Clover Boot Linux

[Hildegard Lobach]

Extractthe archive Clover-*-X64.iso.7z and find the Clover-*-X64.iso file, mount it to a directory like /mnt/iso. It should be noted all file/folder names will be displayed in lower case in Linux, which is different from Windows and Mac OS.

For the meaning of each key, please reference their wiki for custom entries. The key Volume should be the PARTUUID of the EFI system partition and must be in uppercase. The minimal initramfs initramfs-linux.img in Argumentsand the Linux kernel executable vmlinuz-linux in Path are relative to the EFI system partition. Backslashes should be used in accordance with EFI standards. For other arguments in Arguments, please reference EFISTUB and Kernel parameters#Parameter list.

If you need a bootloader for BIOS systems that follows The Boot Loader Specification, then systemd-boot can be pressed into service on BIOS systems. This is the configuration file needed make Clover chainload systemd-boot.

I am triple booting on my new laptop with Windows 10, Ubuntu, and Kali. I wanted to put a nice bootloader on it, so I installed Clover. Clover boots up fine, it has the top priority over the other UEFI bootloaders, everything's fine there. My issue is that Clover is only displaying Windows system drives, like WINRETOOLS, ESP, and some other random drives. All three OS's are installed on a single 1TB drive, and I can currently boot to all of them directly through the default UEFI menu.

So my question is, can I edit the entries being displayed in Clover, maybe remove them all and add only my three operating system's EFI paths manually? I think that Clover Configurator can do something like this, but it's only for OSX...

All Clover Configurator does is mount the EFI partition, and give user-friendly way of editing the config.plist (an OS X properties list file) located in clover. Generally clover is used only for OS X, since well, as far as I'm aware it was created specifically with Hackintoshes in mind.

select partition x (x for the clover partition- for me, the clover partition was 200MB. For some, it's 100MB. The title is usually "Unknown", but if you see none of this, you probably chose the wrong drive.)

To access the config.plist file, you want to head to EFI/EFI/CLOVER/config.plist - right click the file in Task Manager, and select whatever rich text editor you use. You can save the file by saving it to the desktop, deleting the file in the EFI partition (I suggest making a backup by doing the same thing- open it in Wordpad or something, and save the unedited copy to the desktop or something) and copying the edited file by right clicking, clicking copy, and right clicking and clicking paste in the EFI partition. You can't drag files over. A large portion of it is going to be related to Mac OS X and Hackintoshes, but you can ignore all of this.

I would like to dualboot Hackintosh/Arch Linux and use the Clover Bootloader. Currently I have an installation of Clover from my Hackintosh installation that boots macOS fine, but doesn't work for Arch. I googled around but did not find a solution that works (so far). Has anyone managed to do this? Any help is greatly appreciated.

So I followed the wiki, adjusted the clover config.plist with the correct UUID and put initramfs-linux.img as well as vmlinuz-linux in the correct place. The Arch Linux entry now appears in Clover, but upon boot I run into a kernel panic. One complaint is

This has been a slightly longer post, but I hope it is useful. The steps involved can take a while, but they are quite simple to follow. As always, if you need me to clarify anything, let me know in the comments.

Hey Hamish,

Thanks for the wonderful guide. I am currently stuck on the step of adding the .efi driver to the USB. Once I use Rufus to install the image of refind on my USB my windows 10 no longer recognizes the USB stick.

I think this can be resolved by either using the Windows Command Prompt, or using a Linux live disk. Are you comfortable with either of these options? If it comes to it, I could just upload an image of my USB stick that has the driver pre-installed.

Thanks for such a quick response! I have a basic understanding of Linux terminal. If you have an image of your USB stick that you can upload that would be amazing for me and it might also help other people that follow your guide in the future.

Hi- the title and contents of this post suggest that you are using rEFInd, yet the file paths you give are for the Clover bootloader, and the .img file seems to only contain Clover bootloader-related files. Am I crazy, or does this not have anything to do with rEFInd?

Thank you so much for such an informative post. I have cloned my Win 10 OS to an NVMe drive but my older computer can only see the drive as storage.

I tried to go the easy route that you included in your post and tried to download your file:

I left a reply earlier but it seems to have been deleted.

I followed your instruction for a Win 10 USB Clover boot disk, but no matter what I do I get no result.

