Firmware update and SATA II hard drive

StevenfDavis:

Go to the "genius bar" and have the firmware EFI 1.7 back rolled to EFI 1.6. Make a reservation frst.

Your Mac will work OK afterward if you have a SADA // 7200 RPM HD if you have the mid 2009 MB Pro.

The ram is not removed and replaced, the EFI 1.6 replaces the updated EFI 1.7.

The Mac Book Pro will work well with this--and whenever they can incorporate the newer SADA // HD that spin at 7200 RPM rather than 5400 RPM, they will do it.

I had your problem 3 times as I received bad information from Apple Tech Support after the recent Performance Update 1.0.

After the 3rd back roll, I am OK for now--and will patiently wait till the new Update is released.

bobg

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding, but you appear to be equating SATA II with 7200 RPM. These two specifications are not related, and of the two, the SATA II spec is what's problematic with EFI 1.7 firmware.

Just to clear up any confusion.

fishbert :

Let me clarify the situation:

My mid 2009 MB Pro (15 inch), had an original Hitachi 250 GB factory supplied HD. I had my dealer replaced it with the 3rd party SATA Seagate 500 GB 7200 RPM Drive. I upgraded the Apple software when the EFI 1.6 was in effect. No problems.

However, when I installed the EFI 1.7 Firmware update, *my whole computer locked up* showing a Folder with a Question Mark or a circle with a slash.

I took it back to the dealer who initially replaced the logic board. When I did the software update again all was OK. *When I did the Firmware EFI 1.7 update again the same lock up occurred the second time.*

I took the computer back to the dealer who removed the 500 GB Seagate and reinstalled the factory supplied 250 HD. Then I was able to get the MB Pro back rolled to EFI 1.6 by the Apple Store Genius. All was OK then--but I did not have my larger HD installed.

I took the MB Pro back to the dealer to the dealer who installed the Seagate 500 GB 3rd party drive in my MB Pro and all was OK running EFI 1.6.

At the same time I installed the factory supplied 250 GB Hitachi HD into a enclosure so now I had set up a Universal Boot External HD that would work on Power PC Macs and also on Intel Macs.

The performance update 1.0 was issued, and I installed it. I checked with the Apple Support and they indicated it was OK to reinstall EFI 1.7 on the MB Pro. I did this my self with the Software Update----+but it apparently did not install automatically.+

Unfortunately I did not update the Apple Software on this UB external Drive so I had some issues and wanted Apple to install the EFI 1.7 Firmware update on the MB Pro and resolve the Universal boot drive issues with my MB Pro as well. When I took both the MB Pro and the Universal Boot drive back to the Genius, we had some start up issues with the Universal Boot drive--so we checked if EFI 1.7 was installed on he MB Pro. We could not confirm it easily, so the Genius re-installed it *and now the computer locked up again for the 3rd time.*

I left the computer and then they tried to back roll the EFI 1.7 to EFI 1.6. They had issues because they did not remove the HD and tried to back roll it with their external Boot drive. I took the MBPro home and ran the Apple Hardware test--and with the help of the Apple Tech Support found out that I indeed needed the EFI 1.7 removed and back rolled to EFI 1.6.

I took it back to the Genius Bar and they removed the HD and back rolled the Firmware to EFI 1.6 from an external HD.

I updated the External Universal boot disk with the missing software updates. I even ran the Performance update 1.0.

All appears to be OK again.

I hope this explains the situation for you and others.

Short version--*do not update to EFI 1.7 if you have a 3rd party non factory supplied 7200 RPM HD replacing your factory supplied HD if you have one of these mid 2009 Mac Book Pros (mine with a USB slot configuration)*. You can check the 122 pages of this thread and find out why--better than I can advise.

*+Maybe in time Apple will issue a firmware update for these types of drives--but based my experience EFI 1.7 is not the one to install. Stay at Firmware EFI 1.6.*+

bobg

I have written detailed notes a few weeks back in this discussion group. My problem was slightly unique given that the symptoms began before I swapped out the stock hard drive. In fact, I swapped out the stock dive only because I was having issues similar to people in these posts.

The stock drive that came with my (mid 09) MacBook Pro was a Seagate Barracuda, apple logo included. I don't know if there is a sata I version of that drive, and I suspect it was sata II. The machine worked fine until I performed the 1.7 update.

Apple eventually replaced the drive with a Hitachi model, and now all is working well. Given, that they took the original drive, I have no way to check it it was a sata I or sata II drive. But it is possible, that some machines shipped with sata II drives.

Like many other people that are having this issue, I am extremely frustrated with Apple. I have lost significant time and money, as a result of the problem. And their customer service protocol that treats everyone like they are children has no doubt caused me to loose some love for Apple.

I have a week-old 2.53 Ghz 13 inch MBP with an upgraded hard drive (WD5000BEVT). I don't seem to be getting the 30 second+ beachball freezes but sometimes whilst using Safari the system will freeze for about 10 seconds or less.

The system plays 1080p videos and copies large files (4GB+ isos) with no problems. Do people think I should be alright or should I put the stock 250GB Fujitsu drive back in for reliability?

Cheers.

I posted in this thread back in September about my experiences with this issue and that Northpark mall Apple store in the DFW area. (Texas) This post is a follow up to my earlier post.

Although the tech support staff at the Northpark Apple store would not admit that this was a known issue, they finally did agree to replace my malfunctioning Macbook Pro 15. To avoid a re occurrence of the problem, I wanted a Macbook Pro with a different hard drive, which they would not agree to. However, we reached a compromise; I agreed to pay an upcharge to upgrade to a Macbook Pro 15" with a larger hard drive and the 1.7 firmware pre-installed.

