The rEFIt Project

rEFIt is a boot menu and maintenance toolkit for EFI-based machines like the Intel Macs. You can use it to boot multiple operating systems easily, including triple-boot setups with Boot Camp. It also provides an easy way to enter and explore the EFI pre-boot environment.

News

2013-03-29: As you may have noticed, rEFIt is no longer actively maintained. Please check out rEFInd, a fork that is maintaned and under active development.

2010-03-12: The site has a new troubleshooting section. Some common problems are also listed below.

2010-03-07: Version 0.14 was released. This release adds a configuration option for the default boot choice, fixes the Linux/GRUB detection issue, and fixes Snow Leopard 64-bit issues.

Download

The current release is 0.14. It is available in various forms. Both disk image distributions include the Installer package and can be burned as a bootable CD as well. All three binary distributions can be used to install rEFIt on a USB memory stick or other disk drives.

You can browse the source code online through the ViewVC interface to the Subversion repository at SourceForge.

Troubleshooting

See the troubleshooting section for a full list. Here are a few common problems:

I just installed rEFIt, but the menu doesn’t show up.
It takes two reboots after using the package installer. More...
I can’t boot Windows/Linux from a USB hard disk.
This is not well-supported by Apple’s firmware. More...
I can’t boot Windows/Linux from the second internal hard disk.
This is not explicitly supported by rEFIt at this time. More...

Resources

This project is hosted by SourceForge. You can use the trackers to submit bug reports, feature requests, and patches. The latest development source code is available from the Subversion repository. Other resources are listed on the project summary page.

To discuss rEFIt with other people, check out the OnMac Forums or the Dual Boot forum at InsanelyMac.