfe 의
@livfe - Hey! I love working with EFI systems. I am glad to hear that you figured out what the problem was.
Now, if you are interested, there is a way to use dosdude1's patcher alongside OpenCore. I have played with the two of them, and I have found out that OpenCore is way more stable and secure. If you wanted, I would suggest you try installing OpenCore onto your Mac's EFI partition, and boot from OpenCore. You still need to root patch with the dosdude1 patcher.
Just a suggestion, it is not required. I would just personally use OpenCore over any other patcher.
Jadon 의
@jadonlyon Hi, thanks for the info, IF there was a way that I could start again and use just open core then I would try that, it was a flip of a coin, dosdudes or open core... in hindsight open core would probably have been the better choice. I got it working again thats the main thing, next time I will use open core on another MBP.
livfe 의
@livfe - Of course! And, yes. As long as you got it working, that’s all the counts!
Jadon 의