Firmware update and SATA II hard drive

Don't be so rediculous. One very good reason is timing, meaning the 500GB drive is an option that requires a special order which takes time to build and ship.... On the other hand you can just go pick up a stock configuration at an Apple store immediately and replace the drive in 5mins.

Stop being such an Qpple apologist. They screwed up royally with this firmware update and it is hardly our fault!

3rd party my ***. just because someone wanted to save some $ and bought a drive elsewhere, installed it according to apple's instructions and now a firmware renders it useless/crippled doesn't mean they deserve the grief. there are no guidelines in apple's manual on specific manufacturers/models of hard drives that are compatible, other than it has to be a 2.5" SATA. so how can anyone justify that if it doesn't come from apple, its your problem. if thats the mentality, then apple should have made the hard drive like the batteries and just declared them as non user replaceable parts. if anything this as all apples doing.

incidentally, is there a confirmed way of knowing you have the problem? log entry or something? i see beach balls every now and then, but i am not sure if it is because i am driving the system too hard: vmware, multiple safari and finder windows opened, itunes, iphoto, ical, etc. i don't know if that is enough to drive the system nuts. i don't notice a performance change vs. the original drive or firmware, but reading all of this has gotten me paranoid.

i upgraded drive to a 3rd party WD 500GB as noted by this entry in system profiler: "Capacity: 465.76 GB, Model: WDC WD5000BEVT-00A03T0, Revision: 01.01A01."

I cloned the original 250 to the 500, and booted. things worked, but then ended up reformatting and reloading the os to redo boot camp and convert my partition to guid. for some reason the clone software used a different partition type. i booted and got things updated, then i updated to 1.7. things seem to run smooth but i just want to be sure. thanks.

Thank Goodness is all i can say...

I've just bought a 2.4Ghz late 2006 MBPro and before I switched it on bought a WD 500GB (scorpio Blue) drive and replaced the factory fitted 250GB drive.

I was about to install the Firmware update 1.2 when I found this post. Thank goodness for FORUMS and luck.

Question: What functionality do I loose if I don't install any further firmware updates? Up to which version can I install before I hit the Hard Drive snag discussed here?

thanks

Llewelyn

You'll never encounter it as it only applies to the latest MBP.

thanks

So, PCmike - you must one of those types like I encounter everyday in my support work with their "need it now!" endless crises.

I just asked a reasonable question and the only answer you can give me is that you're impatient. Yes, I had to wait five days for my machine to ship, but then I'm not one of the hoards that camp out on the sidewalk in front of the local AT&T store the night before a new iPhone model comes out just to be one of the first to "have" one.

And about apologizing for Apple, I'd suggest that you read my earlier post where I offered my opinion that Apple honked up the production hardware configuration for this new model as lots of people have no doubt caught the speed downgrade in the System Profiler and questioned Apple about the 1.5 setting on a 3.0 drive. This whole thing is fishy to me as the Apple remarks for DL853 speaks to the update's enabling 3.0 and cautioning about this on drive makes and models not qualified by Apple and hence unsupported. What exactly do they mean?

The ambiguous nature of their release note alone is enough to put responsibility for these problems in Apple's lap. If they are in fact referring to the case I asked about (why are you folks swapping out these new drives anyway?), then I can see their point that if go out and brick an unqualified drive (and who's to know which are and which aren't) that was retrofitted probably against warranty policy, then I think they have a good point. They need to be more forthcoming about this however. On the other hand, I'd like them to explain why they set the new machine that I got with a 3 Gbps drive rating to 1.5 at the controller.

It's not like it's going to make a whole lot of difference to most people in practical terms (I happen to do a lot of HD video rendering and DVD mastering, so every little bit of time I can save is worth it) but still, Apple has set a lot of people up for problems who go ahead and install this firmware update not understanding clearly what the potential ramifications are by virtue of the squirrelly release notes. At the very least they should have been clearer about this, e.g.

1. We screwed up and left the EFI set to limit the drive controller to 1.5 Gbps throughput when every drive we're using is rated for 3.0 Gbps. However, we wanted to be sure that these new batteries lived up to the hype by trimming every milliwatt we could from the as-delivered setup. So, caveat number one - if you do this firmware update then it may shorten the amount of time you can run the machine from a fully charged battery.

I can't think of any other reason for throttling the controller back when all of the Macbooks I've seen that shipped before the WWDC release a few weeks ago had their controllers set for 3.0 Gbps when using 3.0 rated drives. Can anyone tell me about any other change to the new model that might warrant this lower setting or perhaps it was just an oops?

