Q: Firmware update and SATA II hard drive

I have been on the phone with AppleCare for the last hour. They currently were only vaguely aware of the issue. They did confirm that Apple Genius Bars do have the rollback tool. The lady I spoke with was very helpful and is calling the Genius Bar prior to my appointment to let them know specifically what they want them to do. The third-party HD issue has also been filed with their engineering department, so look for the next firmware to address this issue.

More people need to actually CALL AppleCare and explain to them situation to get this resolved. Don't be scared to tell them you have a third-party HD - I actually gave her the actual specs on mine.

She also said that if the Genius Bar can't resolve it based on the articles and documentation she gives them, then I am supposed to call her back so that she can escalate the claim to a higher level, in which case engineering will work faster to resolve it.

Get on the phone people!

@JERRY H.

I don´t think that Apple want´s to stop us from upgrading our HD´s, not on purpose. I have the 160GB stock HD and the same problems. But in one point you´re right. I had planned to upgade to a 500GB WD Scorpio Blue, which will now have to wait. So indirect the do.

I notice that many of the stock drives that Apple uses are Hitachi. Does anyone know, are these Hitachi drives identical to 3rd party Hitachis I might be able to buy from macsales.com, for example? Or does Apple have hitachi burn something special into the Drive's firmware that makes them unique? Since my stock 160 Hitachi works fine installed in my MBP 13 with EFI 1.7, but my main drive drive (previously in my older MBP 15), a WD 320 Scorpio, is now relegated to external drive enclosure that I am now booting from just to get work done due to beachballing, I am considering purchasing a 3rd party Hitachi drive in the hopes that it might play nice with EFI 1.7. Any comments? Is this just wishful thinking?

kaderan wrote:
I notice that many of the stock drives that Apple uses are Hitachi. Does anyone know, are these Hitachi drives identical to 3rd party Hitachis I might be able to buy from macsales.com, for example? Or does Apple have hitachi burn something special into the Drive's firmware that makes them unique? Since my stock 160 Hitachi works fine installed in my MBP 13 with EFI 1.7, but my main drive drive (previously in my older MBP 15), a WD 320 Scorpio, is now relegated to external drive enclosure that I am now booting from just to get work done due to beachballing, I am considering purchasing a 3rd party Hitachi drive in the hopes that it might play nice with EFI 1.7. Any comments? Is this just wishful thinking?

Or, you could save time and simply flush the money down the toilet.

Look, even if there might be some miniscule difference between Apple's stock Hitachi drive and one you buy from a 3rd party (which I doubt, given that they have identical model numbers etc), this issue affects any and all drives... stock Hitachi 5400RPM... stock Seagate 7200RPM... WD Scorpio Blue/Black/whatever. The drive itself isn't the culprit.

Went into the Regent Street Apple Store today to talk to a Genius. No one there had any information on a firmware rollback tool, and they couldn't find it anywhere on their server. Anyone know exactly what they should be looking for? And, more importantly, "where" it is? I asked him if he meant a path or a URL or what, but he was vague.

After striking out there, I called UK AppleCare, and they similarly didn't know what to make of it. I pointed them to this thread. I have a case number, and it's been escalated, but the entire response actually consisted of "please call us back in a week and see if we have more information."

I'm a bit at a loss what to do now. I'm considering calling one of the stores that have done this for people and asking them if they could give me some more info on what exactly this tool is called, or where it is. I'm not hopeful that I will be able to get a Genius on the phone.

Number of SPODs while typing this post: 2. >_<

Has anyone actually had the rollback done in the last 7 days? I wonder if Apple pulled it for some reason. So odd how easy it was for me to get done and most folks are having so much trouble.

Yes. I had it done 3 days ago (Saturday).

have to laugh... "call us back in a week or so" is the standard first answer from customer service departments all over the UK

BILLY!

