netsurfer38 - 2021-10-10

Firstly much credit for this option must go to Reddit user "theranyx", below being a slightly modified version of his posting https://www.reddit.com/r/MacOSBeta/comments/jvze4l/refind_not_working_with_big_sur/

This should work whether one is using File Vault or not. To get Refind to be able to boot Big Sur you will need to update your refind.conf to point to the loader on the Preboot partition.

The easiest way to do this is to just run the Refind installer, which will not only resolve a boot coup but also mount the ESP volume. Don't forget that you need to disable SIP prior to doing this.

Open terminal and then mount the ESP volume with sudo mountesp

Open up the refind.conf found inside the ESP volume at /EFI/refind/refind.conf, I used TextEdit to open the file for editing.

Scroll down to the bottom of the configuration file for the menu entry for MacOS (which should usually be automatically detected - Big Sur changes things) and update it to the last two lines, remembering to add any icon that you want to associate with MacOS Big Sur. (I only modified the last two lines)

menuentry "MacOS" {
            icon \path\to\your\icon.png
            volume "Preboot
            loader \930085EA-A815-4A49-8C8E-81F170F3C729\System\Library\CoreServices\boot.efi
#   disabled
}

The volume and loader lines are important here. If your config contains "disabled" after the menu entry, either comment out that line or delete it so that the entry is actioned.

The folder UUID should remain static for everyone, but if it doesn't you can find this by going to /System/Volumes/Preboot/ where you should find the folder containing the UUID in its name. Refind should now be able to boot MacOS Big Sur.
I, for example, had to do change my folder UUID as per the above from 930085EA-A815-4A49-8C8E-81F170F3C729 to 7FB5930F-1076-357E-A548-83BB9A9804D1

Hopefully, this will help someone!

 

Last edit: netsurfer38 2021-10-10