"Ghost" blank UEFI entry in Gigabyte BIOS

Question

Background

I was trying to install macOS (Hackintosh) alongside Microsoft Windows 10 on my SSD, so I shrank the Windows partition using Disk Management and left an empty exFAT partition next to C: (called ToBeErased) for macOS to format as APFS with Disk Utility. When I launched the macOS install disk and attempted to erase the correct partition with DU, it gave an error regarding the impossibility to format the disk. So I rebooted into Windows and... Nothing. The install appeared non-existent. I realized that when trying to create the APFS container, macOS had had the brilliant idea to erase the ESP partition and leave empty space in its place.

The issue

What was most strange was that my BIOS boot manager still showed an empty/blank " " entry and - even after recreating my ESP using BCDEdit, it still remained along with the proper "Windows Boot Manager" bootloader entry. If I try to boot it, it blanks the screen for a moment and then returns to the boot manager.

As can be seen in this picture, there are:

• the "ghost" entry
• two bootloaders on two spinning HDDs
• Windows Boot Manager on the SSD

My board model is Gigabyte Z370 Aorus Gaming 7.

How do I remove it and - most importantly - what is it, and why does it appear?

Solution

These boot entries are stored in UEFI NVRAM. Even resetting it won’t clear them.

Instead, you can use Linux and efibootmgr to manage these entries. To be able to manage these entries, Linux needs to be booted in UEFI mode. You might have to disable Secure Boot to do this. Most modern Linux Live USB should include efibootmgr. I used Arch Linux.

To see the current boot configuration, run efibootmgr --verbose.

For example, on one of my laptops, it looks like this:

BootCurrent: 000C
Timeout: 0 seconds
BootOrder: 0019,000C,000A,0006,0007,0008,0009,000B,000E,000F,0010,0011,0012,0013,000D
Boot0000  Setup FvFile(721c8b66-426c-4e86-8e99-3457c46ab0b9)
Boot0001  Boot Menu FvFile(126a762d-5758-4fca-8531-201a7f57f850)
Boot0002  Diagnostic Splash Screen  FvFile(a7d8d9a6-6ab0-4aeb-ad9d-163e59a7a380)
Boot0003  Startup Interrupt Menu    FvFile(f46ee6f4-4785-43a3-923d-7f786c3c8479)
Boot0004  ME Configuration Menu FvFile(82988420-7467-4490-9059-feb448dd1963)
Boot0005  Rescue and Recovery   FvFile(665d3f60-ad3e-4cad-8e26-db46eee9f1b5)
Boot0006* USB CD    VenMsg(bc7838d2-0f82-4d60-8316-c068ee79d25b,86701296aa5a7848b66cd49dd3ba6a55)
Boot0007* USB FDD   VenMsg(bc7838d2-0f82-4d60-8316-c068ee79d25b,6ff015a28830b543a8b8641009461e49)
Boot0008  ATAPI CD0 VenMsg(bc7838d2-0f82-4d60-8316-c068ee79d25b,aea2090adfde214e8b3a5e471856a35401)
Boot0009  ATA HDD2  VenMsg(bc7838d2-0f82-4d60-8316-c068ee79d25b,91af625956449f41a7b91f4f892ab0f602)
Boot000A* ATA HDD0  VenMsg(bc7838d2-0f82-4d60-8316-c068ee79d25b,91af625956449f41a7b91f4f892ab0f600)
Boot000B  ATA HDD1  VenMsg(bc7838d2-0f82-4d60-8316-c068ee79d25b,91af625956449f41a7b91f4f892ab0f601)
Boot000C* USB HDD   VenMsg(bc7838d2-0f82-4d60-8316-c068ee79d25b,33e821aaaf33bc4789bd419f88c50803)
Boot000D* PCI LAN   VenMsg(bc7838d2-0f82-4d60-8316-c068ee79d25b,78a84aaf2b2afc4ea79cf5cc8f3d3803)
Boot000E  ATAPI CD1 VenMsg(bc7838d2-0f82-4d60-8316-c068ee79d25b,aea2090adfde214e8b3a5e471856a35403)
Boot000F  ATAPI CD2 VenMsg(bc7838d2-0f82-4d60-8316-c068ee79d25b,aea2090adfde214e8b3a5e471856a35404)
Boot0010  Other CD  VenMsg(bc7838d2-0f82-4d60-8316-c068ee79d25b,aea2090adfde214e8b3a5e471856a35406)
Boot0011  ATA HDD3  VenMsg(bc7838d2-0f82-4d60-8316-c068ee79d25b,91af625956449f41a7b91f4f892ab0f603)
Boot0012  ATA HDD4  VenMsg(bc7838d2-0f82-4d60-8316-c068ee79d25b,91af625956449f41a7b91f4f892ab0f604)
Boot0013  Other HDD VenMsg(bc7838d2-0f82-4d60-8316-c068ee79d25b,91af625956449f41a7b91f4f892ab0f606)
Boot0014* IDER BOOT CDROM   PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x16,0x2)/Ata(0,1,0)
Boot0015* IDER BOOT Floppy  PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x16,0x2)/Ata(0,0,0)
Boot0016* ATA HDD   VenMsg(bc7838d2-0f82-4d60-8316-c068ee79d25b,91af625956449f41a7b91f4f892ab0f6)
Boot0017* ATAPI CD: VenMsg(bc7838d2-0f82-4d60-8316-c068ee79d25b,aea2090adfde214e8b3a5e471856a354)
Boot0018* PCI LAN   VenMsg(bc7838d2-0f82-4d60-8316-c068ee79d25b,78a84aaf2b2afc4ea79cf5cc8f3d3803)
Boot0019* Windows Boot Manager  HD(1,GPT,8d699e93-e811-41ad-9b23-5755511fe51f,0x800,0x32000)/File(\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi)WINDOWS.........x...B.C.D.O.B.J.E.C.T.=.{.9.d.e.a.8.6.2.c.-.5.c.d.d.-.4.e.7.0.-.a.c.c.1.-.f.3.2.b.3.4.4.d.4.7.9.5.}...a................