Please please let us know the details of the call i've been on the phone for 40 mintues going back and forth with this guy telling me rolling back firmware is something on the logic board and that Apple would never do.

do you have an incident number or apple care tech you talked to or anything at all?! please help us all!! i did call but they are telling me to **** off and get an apple SSD.

thanks!
if you dont want o post it email me

jedidiah at no spam iliveinyourhead.com

i know have a case number. the tech is still convinced that there is no way to rollback firmware with out pulling the logic board and hooking it up to some fancy machine...

i hope billy reads this soon...

I've spent so much time on the phone and they always just think of something else. I'm surprised not everyone has heard this complaint yet and bummed it's not been acknowledged as a known issue at the very least.

Today I called and they had me run the in depth hardware test. Just ran me up to it and had me start it than said "Alright, now that's going to take at least an hour. Call us tomorrow with the results."

It's very, very frustrating to have spent a fortune on faulty hardware and have it be completely ignored by Apple.

Just an Update:

The nearest Apple Store I could find is nearly a coupe hours drive from here, so taking it in only for a hit or miss possibility of getting them to roll the firmware back is not currently an option. After reading some had success with the Seagate ST9500420AS model, I went ahead and bought it and switched out the Seagate 5400 RPM drive I'm having freezes with with that one. Boy was that a bad experience, I got Kernel Failures at boot after installing Leopard. I was able to force the OS to load, and repair it. Installed Snow Leopard, and was unable to do a clean install - it failed 6 times in a row. I was able to reinstall Leopard and then do an upgrade install, and now am in Snow Leopard finally. It is still having random freeze ups and beach balling which seems to be much worse than it was in Leopard. After migrating my data over from my other drive, computer locked up and wouldn't boot. I had to let it cool down and then it booted again, so seems to be some sort of heat issue as well?

Also, I have a Boot Camp install of Windows Vista and it runs very smooth. No hanging up at all, even can play intensive 3D game Everquest2 on high quality settings without issue. If I try to play even a less intensive game, such as WoW on the OSX partition it hangs and beachballs to the point the game is unplayable. If I boot the same drive over USB in an external enclosure, I can run all the MacOSX applications and WoW without any freeze-ups.

I just switched to Mac from PC and this has been a very bad first time experience for me so far. I really hope Apple resolves this issue for us and soon. Next course of action for me, reinstalling the stock Hitachi 160 GB drive until Apple gives a fix for this issue. Sooner rather then later I hope, as 160GB isn't much to work with these days.

I just got a macbook pro a couple days ago, and immediately upgraded the hard drive to a WD 500GB. I noticed the computer would temporarily lock up every time the hard drive was being used heavily.

For example, if I transfer files from an external drive, or over the network, or from the internet, NEVER could make it more than 1 GB into the transfer without locking up one or more times for upwards of 30 seconds. When it locks up, the first thing I notice is the transfer stops. Nothing else on the screen changes, and I will not see a spinning beach ball UNLESS I CLICK ON SOMETHING. At that point, the beach ball comes up and everything else on the screen freezes, including the clock. The clock is not frozen until I try clicking on something with the mouse.

Outside of heavy data transfers, I have not had a problem. I called my local Apple Store in Roseville, and was informed they have the rollback tool. Going in on Thursday to get the problem fixed.

Wow, this is an epic thread. One of our laptops is giving us similar problems - upon waking, it will (pretty much randomly) beach ball and freeze the entire system (can't even open the force quit dialogue or anything) until we hold the power button to turn it on. And then, it will commonly boot with the somewhat dreaded folder/question mark icon. If we turn it off and on again, then it finally boots into the OS. We haven't had any severe beach balls during regular use - it is always either at boot-up or wake. And every time it crashes the system.

This is on a brand new harddrive (320 GB Seagate Momentus 7200 RPM drive), with a fresh installation of Snow Leopard. I've reset the PRAM and NVRAM, repaired permissions, checked the disc... all come back nominal.

This sounds like what has been discussed in this thread... BUT, it is on a 13" MacBook. Not pro. Would rolling back that firmware update help in this case? Or is this particular issue only on the Pro machines?

If I am mistaken and this thread isn't relevant, can anyone point me in the direction of something that would? This is drastically affecting our work. Thanks in advance!