I have not experienced the issue on the new Macbook. I am happy to finally have a functioning computer, and I am grateful to the Northpark Apple staff for agreeing to replace the Macbook and permit the upgrade. It would have been nice not to have had to pay for an upgrade just to get a functional computer, but the Northpark staff did transfer all of my data and programs to the new computer, and I give them credit for that too.

All in all it was my first unpleasant experience with Apple, and it has taken the "bloom" off the rose of my excitement for Apple products, but in the end, the problem was fixed, and I am slowly regaining my positive image of Apple as a company.

Can anyone tell me if the now Update for SL Changes something to this behaviour?

With the performance update and efi 1.6, i have still the same Bug, but not as much as before

Doriangaensslen wrote:
Can anyone tell me if the now Update for SL Changes something to this behaviour?

With the performance update and efi 1.6, i have still the same Bug, but not as much as before

The problem this thread is about resides down in the firmware or hardware level. It is OS-independent. You could delete Snow Leopard entirely and the issue would still be there. So, no, 10.6.2 does not do anything about this issue.

Also, any problems you are seeing in EFI 1.6 are probably due to some other issue. You should take your machine in to a Genius Bar and have them check it out. Maybe they won't find anything, but maybe they will and your machine can get back to normal again.

I'm guessing Apple is never going to issue a fix for this... at least not a proper one that would enable SATA 3.0 support. With this going on for over 4 months and no official word... I'd say we're out of luck. It looks like they're taking the approach of repairing machines on a case-by-case basis and just hoping that the majority of people never upgrade their drives. They probably could back the SATA speed back to 1.5 in the next firmware update... but that would make them look awfully bad and I doubt they would do that as it would basically be admitting there is a fault. It's a shame really... especially since they clearly knew there was an issue with SATA 3.0 support when they released the machines... and decided to let all of us spend our hard earned money on them anyway. Maybe they just figured we would be too stupid to notice? Oh well... I continue to be an Apple supporter... but this particular issue will sit in the back of my mind when I consider making any new purchases.

AnandTech just did a MacBook Pro article and they talked to Apple about the SSD issues. Basically, Apple doesn't give a crap and he takes them to task for it:

http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=3672&p=5

I was consistently having the issues described in the Anandtech article with a Patriot Torqx drive (same indilinx controller as the OCZ drives). I had replaced the drive 2 times after not being able to install OS X reliably. Even when I was able to get it installed the system was very unstable and would crash under heave disk access. Most of the time the disk would become corrupt and need to be replaced. Installing Windows via Boot Camp was a total no go. I tried going to EFI 1.6 without any relief.

Patriot just released firmware 1819 for the Torqx line of drives. I updated the drive using my PC and then decided to install it in my 13" MBP for one last ditch effort. Lo and behold the install went perfectly, no hangs, very fast (running EFI 1.7) and stable. I was even able to install Boot Camp without any issues. Note that the only different with this drive is the Patriot firmware, totally unusable with firmware 1517, perfect with 1819.


Either Patriot was at fault with the old firmware or Apple has done something strange with the implimentation of SATA II and Patriot/Indilinx decided to change the firmware on the drive to play well with the MBP. Regardless I have a stable working system now with a 128GB Patriot Torqx drive at firmware 1819 and my 13" MBP at EFI 1.7.

Thanks for the advice. I'm gonna try it out on my 128GB torqx

Mazda3s wrote:
AnandTech just did a MacBook Pro article and they talked to Apple about the SSD issues. Basically, Apple doesn't give a crap and he takes them to task for it:

http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=3672&p=5

This is the best news I've heard all week!
… not sure what that says about my week.

Anandtech ain't no small potatoes publication; maybe something will start to move now.

I'd suggest forwarding this article to other Mac-centric news outlets (macrumors, appleinsider, tuaw, etc.) and hope they pick it up as well. That's what I'm going to do, anyway.

fishbert wrote:

Mazda3s wrote:
AnandTech just did a MacBook Pro article and they talked to Apple about the SSD issues. Basically, Apple doesn't give a crap and he takes them to task for it:

http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=3672&p=5

This is the best news I've heard all week!
… not sure what that says about my week.

Anandtech ain't no small potatoes publication; maybe something will start to move now.

I'd suggest forwarding this article to other Mac-centric news outlets (macrumors, appleinsider, tuaw, etc.) and hope they pick it up as well. That's what I'm going to do, anyway.

I didn't find the article so encouraging, especially this:

"It's unacceptable and I'm guessing the next version of the MacBook Pro will magically fix all of the problems."

I think that the owners of the current Mid-2009 MBPs are being left out in the cold.

Ponzi wrote:

fishbert wrote:

Mazda3s wrote:
AnandTech just did a MacBook Pro article and they talked to Apple about the SSD issues. Basically, Apple doesn't give a crap and he takes them to task for it:

http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=3672&p=5

This is the best news I've heard all week!
… not sure what that says about my week.

Anandtech ain't no small potatoes publication; maybe something will start to move now.

I'd suggest forwarding this article to other Mac-centric news outlets (macrumors, appleinsider, tuaw, etc.) and hope they pick it up as well. That's what I'm going to do, anyway.

I didn't find the article so encouraging, especially this:

"It's unacceptable and I'm guessing the next version of the MacBook Pro will magically fix all of the problems."

I think that the owners of the current Mid-2009 MBPs are being left out in the cold.

Well, Anand isn't going to have any answers — he's not Apple — but the article, given enough attention, may put pressure on Apple to do something. That's why they released EFI 1.7 in the first place; pressure due to bad press about only supporting SATA I.