Q: Back to "Vanilla" after messing around with Triple Boot
Firstly, you have to know, I like to call myself a "Software-Tinkerer" - I absolutely LOVE messing around with the Boot Files of my MacBook, and sometimes I even go a bit overkill with that. At the moment, I'm running on a custom Boot Loader (rEFInd) installed on am modified EFI, which manages my Trial boot between macOS 10.12 GM, Windows 10, and Kali Linux. All in all my drive is divided into around 6 different Partitions (HFS+ Journaled, NTFS, Linux Swap and some more) which are written on a GUID MBR Hybrid Partition Table made by BootCamp and modified by me. (Phew)
Don't misunderstand me, I'm pretty good at this stuff, everything is (still) working fine. My problem is, I kinda lost the overview of this "universe" and - funnily enough - I'm also at the point where I lost the motivation for administrating it. And that leads to my question:
What is the best and cleanest way to get from a modified EFI, a custom Partition Table, 6 different Partitions (and probably some more) back to a working, simple System, like that from a new, just bought Mac.
As said, I am on a MacBook Pro Mid 2014, Sierra GM (Build 16A313a)
I appreciate every form of help.
Thank You
A "Software-Tinkerer"
MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X El Capitan (10.11.5)
Posted on Sep 18, 2016 2:35 AM
…but also probably the essential bits responsible for booting into a state where I can install an OS. And I don't want to turn my MacBook into a paperweight...
Your Mac should be able to boot into Internet Recovery and your situation is a good example of when it is needed.
Internet Recovery boots from Apple's servers, not your hard drive, so even if you install a blank hard drive you can reinstall the OS that shipped on your Mac. You can then upgrade from there.
About OS X Recovery - Apple Support
If you already have downloaded an installer, then it might be faster to create a bootable installer and use that.
I don't know if you can boot from that and partition your drive or if you would need to boot into Internet Recovery to partition the drive. If the latter, you'd just have to restart and boot from the USB installer you created to install the OS.
Posted on Sep 18, 2016 3:53 PM