It works on 10.11 for sure (and I would assume 10.10.4) but until I push out an update you have to manually disable rootless to get it to do anything on El Capitan.
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Guide: Black boot screen + white Apple logo on "unsupported" Macs (boot.efi hack)
- Thread starter Manic Harmonic
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It works on 10.11 for sure (and I would assume 10.10.4) but until I push out an update you have to manually disable rootless to get it to do anything on El Capitan.
I'm running the latest 10.10.4 dev beta and Dark Boot says it has detected the presence of Rootless. I can write to /usr/bin using root so it seems mistaken. I didn't accept Dark Boot's offer to disable Rootless and so am stuck for the moment. Any ideas what may be causing this please ?
Thanks a lot for doing this !
However, using 10.10.4 beta (14E36b) I get the black boot screen on my 2012 mini without using Dark Boot.
Hate to post on a dead thread, but I tried w0lfschild DarkBoot app without any success. After some hunting in the OS system files, it appears that you can set this boot option in the NVRAM. Try:
This has worked for me on a MBP (late-2011) on 10.11.4 (persisted over OS updates) and on a 2009 iMac 10.11.1. The only problem is that it seems to get rewritten after each boot to the default for your machine. To address that, I created a LaunchDaemon that runs every time your mac boots. Check out the GitHub repo here.
I'll add instructions on how to install a LaunchDaemon with su privileges when I get some free time but you should be able to find that info online.
Code:
sudo nvram 4d1ede05-38c7-4a6a-9cc6-4bcca8b38c14:DefaultBackgroundColor=%00%00%00This has worked for me on a MBP (late-2011) on 10.11.4 (persisted over OS updates) and on a 2009 iMac 10.11.1. The only problem is that it seems to get rewritten after each boot to the default for your machine. To address that, I created a LaunchDaemon that runs every time your mac boots. Check out the GitHub repo here.
I'll add instructions on how to install a LaunchDaemon with su privileges when I get some free time but you should be able to find that info online.
This worked great, as well as the LaunchDaemon implementation (on my early 2011 MBP with FileVault enabled, I even get the desktop background while booting). Kudos!
Glad it worked for you! I've updated the repo with some installation instructions. If it's not working with your OS or hardware, please post an issue on the repo. I'm guessing that this will stay constant over hardware but pre-Yosemite OSs probably won't work.
Check it out here.
I was checking out the instructions and notice something about what location to use:
It says to move it to "/Library/LaunchDaemons which is not the same as /Library/LaunchDaemons"
I assume you mean it's not the same as ~/Library/LaunchDaemons (with the tilde)?
@simon lefisch: It should probably be ‘NOT the same as your /Library/LaunchAgents folder’. There is no LaunchDaemons directory for home directories.
I was checking out the instructions and notice something about what location to use:
It says to move it to "/Library/LaunchDaemons which is not the same as /Library/LaunchDaemons"
I assume you mean it's not the same as ~/Library/LaunchDaemons (with the tilde)?
Yep. It needs to go into the /Library/LaunchDaemons NOT ~/Library/LaunchDaemons. My bad. I've updated the readme.
Edit: I've just removed that statement. KALLT is right, there are no "user daemons" so that folder doesn't even exist.
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So it looks like you can choose any RGB color you'd like. Just google the hex code for the color you'd like, replace the %00%00%00 part of the nvram command with the hex code of the color you want (% two first two hex digits% second two hex digits%third two hex digits) and reboot.
Sorry for the bad quality, but I think it gets the point across!Pics or it isn’t true.
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Thanks! This is actually pretty cool. Surprised that Apple let this slip through!
awesome.. tested on MBP Early 2011 with 10.11.5 ElCapitan
*btw for color can i mod to orange color / something else but not RGB color ?
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For all this work? Here is the solution for El Capitan! And always have updates!!
https://github.com/w0lfschild/DarkBoot
https://github.com/w0lfschild/DarkBoot/releases/latest
https://github.com/w0lfschild/DarkBoot
https://github.com/w0lfschild/DarkBoot/releases/latest
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seeing as how the links to report issues in the post above do not work I'll do my "rant" here.
Just tried DarkBoot on my MacPro 1,1 running Yosemite because it sounded like it should work.
Big mistake, not only can I not get a black boot screen, it messed with the startup progress bar, now it starts off black and progresses about 1/2" then turns white.
No problem I think, just reload my Carbon Copy clone I made before trying DarkBoot, wrong again, same problem still exists.
Next I discover the Alt+boot screen is black, all black, just the HDD icons with no identifying names.
I'm not sure where to start to remedy this mess....
edit:
after I calmed down somewhat I tried the Alt+Cmd+P+R reset and it seems to have put things back to normal.
Just tried DarkBoot on my MacPro 1,1 running Yosemite because it sounded like it should work.
Big mistake, not only can I not get a black boot screen, it messed with the startup progress bar, now it starts off black and progresses about 1/2" then turns white.
No problem I think, just reload my Carbon Copy clone I made before trying DarkBoot, wrong again, same problem still exists.
Next I discover the Alt+boot screen is black, all black, just the HDD icons with no identifying names.
