I have recently installed Boot Runner and purchased a single license. I’ve been running into an issue where after selecting Windows in Boot Runner, it will always boot into Windows from then on, as if it has changed the default boot drive, until I reset the NVRAM to force the mac to boot back into macOS.
I have a Mac Pro 5,1 and use an SSD in for macOS High Sierra (APFS), and a HDD for Windows 10, both in SATA bays.
I believe I have installed everything correctly, but I’ll summarise my installation for you.
Installed the Boot Runner package, installed license, selected my Mac SSD as the default boot drive in System Preferences, ensured Auto Login was disabled, restarted in Recovery Mode and used terminal to execute " csrutil enable --without nvram " (note that I needed to use the " – " trick to return anything, a single " - " did not work).
Boot Runner then works beautifully to boot into macOS, and at first it works to boot into Windows. But when I either restart or shut down from Windows, it automatically boots back into Windows again! This kind of defeats the purpose of Boot Runner, as I then have to reset my NVRAM once again to get back into macOS, meaning I also have to disable SIP agian with the terminal command in Recovery Mode etc etc. and it all just takes ages to get it working again.
Could there be something I’m missing in the initial setup? Any advice would be greatly appreciated, as at this point I’d frankly find it easier to boot into windows using the macOS system prefs, and then boot back into macOS using NVRAM reset - it’s currently less work than the long workaround for Boot Runner’s quirk I’ve encountered.
Boot Runner relies on the EFI functionality of “next-only” for the boot drive. It means that the Mac will reboot into an OS specified the next reboot only, then go back to using the selected startup disk. I have not heard of the problem that you explained and I suspect that it is related to something that is happening in Windows that resets the startup disk. As a test, can you do this:
Boot to Boot Runner screen and select Windows.
At the startup chime, hold down the option key. Select the Mac volume.
Once back at the Boot Runner screen, select the mac volume, log in and reboot.
If the Mac boots into Windows, it means that boot runner is probably setting the startup disk permanently to Windows (which would be strange).
If the Mac boots back in macOS, then something in Windows is setting the startup disk.
Unfortunately I am running an AMD RX 580 Sapphire Pulse. Although this is natively supported by macOS, it does not feature a boot screen so I am unable to use the bootcamp “option” hold when booting, (hence I went looking for an alternative solution to switch between macOS and Windows and found boot runner).
So perhaps it could be to do with my graphics card? Would be a great shame, as that “next only” functionality you mentioned is what I was really after.
Has a solution been found to this issue? I have the trial software running and I encounter the same problem.
I have a mid 2010 Mac Pro 5,1 but use an NVME disk in for macOS Mojave (APFS) in a PCI slot, and a SSD for Windows 10 in a SATA bay. Also using a Sapphire RX580 graphics card.
The windows OS is directly installed on the SSD without using bootcamp.
Starting Mac OS works fine. But after selecting the Windows disk once it will only boot back into windows until I reset the NVRAM.
Now my trial license has expired so I cannot test anymore.
Now everything is working thought we don’t know why
My windows SSD is still native and I can successfully switch to it and back to OSX. So being installed without bootcamp was not the issue.
I’m sorry. I didn’t understand if there was a solution to this problem… I am running MacOS Mojave 10.14.3 installed on an SSD in a Mac Pro 5,1 with Windows10 running on a separate SSD. I did NOT use BootCamp to install windows and my GPU is an AMD Vega Frontier Edition, so I do not have a boot screen.
I have two issues,
The first is that I don’t see the windows disk in Boot Runner.
When I select the startup disk as Windows within MacOS (which of course defeats the purpose of Boot Runner), I can not go back to MacOS. The Mac Pro will always boot to windows unless I reset the NVRAM.
So my particular issue had to do with using a SATA PCIe adapter where I had the SSDs connected to the Mac Pro. I removed the DVD drive and connected the SSDs through the dedicated SATA connectors instead of the PCIe. After I did that, Boot Runner had no issues detecting the SSDs and booting normally. I no longer needed to reset the NVRAM after a restart.
