Problem blessing rEFInd

[Robin Perkins]

I'm having a few issues with blessing rEFInd. I have previously (not 100% working) installed Windows 8 and Mac OS X 10.8, with Windows 8 having set itself as the default. I have been pushing 'option' to boot into OS X. I have installed rEFInd 0.6.0 and rebooted but it didn't seem to work - it still boots Windows by default. I also attempted to manually bless it using 'sudo bless --mount /Volumes/esp --setBoot --file /Volumes/esp/EFI/refind/refind_x64.efi'- same result. Am I missing something ?

I have checked using the commands (too scared to use bless --info):

nvram -p
...
efi-boot-device <array><dict><key>IOMatch</key><dict><key>IOProviderClass</key><string>IOMedia</string><key>IOPropertyMatch</key><dict><key>UUID</key><string>68B7111A-C3A5-4B98-B1A9-EC6539F6E62B</string></dict></dict><key>BLLastBSDName</key><string>disk0s1</string></dict><dict><key>IOEFIDevicePathType</key><string>MediaFilePath</string><key>Path</key><string>\EFI\refind\refind_x64.efi</string></dict></array>

diskutil info -plist 68B7111A-C3A5-4B98-B1A9-EC6539F6E62B
...
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN"         
"http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Bootable</key>
    <false/>
    <key>BusProtocol</key>
    <string>SATA</string>
    <key>CanBeMadeBootable</key>
    <false/>
    <key>CanBeMadeBootableRequiresDestroy</key>
    <false/>
    <key>Content</key>
    <string>EFI</string>
    <key>DeviceBlockSize</key>
    <integer>512</integer>
    <key>DeviceIdentifier</key>
    <string>disk0s1</string>
    <key>DeviceNode</key>
    <string>/dev/disk0s1</string>
    <key>DeviceTreePath</key>
    <string>IODeviceTree:/PCI0@0/SATA@B/PRT1@1/PMP@0</string>
    <key>Ejectable</key>
    <false/>
    <key>FreeSpace</key>
    <integer>0</integer>
    <key>GlobalPermissionsEnabled</key>
    <false/>
    <key>IOKitSize</key>
    <integer>268435456</integer>
    <key>Internal</key>
    <true/>
    <key>MediaName</key>
    <string>EFI system partition</string>
    <key>MediaType</key>
    <string>Generic</string>
    <key>MountPoint</key>
    <string></string>
    <key>ParentWholeDisk</key>
    <string>disk0</string>
    <key>RAIDMaster</key>
    <false/>
    <key>RAIDSlice</key>
    <false/>
    <key>SMARTStatus</key>
    <string>Verified</string>
    <key>SolidState</key>
    <true/>
    <key>SupportsGlobalPermissionsDisable</key>
    <false/>
    <key>SystemImage</key>
    <false/>
    <key>TotalSize</key>
    <integer>268435456</integer>
    <key>VolumeName</key>
    <string></string>
    <key>WholeDisk</key>
    <false/>
    <key>Writable</key>
    <true/>
    <key>WritableMedia</key>
    <true/>
    <key>WritableVolume</key>
    <false/>
</dict>
</plist>

[Roderick W. Smith]

I'm guessing you did an EFI-mode install of Windows 8. If so, it may have used its own equivalent of Linux's efibootmgr to install its boot loader, which may have done something that bless can't undo. I do have a few suggestions, but nothing I can promise will work:

• In OS X, open the Startup Disks item in System Preferences and see what it shows you. Try selecting OS X (or rEFInd, if it appears as an option, but I don't expect it to). If you then boot straight to OS X, you can proceed with using bless to set rEFInd as the default.
• Try installing rEFInd from Windows, as described in the rEFInd documentation. You may be able to forego some of the steps if you attempted to install rEFInd to the ESP. If you tried installing rEFInd to the OS X partition earlier, then be aware that the active rEFInd if this re-installation works will be on the ESP. You'll probably want to delete the copy in the OS X /EFI/refind directory to avoid a duplicate entry appearing in rEFInd. You should attempt this only if you're sure you've installed Windows in EFI mode; if you did a Boot Camp installation, this method won't work, and might render Windows unbootable.
• Try clearing your PRAM, as described here.
• Try moving the EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi file on the ESP down one level, so that it resides in EFI/Microsoft. The firmware then won't be able to find the Microsoft boot loader, and with any luck it will reset itself and launch OS X. This will have a chance of working only for an EFI-mode Windows installation.

I'd suggest trying these things in more-or-less the order listed, but you can deviate from that if you like.