I'm not sure where to start to remedy this mess....
edit:
after I calmed down somewhat I tried the Alt+Cmd+P+R reset and it seems to have put things back to normal.
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This is a guide for enabling the black boot screen + white Apple logo on "unsupported" Macs.
It should in theory work on all 64-bit EFI Macs.
WARNING: A small mistake or even just a fluke problem could potentially prevent your Yosemite partition from booting. Make sure you have a backup of it! I'm not responsible for anything that happens to your Mac.
NOTE: When you run an update it's possible that it could revert this, so you may have to repeat the process again after the update.
UPDATE: w0lf has been kind enough to write a script to automate this process! This link will always have the latest version: https://github.com/w0lfschild/DarkBoot
note: You may have to make DarkBoot.command executable after downloading. Put it on your desktop, open the Terminal and type the following:
Code:cd ~/Downloads && chmod +x DarkBoot.command
The following method is how to do this manually, but it's outdated so it won't work on current versions of Yosemite. I have left it here for informational purposes.
If you want to see what the current script is doing, you can open it in a text editor.
IMPORTANT NOTE: If you boot back into an older version of OS X after doing this, it will boot with a completely black screen. On the next boot, you will have your white screen back in both pre-10.10 and 10.10 versions. To get the black Yosemite screen again, just reboot into your Yosemite partition twice.
For this guide you need:
-A hex editor such as HexFiend
-Preferably some basic terminal knowledge... however I have done my best to make this guide as fool-proof as possible so even if you have no terminal knowledge you should be able to do it.
First off, I would like to thank Pike R. Alpha for explaining how boot.efi determines whether to use a black or white boot screen, as seen here: http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/298808-can-we-get-back-the-apple-logo-on-boot/?p=2036030 Also, thanks to VanillaCracker who explained how he got this to work on his 2012 Mac Mini in that same thread.
What this hack does is it simply checks the board id of your Mac to determine if it supports the black boot screen.
So basically, what we will be doing is changing one of the "supported" board id's to our own to trick it into thinking our Mac is supported.
Here's how to do it:
1. First, you need to get the board id of your Mac model.
EDIT: Thanks to w0lf, here is a script you can use to tell you your board id:
View attachment 479568Code:var_ID=$(ioreg -p IODeviceTree -r -n / -d 1 | grep board-id);var_ID=${var_ID##*<\"};var_ID=${var_ID%%\">};echo $var_ID
As you can see, the board id for my MacBookPro8,1 is Mac-94245B3640C91C81.
2. Now let's back up the boot.efi file just in case. Make a folder on your desktop called "efi_backup" and copy /System/Library/CoreServices/boot.efi to that folder.
3. Now make another folder called "new_efi" for example, drag boot.efi into that folder. Note that the icon has a lock on it:
View attachment 479434
This means that NO user can modify the permissions or ownership of the file, not even the root user. Let's fix this so we can actually modify it.
4. Open the terminal and navigate to your new efi folder:
5. Type this command to disable the lock flag for the file:Code:cd ~/Desktop/new_efi/
6. Make sure you have write permissions:Code:sudo chflags nouchg boot.efi
7. Now we're going to edit boot.efi to tell it that our Mac supports the black boot screen. Open it up with HexFiend, click on the right column, and search for "Mac-" (make sure you have the dash). You should see a bunch of Mac board id's. Highlight one of them, in this example I am using the third one which is Mac-35C1E88140C3E6CF. That's the MacBookAir6,1 board id. Replace that with your board id, which again in my case is Mac-94245B3640C91C81.Code:sudo chmod 755 boot.efi
View attachment 479433
NOTE: If you have an 8-digit board id, the last 8 digits of the board number you are replacing will have to be replaced with spaces (this can be done by going to the hex side of the window and replacing that section of the board number with 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00)
Save the file and exit hex fiend.
8. Now let's replace the original boot.efi file. Since the file is locked, we need to unlock the original before it will let us replace it, just like we did before:
9. Drag your newly modified boot.efi file into the CoreServices folder to replace it, and type in your password when prompted.Code:sudo chflags nouchg /System/Library/CoreServices/boot.efi
10. The last thing we need to do is set ownership+permissions and re-lock the file:
Code:sudo chmod 644 /System/Library/CoreServices/boot.efiCode:sudo chown root:wheel /System/Library/CoreServices/boot.efi11. Now let's reboot! You will most likely need to reboot twice for the settings to take effect.Code:sudo chflags uchg /System/Library/CoreServices/boot.efi
Here is the result:
View attachment 479431
View attachment 479432
I'm extremely happy with this hack, I hope some of you will find it as useful as I have!
If this guide is useful to you, please check out my music in my signature.
Black boot screen ? didn't that change with El capitan, not Yosemite?
No it was added in 10.10
I believe all new computers use the black boot screen and some older computers were changed to the black boot screen after it was first introduced.
ok,, worked, however where does it update ?
I looked at /System/Library/ Coreservices boot.efi which i assume is *not* updated because its locked and stays locked after applying changes in the app, so i assume app cannot "re-lock" the boot.efi automatically without user intervention it again.
Knowing that,,, the update has to be stored elsewhere... the above app works, but i'd still like to know where the the change is updated to on the Mac.
com.apple.boot.plist revealed no hints either