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IanBurrell
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Q: Firmware update and SATA II hard drive

Has anybody had any problems with new MacBook Pro after yesterday's firmware update with third party hard drive? I got a MacBook Pro 13" recently, swapped the 320 GB hard drive from my old MacBook. After reinstalling the OS for new hardware drivers, everything was working fine.

After the firmware update yesterday, the machine has started freezing randomly; the spinner comes up sometimes when reading or writing to the drive. The hard drive, a WD Scorpio Blue, supports SATA II. My suspicion is that there are intermittent data errors when using the SATA 3 Gbps interface. It could be an incompatibility between the controller and drive or the ribbon cable isn't good enough for newer SATA.

Does anybody know of a way to force the drive or the controller to use SATA 1.5 Gbps? Can I revert to the old firmware?

MacBook Pro 13", Mac OS X (10.5.7)

Posted on Jun 23, 2009 10:08 AM

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IanBurrell

Q: Firmware update and SATA II hard drive

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  • by oceangurl,

    oceangurl oceangurl Sep 3, 2009 2:12 PM in response to kaderan
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Sep 3, 2009 2:12 PM in response to kaderan
    kaderan wrote:
    I wondered if Apple used their own firmware on their stock drives. It is the only thing that makes sense, since by and large the stock drives seem to work with EFI 1.7. I wondered out loud about this on the thread a few days back, but the only comment was that as far as anyone knew, the stock drives were just standard EOM equipment and no different than off the shelf gear. Are you sure about this? It is the only logical explanation for the difference.


    Yes they do appear to use their own firmware on their stock drives. I made a point to purchase the same model drive as they ship as a stock drive, and while the models match - the firmware doesn't. They released a hard drive firmware update 2.0, however it seems it checks for the current firmware on the drive and will only flash it if it has their prior firmware on there. I wish they made these firmware updates available for the same model drives so we could match their firmware at least. =/

  • by oceangurl,

    oceangurl oceangurl Sep 3, 2009 2:20 PM in response to kaderan
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Sep 3, 2009 2:20 PM in response to kaderan
    bilals wrote:
    I've been wondering about something - there's an Apple firmware upgrade for their own Seagate Momentus 7200.4 drives that optionally ship with the larger uMBPs that may fix this problem, but I think it may be more to do with the clashing of the motion sensors in the laptop and hard drive itself (I think the updated firmware simply disables the drive's own sensor) and doubt it is meant to alleviate the problems associated with EFI 1.7 update but even so, I wonder if the firmware upgrade would flash a non-Apple Momentus 7200.4? Does anyone know?


    bilals: I have a non Apple Momentus 7400.4, same model as Apple's. I was not able to flash it with the Apple firmware update. The Apple provided drives ship with a modified firmware than those direct from Seagate.

  • by David.K,

    David.K David.K Sep 3, 2009 2:32 PM in response to IanBurrell
    Level 1 (15 points)
    Sep 3, 2009 2:32 PM in response to IanBurrell
    Hmm, im starting to get beachballs on my STOCK 5400 drive. Haven't gotten one for the 4 weeks I have had this 13" MacBook Pro, but tonight I've gotten 3 of them so far, one was 30 seconds and everything just froze. And then everything happened in highspeed.

  • by Ella Price,

    Ella Price Ella Price Sep 3, 2009 2:39 PM in response to David.K
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Sep 3, 2009 2:39 PM in response to David.K
    That is the symptom of this issue. Did the seconds stop on the clock?

  • by Ella Price,

    Ella Price Ella Price Sep 3, 2009 2:40 PM in response to oceangurl
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Sep 3, 2009 2:40 PM in response to oceangurl
    Apple has always used custom firmware on their drives.

  • by David.K,

    David.K David.K Sep 3, 2009 2:46 PM in response to Ella Price
    Level 1 (15 points)
    Sep 3, 2009 2:46 PM in response to Ella Price
    No idea, I did not have the clock up, but it was like this. First I sawe my movie froze, and so did adium. Then I tried scrolling up in the firefox tab I was on, it worked to scroll up once, but when I tried scrolling down even firefox froze.

  • by MBP15,

    MBP15 MBP15 Sep 3, 2009 3:02 PM in response to IanBurrell
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Sep 3, 2009 3:02 PM in response to IanBurrell
    So I shouldn't buy a MBP. I've been waiting for a month to getit but it had beep, click, and freeze problem. Now there's still the freezing problem and I don't wanna deal with it =x Any suggestions.

  • by MBP15,

    MBP15 MBP15 Sep 3, 2009 3:09 PM in response to IanBurrell
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Sep 3, 2009 3:09 PM in response to IanBurrell
    Btw. Isn't there a 2.0 firmware that fixed the beeping and clicking or is that another type of fw. bcuz that fixed the beep and clicking. so you guys are rolling back from 1.7 to 1.6. what for?

  • by Peter Di Arcangelo,

    Peter Di Arcangelo Peter Di Arcangelo Sep 3, 2009 3:16 PM in response to MBP15
    Level 1 (90 points)
    Sep 3, 2009 3:16 PM in response to MBP15
    http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=8414998&posted=1#post8414998


    Read, it might help you downgrade your firmware....

    grin

  • by bobrudge,

    bobrudge bobrudge Sep 3, 2009 3:35 PM in response to IanBurrell
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Sep 3, 2009 3:35 PM in response to IanBurrell
    2.0 is a completely different firmware (it's fw for a harddrive not the computer itself so can only be installed on machines with the seagate 7200 drives) and it is wholly unrelated to this issue.

    Good to see macrumors covering this issue. About time.

  • by bobrudge,

    bobrudge bobrudge Sep 3, 2009 3:42 PM in response to Peter Di Arcangelo
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Sep 3, 2009 3:42 PM in response to Peter Di Arcangelo
    That's great news that the rollback tool is eventually out. Should allow people to get to a useable state while we wait for Apple to do the decent thing and get 1.8 out with proper SATA II support. I'd advise everyone to download that rollback while you can and keep it on file for possible future need.

  • by Peter Di Arcangelo,

    Peter Di Arcangelo Peter Di Arcangelo Sep 3, 2009 3:42 PM in response to bobrudge
    Level 1 (90 points)
    Sep 3, 2009 3:42 PM in response to bobrudge
    i posted the .dmg and steps needed to downgrade firmware back to 1.6

  • by SiliconLunch,

    SiliconLunch SiliconLunch Sep 3, 2009 3:56 PM in response to Peter Di Arcangelo
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Sep 3, 2009 3:56 PM in response to Peter Di Arcangelo
    Thanks!

    Message was edited by: nico-apple

  • by KettyKrueger,

    KettyKrueger KettyKrueger Sep 3, 2009 4:12 PM in response to IanBurrell
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Sep 3, 2009 4:12 PM in response to IanBurrell
    Any chance of this working on the 17" model?

    Any more people tried this?

  • by nivenh,

    nivenh nivenh Sep 3, 2009 4:13 PM in response to Peter Di Arcangelo
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Sep 3, 2009 4:13 PM in response to Peter Di Arcangelo
    I can confirm the dmg linked there does indeed work.

    here it is again...

    http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=8414998&posted=1#post8414998

    I followed the instructions, and it went smooth as silk. I'm back on 1.6, and 1.7 is showing up in the software update dialog again.

    thanks for sharing Peter!!!!!!!!!!!
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