2. Caveat number two - we don't know how this firmware update will behave with drive models that we have not qualified. If you perform the update on your as-delivered drive setup, then you will not have any drive problems (we hope), the System Profiler will now say that the SATA controller is set to 3.0 Gbps and you probably won't ever notice any difference in how the machine performs. HOWEVER, if you have replaced the as-delivered drive with one not qualified by Apple, then you will probably toast it.

So, this is far from apologizing for Apple. I have to admit that this is the first time in my many, many years doing this stuff that I've seen anyone get so badly tripped up by what is such a highly industry standardized piece of hardware. Just look at how fast they issued the firmware update. This would point to it just being "flipping a switch" to change the controller setting. The drives themselves don't have a whole lot of onboard electronics compared with earlier drive types as so much is done by the drive controller these days. But there could be more to it. I don't have an earlier unibody to lay my hands on at the moment and check, but my recollection is that Apple introduced the Nvidia chipset including the SATA controller function last year when they brought out the new frame. Can anyone verify this? If so, then I would have expected this problem with "unqualified drives" to have come up earlier. However those machines no doubt had the Nvidia controller set to 3.0 Gbps so no action would have been needed when folks upgraded their drives on their own with some of these "unqualified" models. This points to something else about the firmware update being at fault.

Blah blah blah.. I'm not even going to bother to read your long post. FACT IS: Apple screwed up and you're making up dumb excuses for them.

Also, what the heck are you talking about.. re: toasting drives. Updating the firmware doesn't kill ANY hard drive. You sound like the dumb "genius" at the Apple store who clearly has no clue how EFI firmware works. Updating your computer with Apple's screwed up EFI update simply makes it so the logic board can't communicate properly with the hard drive... it definitely doesn't "toast it." As I, and scores of others, have pointed out the drive works perfectly fine in a USB enclosure!

I have been experiencing video lockups with my 13" MBP since installing firmware update 1.7. The lock ups have occurred in both front row (quicktime) and VLC. I am using the factory Apple 500MB drive.

Having just received a new 2.8ghz MBP and upgraded the firmware (it appears to be working ok - but I have noticed some beachballing in firefox), is this something that Apple can fix with a further firmware update, or could this potentially be something that can't be remedied without replacing hardware?

I probably shouldn't have read through this thread; now I'm worried about my 14 day return period running out.

Even better, I had a uMBP 13", HAD THE HDD SWAPPED BY A GENIUS FROM THE OLD MBP15", cause my old MBP15" died on me and I wanted the WD 500Gb HDD and NOT have to wait two weeks before a special order was delivered from China.
So, ncpoppie, you can call me impatient, but I can't afford to have a 2 weeks vacation because my MBP15" 1.1 (core duo) died on me, especially as this is the second most busy time of the year for my business. I don't know what life you have, but I have to work to earn my bucks and my laptop is a vital part of it. And if I buy a 1400 bucks laptop that is fried in 3 days because of an update from the manufacturer, you can bet I want it solved and want a reasonable solution now! Not next week.

Anyway, the 1.7 EFI comes out, fries some chip on my motherboard and all within 3 days of buying it.
I return it to the shop, get a lot of crap about no warranty as I swapped the HDD, to which I point that apple tells in the manual how to swap the drive! So now they are repairing it, expected time in is 10 workdays. A 3 days old laptop takes 2 weeks to repair.

Point is that I took out the same 500Gb drive from the MBP13" put back the standard 250Gb, got no money back or exchange, no matter how high I jumped, so was forced to buy ANOTHER new laptop, (ncpoppie, did I tell you I NEED it?) but now I bought an EOL uMB 5,1 2GHz. I shovelled the 500Gb in and the uMB does work fine.
So there is NO, really NO, HDD fried, it is really the motherboard that has gone AWOL after the EFI.

If Apple can't make updates that don't fry their own motherboards, they better start to make cupcakes. My problem is I spend now 2400 bucks to get 1 new laptop that works and 1 laptop that is in repair for 2 weeks after owning it 3 days.

There are only two parties happy in this story, that is Apple and my wife (who is planning on getting the uMB after I get my MBP13" back after repairs). And let's just keep it that I don't mind the latter being happy, but I think many people can emphasise on my feelings on the first.

Message was edited by: AlecGold; typo's and some improvements.

I really don't mean to jump topics but are you saying that Apple would not repair because you broke warranty buy swapping out the HDD? And did you not say that the Apple genius is the one that actually swapped the HDD? If this is true, did the Apple "genius" warn you that the warranty would be voided? If not, that's why they are called genius, they really know how to make Apple money.

It's a bit off indeed, but there is no warranty to be void, replacing the HDD isn't something that can void the warranty, unless you "break" something when swapping.
On the uMBP you can swap it yourself and the manual even shows how to get the screws out, which to place where (long vs short) so I can't see how you can void the warranty if they tell you how to do it.
It is at your own risk, if you bend the back plate, it is your problem, but no such thing in this case.
But I got a genius when I bought the uMBP13" to do it, because I had the WD 500Gb with me, and it worked like a charm. for 3 days.

