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Q: No boot condition after upgrade to 10.8.3, EFI 1.6, Mid-2009 15" MBP 2.53Ghz

Hi,

 

I've got a Mid-2009 15" MBP. After I upgraded to 10.8.3, my computer got into a situation where, upon waking from sleep, it became unresponsive, and then gave me the "no entry" sign after I hard-rebooted it.

 

I took the drive out, put it in an external enclosure, found that it booted via USB. I then put the drive back in the computer and to my surprise, it booted and worked properly -- for about a week, at which time the problem recurred.

 

Some more detail: a while back I upgraded the HDD to a Seagate Momentus 7200 750GB, model ST9750420AS. I encountered poor performance, spinning beach balls, refusal to wake from hibernate, etc. I came upon the EFI 1.6 monster thread (https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2054387) and downgraded my EFI to 1.6 and kept it there. Everything worked great for more than a year, until the 10.8.3 update and no boot.

 

It looks like some people who downgraded to 1.6 are having issues with 10.8.3 as well, but with an HDD/SSD in the optical drive (https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4895074). I can confirm I'm having issues with it when the optical drive is intact and I'm using a SATA HDD in the HDD bay. This is a supported configuration (my owner's manual even has instructions for upgrading the HDD).

 

The second time it happened I tried what the folks in the second thread above did and downgraded to 10.8.0, then upgraded to 10.8.2. I can say that at this time it seems to be working. So my questions are:

 

1) Is 10.8.2 the last Lion update this MBP will ever be able to install?

2) Has anyone who was previously running EFI 1.6 / 10.8.2 had this issue and had success with the 10.8.3 / EFI 1.7 combination (upgrading both at the same time)?

3) Has Apple or anyone else found a definitive list of HDD/SSDs that work reliably with this rather finicky logic board/disk controller?

4) Anyone else running EFI 1.6 / 10.8.3 having a similar experience? Should I be worried about the longevity/integrity of my hardware at this point?

 

Thanks. Please chime in especially if you have a similar configuration/experience.

 

Alex

MacBook Pro, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.3)

Posted on Mar 26, 2013 5:27 PM

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Q: No boot condition after upgrade to 10.8.3, EFI 1.6, Mid-2009 15" MBP 2.53Ghz

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  • by fiachnamm,

    fiachnamm fiachnamm Oct 23, 2013 1:55 AM in response to JBosman
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 23, 2013 1:55 AM in response to JBosman

    I recommend you upgrade your SATA cable, I'm running EFI 1.7, 3Gbps hard drive, 2010 spec SATA cable and OSX 10.8.5 with no problems. It does beachball every now and then, maybe once a week and I'm using it all the time basically at work etc.

    Once that's done you're not messing around changing hard drives and jumpers etc..

  • by Jeffro_C,

    Jeffro_C Jeffro_C Jul 18, 2015 10:39 AM in response to fiachnamm
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 18, 2015 10:39 AM in response to fiachnamm

    This totally worked for me! I was skeptical that my sata cable was what was preventing me from upgrading beyond Lion, but this did the trick after exploring every other fix that I had read about.

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