On a PC, it might look like this:

BootCurrent: 0004
Timeout: 1 seconds
BootOrder: 0000,0004,0001,0003,0002
Boot0000* Windows Boot Manager  HD(2,GPT,622ca06e-f4b2-4d80-b151-984cec25aa98,0x96800,0x32000)/File(\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi)WINDOWS.........x...B.C.D.O.B.J.E.C.T.=.{.9.d.e.a.8.6.2.c.-.5.c.d.d.-.4.e.7.0.-.a.c.c.1.-.f.3.2.b.3.4.4.d.4.7.9.5.}...8................
Boot0001* Hard Drive    BBS(HD,,0x0)AMGOAMNO........o.M.4.-.C.T.2.5.6.M.4.S.S.D.2....................A...........................>..Gd-.;.A..MQ..L.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.1.1.1.3.3.0.5.1.4.F.5.2......AMBOAMNO........o.W.D.C. .W.D.6.0.0.0.H.L.H.X.-.0.1.J.J.P.V.0....................A...........................>..Gd-.;.A..MQ..L. . . . .W. .-.D.X.W.1.D.C.E.C.0.0.T.8.4......AMBOAMNO........o.S.A.M.S.U.N.G. .S.S.D. .8.3.0. .S.e.r.i.e.s....................A...........................>..Gd-.;.A..MQ..L.0.S.4.Z.E.N.C.A.0.8.1.1.4.3. . . . . . ......AMBO
Boot0002* Network Card  BBS(Network,,0x0)AMGOAMNO........y.B.R.C.M. .M.B.A. .S.l.o.t. .0.B.0.0. .v.1.4...6...9.........................rN.D+..,.\...........J..Gd-.;.A..MQ..L.B.R.C.M. .M.B.A. .S.l.o.t. .0.B.0.0. .v.1.4...6...9......AMBO
Boot0003* USB   BBS(USB,,0x0)AMGOAMNOy.......W.S.a.n.D.i.s.k....................A.............................$..Gd-.;.A..MQ..L.S.a.n.D.i.s.k......AMBO
Boot0004* UEFI: SanDisk PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x1a,0x0)/USB(1,0)/USB(4,0)/HD(1,GPT,113d5e64-b3f1-47ce-b488-a135873db259,0x800,0xee83df)AMBO

“BootCurrent” marks the currently booted entry, a USB flash drive in both cases. The “BootOrder” is self-explanatory. Directly after the BootXXXX comes the name as displayed in the boot selection menu.

Locate the entry you want to delete and take note of its number. Run efibootmgr --bootnum XXXX --delete-bootnum. Please be very careful. There are no safety questions and changes are effective immediately. Deleting the wrong entry would necessitate boot repair.

It is also possible you cannot remove this entry. Unfortunately, most UEFI implementations are quite bug-ridden. It could simply be a display error.

Comments

[Daniel B]

Boot entries are stored in UEFI NVRAM.

[Manchineel]

@DanielB does this mean I'll have to reset my BIOS? If that's the case, I guess I have bigger priorities right now.

[Manchineel]

Thanks, you are right, most (proprietary) UEFI implementations are very bugged. I already have a Linux (Ubuntu) instance installed so I'll try this when I get back to my rig and document the outcome.

[Manchineel]

sorry for the late response. I’d like to thank you: your procedure worked. Apparently macOS Disk Utility will edit your NVRAM entries when you create a new GPT with an ESP in a way that is only compatible with Mac BIOS. The best solution is to emulate NVRAM in Clover instead. Using efibootmgr I successfully deleted the glitched entries.

[Admin]

Same answer posted here