When the EFI broke it, they did at first argue that I did it, so I told them their genius did the swap. Then they just tried to argue that under Dutch law I'm required to give them a reasonable chance to repair it (or replace it at their option) which I didn't like, but couldn't do much against it either. I pleaded that Apple often has a very good service, especial the first 14 days, but the genius nor a sales guy didn't budge. And I needed a laptop, so I didn't had much options.

But what I read here a lot is that people argue that you replaced the HDD, so you wrecked it, you should have been less hasty. But the fact is that even Genius' didn't know this, so how on earth would I, just a simple user have to know that? Certainly if it worked on all other laptops for the past 4 years and still does work on the unibody MB?

To make the discussion even more nuanced, Apple won't like it either, because they are now replacing a "costly" motherboard and they are paying for shipping and installing it, because I successfully claimed that it was warranty.
And I expect more people to do so when they have these problems and there isn't an EFI 1.8 soon.

You are allowed to swap out hard drives and ram, just not the battery.... on the new MBPs. If you swap out the battery on your own and break something.. Apple is not responsible. If you swap out the HDD and RAM and something happens.... Apple is obligated to fix it. There is none of this "third party" nonsense that people keep bringing up. That's just a big farce being perpetuated on here and it really needs to stop.

Also, in my situation... the "genius" did not switch out the hard drive, I of course did that... he simply recognized that me replacing the hard drive is perfectly acceptable and had absolutely NOTHING to do with the fact that Apple screwed up with this firmware update.

Again, for those who still don't understand... replacing the hard drive has NOTHING to do with the fact that Apple screwed up the computer's ability to communicate properly with the hard drive. A hard drive is a hard drive is a hard drive all day long.

Hi Alec,

I think that this is a perfectly good reason for swapping out a drive on a new machine and can for sure see where this may happen a lot. But clearly many users reporting on this thread were not changing the drive for this reason. Also, I'll admit to not having checked the "user changeable components" on this model as my first question to my Apple rep before I purchased mine was what about the battery change? I go through 300 to 400 cycles per year and did not like the fact that the new machine did not have a removable battery. The word direct from Apple was that the battery WILL NOT be a user changeable component (meaning at this point Apple won't sell you one over the counter) but that Apple will sell you one at any of their stores for about $170 including the installation.

I did not see that as an issue because I figured that by the time I needed a new one, the unit would probably be out of warranty and third party vendors would likely be selling battery packs anyway. What I did incorrectly conclude from the conversation was the hard drive was also not a user change part owing to need to fully remove the cover. Let's not forget that in the removable battery models that it was really easy to change the memory and hard drive. Obviously users making the drive or memory changes is going to be only marginally more difficult on this new frame (now that you've pointed out the instruction manual entry which I verified) but do keep in mind that the drive that you install will not be covered by the APP and could likely give them a reason for avoiding responsibility for all manner of unrelated problems as I've had happen myself. But if it is okay to crack the case to change the drive and memory, then why not the battery?

Anyway, I think your reason for swapping a drive is a good one or if you simply want to move a fully loaded and configured drive from an earlier, similar model would seem okay to me too. I simply asked a question out of curiosity (not left-handed scolding) and you provided a good one. I'm concerned with those folks who may be driven for the need for more performance making these changes needlessly not really knowing how really little bang they will get for their buck in practical terms for the vast majority of applications.

And no, PCmike, I am not a Genious and most of them drive me nuts with how little they really know. I work in a giant edu setting where Macbooks have become hugely popular over the last couple of years with incoming students. Lots of the support guys here won't touch them and point these kids in my direction as they know I am OS agnostic and support everything (my first personal computer was an Apple II). So every day I do get people jumping the line with their "urgent need-it-now" problems, like how do I do this or how do I do that because they had to have a Macbook to be cool but had heretofore used a Windows machine. This is not a Macintosh put-down but it sure is annoying to have some pimple-face get in my face because they want me to teach them everything NOW the they should take the time to learn on their own and are frustrated because the OS is different than they expected.

So, PCmike, I have a request for you. If you are home this morning, please step outside, face due east and take a hike for about 10 or 20 miles. Don't stop until something bites you.

pcmike, I appologize. My question was directed to AlecGold simply thought he was saying that Apple them selves were trying to say that replacing the hard drive voided the warranty. i was not arguing just simply asking AlecGold a very simple question. I never mentioned or type the your word "3rd Party". I hope that the steam from your post was not directed at me as I am not arguing with you or have any interest to. Please run some cool water through your jets as you have good knowledge that people can use here but no one can hear you when your engines are red hot. We good here?