My motherboard is an ASUS A88X Pro with an AMD A10 780K Processor. I have installed a WD Black SN750 1TB.

I downloaded your file: and followed your instruction, but not having any luck.

PS: if you were to supply this setup on a USB disk for Win 10 I would gladly pay for it. I have spent all day today trying to create the USB boot drive to be able to boot the NVMe which I have cloned my Win 10 OS onto.

When you have t waste that amount of time you have to consider it it is really worth the trouble.

I would have loved to have got this to work. Do you have any suggestions that may help.

One reason for this is that the USB method is a little fragile, meaning that if my kids leave their USB headphones or another thumb drive plugged in then it often stops the computer from booting up and I have to be there to troubleshoot.

Dear sir,

I have Linux loaded on a M2 and in adapter in PCIe slot. When clover boot screen comes up, I see see a picture of a hard drive and Boot Linux from Whole Disk Boot. The hard drive is highlighted and I push enter and the screen flashes and nothing happens.The Linux drive will work from a USB M2 holder.Appreciate any help, Dennis

Hello Hamish,

It is a Asus Z87-A. The Linux version is Manjaro Xfce 64bit with a Twister for PC loaded on top[Twister is used on Pi4]. And I have tried rEFind and did the same thing. Any further help would much appreciated, Dennis

What error or symptom do you have? Does the Windows installer tell you that no drives are detected? Please note that you will probably need to boot the Windows installer from Clover as well for it to know that the PC can boot from that drive, and offer to install on it.

Curious what firmware you have on your HP 800 G1. I have one too and I can install Linux on the M.2 drive however it is not available to boot no matter what settings I choose in the bios and use Clover or Refind. The drive never shows up.

I had difficulties installing Clover to boot on an NVMe SSD I installed on a 2008 Gigabyte MB. But I finally succeeded ! I created the Clover USB key using Boot Disk Utility v.023 and Clover v.4961. Nothing else worked for me.

Mr Hamish Mcintire-Bhatty,

Please tell me if the mainboard configuration GA B75M D3H, CPU INTEL G840 can boot from a PCIe slot with AXAGON COMPACT PCEM2-1U adapter and SSD M2 SPG256 after the changes in the article or other methods.

THANK YOU

CONSTANTIN BAZ

Would love to boot from my NVME SSD. I used AOMEI Back Upper to disk clone my sata SSD to my new NVME SSD. Last month I used AOMEI Back Upper to disk clone my windows 10 mechanical sata drive to my sata SSD. Been using the sata SSD about a month. I love the zippiness of the sata SSD & hope to get further improvement by making the new NVME SSD my bootable drive.

Though I double-checked the download, it appears to be good, it appears that the refind picture is faulty. Are there any instructions I may follow to include the NVMe driver in the refind image?

Chris

Since I have no experience whatsoever of making partitions in solid state drives, nor with the latest GPT, GUID, etc formats that I have currently been reading about. Things have changed from creating a Primary partition and an extended partition with several partitions within it and I feel confused, hesitant to format the Kioxia drive I have now installed.

Later when I am ready to to proceed to additional Linux installation, I assume that Ubuntu will take care of file format as it is installed, If I remember well Ubuntu / Linux requires a swap partition which it creates on installation and Win 7 will require an NTFS formatted partition.

I would appreciate your thoughts on this and perhaps point out any pitfalls I might encounter.

I have been reading up on all this stuff now for the last month and it seems that every time I try to research something, another link appears pointing out yet something else I need to take into consideration. ???

Happy to report that this guide is working perfectly, the only thing I would add somewhere is to specify clearly that in order for the stick to be detected at boot is to disable Secure Boot from BIOS.

Back to disabling Secure Boot, it might not be an issue for most people, but with Windows 11 demanding more and more secured environments, especially if you plan to join your device to the work environment (Entra or Azure AD for example), this might become an issue.

Just trying to find any machine I can get that will support the true speeds of NVME Gen4 i.e 7400 ish MBP/s. I have alot of machines running on VMWorkstation and want a quikc machine ? Any ideas ? Thanks,

My PC currently has Windows 10 and Mac installed on separate hard drives with Clover bootloader managing the boot process. I've recently purchased a third hard drive to install Ubuntu onto it; however, I'm unsure what the best way is to proceed considering tutorials and threads for dual boot systems are far more common than triple boot systems with my configuration.

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