Firmware update and SATA II hard drive

Has anyone with this problem left feedback with Apple?

http://www.apple.com/feedback/

iyacyas,

I just took your advice and submitted feedback on this to Apple. For everyone else that has posted about this or has this problem, please submit feedback on this to Apple so that they are aware of this and hopefully they will release a fix for this problem. I'd like to use my new WD 500GB HD.

Resetting the PRAM seemed to fix my beachballing issues.

You should try the same.

Just added feedback along with a link to this discussion. I had attempted to reset the PRAM (multiple times) and nothing worked for me. I had to use an Apple stock Hitachi.

A possible solution? --

I think I had the same problem as many (if not all) of you. I replaced my stock MBP hard drive with a Western Digital Scorpio 320 GB when I bought the computer. Working fine until I installed the EFI Firmware Update 1.7 two days ago. The update completed, but upon restarting, the computer would hang at a grey screen (no apple, no spinner). The drive worked fine in an external USB enclosure, and I could re-install my original stock hard drive with no issue in the MBP. After a support call to Apple and an e-mail to Western Digital, WD came up with a solution that worked for me. They said "It appears the firmware update damages the boot sector on the drive. You can always try Disk Utilities to see if you can repair it, if not then you may need to reinstall your OS on the drive."

This was a problem because I could not boot from CD when the "bad" WD drive was installed in the MBP, nor could I access open firmware, do a PRAM reset, or any of that stuff. It would just hang, similar to what happens on a PC when you set the jumpers wrong on an IDE hard drive. What did work for me was the following:

1. Removed third-party hard drive from the MacBook Pro.
2. Installed third-party hard drive in a USB enclosure.
3. Using a working Mac (Mac #2), I plugged in the USB enclosure and ran "Repair Disk" in Disk Utility.
4. Disk Utility reports "Repairing Disk..." and it takes a couple minutes.
5. Removed the drive from Mac #2 and plugged it into the MacBook Pro.
6. Booted up MacBook Pro from USB enclosure to make sure it works (for testing only).

And it did boot! Earlier, I tried this procedure using the OS X restore disc on the MBP with no success. I'm guessing Western Digital is right about the boot sector on the drive. Disk repair fixed it, but if it hadn't, I would have tried repartitioning and reformatting next.

I have yet to install this back in my MBP, but if you don't see another post from me you can assume I got it working.

Hope that helps some of you. It's been a frustrating 2 days.

Ok, I was wrong. Sixteen screws later, I have installed the drive back in the MBP and now it has the same symptoms again. It was booting as an external, so maybe there is a problem with just the SATA interface. Back to the drawing board...

Exact same problem here.
The drive is an Hitachi 7k320.

I don't even need Sata II.

Same problem here. I have the WDC WD3200BEVT-11ZCT0 320GB drive which is SATA 3Gb/s.

The firmware update was pushed to my laptop through software update, so I was unaware of the warning about being unsupported. I've now had to revert to the 160GB it came with, and move back to my older Macbook (White).

😟 Not happy

Has anyone contacted a service centre yet to find out if they can down-grade back to 1.6?

it's interesting to see that OnLnAgent has the 500gb 7200rpm BTO option. As I suspected, it is the seagate 7200.4, as it's the only 500gb 7200rpm 2.5" SATA drive on sale at the moment. However, OnLnAgent isn't having any trouble with his drive. It's the same one I've got which isn't working. I've notice a difference though: His has a different firmware revision. Mine is as follows:

NVidia MCP79 AHCI:

Vendor: NVidia
Product: MCP79 AHCI
Speed: 3 Gigabit
Description: AHCI Version 1.20 Supported

ST9500420ASG:

Capacity: 465.76 GB
Model: ST9500420ASG
*Revision: 0002SDM1*
Serial Number: 5VJ ****
Native Command Queuing: Yes
Queue Depth: 32

and the apple one that OnLnAgent has:

Model: ST9500420ASG
*Revision: 0006APM2*
Serial Number: 5VJ *KT

I also noticed that my stock Hitachi 5k500 B-250 has "Apple HDD Firmware 2008" on it. Hitachi also advertise this drive as a SATA 3gbps product. I'd guess that if a drive without Apple Firmware was used, it'd also be having problems.

I must be lucky that I have NOT had any problems with the firmware update as I stated in an earlier post.

This problem has me puzzled as to why mine is working fine and everyone else posting here has problems.

It leads me to believe there are possibly other underlying problems with other's computers.

Here is what "System Profiler " is reporting. Maybe this will help others.

