rEFInd boot menu gone after updating Mac OS in a dual boot with Ubuntu

I have a dual boot - Ubuntu 16.04 in my Macbook Pro. I updated my macOS from Yosemite to Big Sur and the rEFInd boot menu is gone. So, I am not able to login to my Ubuntu, where I have all my files. Many blogs ask me to reinstall rEFInd, which requires booting to macOS recovery mode to disable SIP. But, I do not have the firmware password to do so. Is it possible to restore the boot menu any other way? Or, is there any way to access my Ubuntu files? Please help!

2 Answers

One possible solution would be to reinstall Yosemite. You can then bless rEFInd. There are different ways to accomplish this. Below are the steps to one such way. Basically, you will be making a image of a Yosemite install in a virtual machine. Next, you will restore Yosemite to a new partition on your internal drive.

1. Make sure File Sharing is enabled for Big Sur. See the Sharing pane of the System Preferences application.

2. Download Yosemite from the Apple website How to get old versions of macOS. The file InstallMacOSX.dmg should download your Downloads folder.

3. Open the InstallMacOSX.dmg file and install the Install OS X Yosemite application to the Applications folder.

4. Download VMware Fusion Player. This is a free product.

5. Install VMware Fusion Player

6. Install Yosemite in a virtual machine. Open the VMware Fusion application and create a new virtual machine. Drag and drop the Install OS X Yosemite application from the Applications folder to the VMware Fusion application window shown below.

   Complete the installation of Yosemite.

7. Once booted to Yosemite, open the Disk Utility application and create a second partition. The new partition should to be at least 8 GB in size. Below is what I chose.

   When finished, quit the Disk Utility application.

8. Open a Terminal application window and enter the command shown below.

   diskutil rename disk0s2 MyYosemite
   sudo nvram "recovery-boot-mode=unused"

9. Close all Finder application windows, quit all applications and restart the virtual machine. The machine will boot to OS X Recovery.

10. Open the Disk Utility application and highlight the MyYosemite volume. Select New Image and enter the following in the popup window, then select the Save button.

    When finished, highlight the MyYosemite.dmg file, then select Images> Scan Image for Restore from the menu bar. When finish, restart the virtual machine. The machine will boot to Yosemite.

11. Connect to the Big Sur host and transfer the MyYosemite.dmg file from the MyBackup volume to your Downloads folder on the host.

12. Close all Finder application windows, quit all applications and shutdown the virtual machine.

13. If necessary, delete the virtual machine to make more space available.

14. Quit the VMware Fusion application.

15. Download the latest rEFInd. Currently this is version 0.12.0. The refind-bin-0.12.0 folder should be created in your Downloads folder.

16. Open a Terminal application window and enter the command below. Basically, the APFS container is being shrunk by 25 GB to make a new partition for the Yosemite volume.

    diskutil apfs resizecontainer disk0s2 140.8G jhfs+ NewVolume 0

    Next, enter the commands below to install the Yosemite volume in the new partition.

    cd ~/Downloads
    diskutil unmount disk0s3
    sudo asr restore --source MyYosemite.dmg --target /dev/disk0s3 --erase
    diskutil mount disk0s3

    Finally, enter the commands below to transfer the rEFInd download to the Yosemite volume.

    xattr -rd com.apple.quarantine refind-bin-0.12.0
    mv refind-bin-0.12.0 /Volumes/MyYosemite/Users/Shared

    When finished close all Finder application windows and quit all applications.

17. Select to restart to MyYosemite from the Startup Disk pane of the System Preferences application.

18. Once booted to Yosemite, either bless or reinstall rEFInd. If reinstalling, you might want to first backup the refind.conf file, although the rEFInd installer will probably rename the existing refind.conf file to refind.conf-sample.

    I believe reinstalling is the safer alternative.

    If rEFInd was installed using the default options, then the commands below will bless rEFInd.

    sudo diskutil mount disk0s1
    sudo bless --mount /Volumes/EFI --setBoot --file /Volumes/EFI/EFI/refind/refind_x64.efi --shortform
    diskutil unmount disk0s1

    The command below will reinstall rEFInd using the default options.

    sudo /Users/Shared/refind-bin-0.12.0

If you have any questions, post a comment.

I'm not sure if the lack of firmware password will stop you booting from a Ubuntu USB stick. If you can boot with a Ubuntu disk, you should be able to get around the Mac SIP securite by using the efibootmgr command to list out the efi boot option and then set the refind as the default option.