NVidia MCP79 AHCI:

Vendor: NVidia
Product: MCP79 AHCI
Speed: 3 Gigabit
Description: AHCI Version 1.20 Supported

WDC WD5000BEVT-00ZAT0:

Capacity: 465.76 GB
Model: WDC WD5000BEVT-00ZAT0
Revision: 01.01A01
Serial Number: XXXXXXXXXXXX (I changed this)
Native Command Queuing: Yes
Queue Depth: 32
Removable Media: No
Detachable Drive: No
BSD Name: disk0
Mac OS 9 Drivers: No
Partition Map Type: GPT (GUID Partition Table)
S.M.A.R.T. status: Verified
Volumes:
MacBookPro HD2:
Capacity: 433.88 GB
Available: 345.78 GB
Writable: Yes
File System: Journaled HFS+
BSD Name: disk0s2
Mount Point: /
BOOTCAMP:
Capacity: 31.57 GB
Available: 21.93 GB
Writable: No
File System: NTFS
BSD Name: disk0s3
Mount Point: /Volumes/BOOTCAMP


Hers is my previous post:


On June 10, 2009 (day of purchase) I installed my Western Digital Scorpio Blue WD5000BEVT 500GB 5400 RPM 8MB Cache 2.5" SATA 3.0Gb/sWD drive into my new 13.3" MBP 2.53GHz with no problems. On June 23rd I installed the MacBook Pro EFI Firmware Update 1.7 and haven't had a single problem.....in fact. My computer is running faster. The prof is the benchmark test I preformed before and after the update.

Before total score 141.56
After total score 152.45

Message was edited by: D/FW

Hmm... I'm wondering if this is why Apple shipped the new MBs in SATA 1.5Gb mode. They may have known there were issues with some drives. I would imagine that they probably thought they had them sorted out when they pushed the update... but may not have caught this issue. There was a bit of pressure and some bad publicity around the 1.5Gb issue... so they may have pushed it out faster than they should have. The good news is that stock drives work... so in a worst case scenario... everyone can still use those until a fix comes out. It would be nice to be able to roll back the firmware as I would imagine some people intentionally got the lowest capacity drive with the expectation of upgrading on their own... and they may need the added space of the after-market drive. It seems Apple can roll back the firmware... so visiting your local Apple store is another option. Right now... it's just more of an inconvenience than anything else.

@JoeyR but you'd have to admit it's ironic that this update doesn't fix what it was supposed to. The people that would benefit from SATA 3Gb are the ones that can't use their disks anymore and would have to go back to the very slow stock drive. Not acceptable at all, if you ask me.

And for the rushing part. As a software developer I know first hand what a lot of pressure can do. It's understandable, but not excusable.

That's on Apple! They should have never released a product that has issues with the backbone of the product. You wait until the product is correct then you release the $1200.00 + products. That's what gets Microsoft into trouble, lets just get it out on the market then we will attempt to fix all the problems as we go. Who cares if all the updates will eat up all the system resources. If it is true that Apple knew ahead that there were problems with the use of other drives and yet it's still a user replaceable item,and that is why they shipped with 1.5G max capability, knowing that they would just push out an update!!! Well shame on Apple and I feel for everyone with this problem. I have faith that Apple will fix it, but you people are with out your new machines. And hey Apple got your money!

So, this morning...I installed a Seagate Momentus 7200 rpm 500gb 7200.4 hard drive. It does not have the G-force protection. I had the EFI 1.7 firmware update before updating the drive. I installed the Mac OS X from DVD and the install with all iLife 09 apps took about 25 minutes total. It was fast as always. I still have not had any hanging or beachballs or anything out of the ordinary. It is noticeably faster than before, so the performance difference is nice. It has a very slide vibration that is not very noticeable at all. It is very quiet though. I would recommend this drive.

Here is the current setup. I have had no problems so far. I will post if I do.

NVidia MCP79 AHCI:

Vendor: NVidia
Product: MCP79 AHCI
Speed: 3 Gigabit
Description: AHCI Version 1.20 Supported

ST9500420AS:

Capacity: 465.76 GB
Model: ST9500420AS
Revision: 0002SDM1
Serial Number: *******
Native Command Queuing: Yes
Queue Depth: 32
Removable Media: No
Detachable Drive: No
BSD Name: disk0
Mac OS 9 Drivers: No
Partition Map Type: GPT (GUID Partition Table)
S.M.A.R.T. status: Verified
Volumes:
MacBook Pro HD:
Capacity: 465.44 GB
Available: 443.64 GB
Writable: Yes
File System: Journaled HFS+
BSD Name: disk0s2
Mount Point: /

I wonder if your lack of issues is due to the fact that you did the firmware update BEFORE upgrading the drive?