Q: Firmware update and SATA II hard drive

Hey,

Have any of you folks having problems with these 3rd party SATA/300 drives been checking the partition map scheme you are using when formatting these drives? It has to use the GUID partition table otherwise it ain't gonna' work right. Could someone having a 3rd party drive problem please boot from a Leopard install DVD and then run the Disk Utility, click the actual hard drive model (not the volume) and see what the "Partition Map Scheme" at the bottom of the page reports.

If it is not "GUID Partition Table" then this could be your problem. If you don't have anything on the drive worth worrying about at this point, then clicking on "Erase" and resetting the drive to the Leopard default should return the scheme to GUID and can then be partitioned. It might be recognized okay after this.

It's not the partition map. Mine (as I'm sure pretty much everyone else's here) is GUID. I think from the different experiences we've pretty much determined that it's some sort of issue with the firmware and the SATA hard drive interface recognizing some hard drives. Everyone seems to be able to boot these hard drives just fine if they've tried to do so in a USB enclosure and now we've had reports that it boots fine if linked to the optical drive SATA port. So it has to be something with the new firmware and the SATA hard drive interface.

I just wanted to add my frustration. I did NOT replace or remove my stock hard drive, yet my computer still hangs randomly as well. Mine is the 500 GB 5400 RPM hard drive. My MBP was upgraded to 3.06 Ghz processor in China then shipped here.

I've tried some things suggested here (reset PRAM) and things Apple phone support recommended (delete cache folders, repair disk permissions, delete some login items) but nothing worked.

Hi all,

I'm experiencing the same disk issues after "upgrading" to 1.7 EFI Firmware.

I have a 320GB WD Scorpio, and I've changed the Jumper setup to match the "SSC Enabled" configuration..

The problem is still present. Right now I'm changing to the RPS settings and let's see..

Anyway I think that Apple response "You have a third party disk, we don't officially support" is inappropriate, since they put in the manual the full guide to upgrade/change the hard drive on their notebooks, why shouldn't they test their upgrades before release them??

jeremyzone: just curious if your drive has the "Apple HDD Firmware 2008" installed as nathojg reported (p.3 of this thread).

I am suspicious that the Apple HDD firmware is somehow contributing to this. I mean why put your own firmware on a drive? SATA is a standard, after all. All drive manufacturers comply to it and their device is guaranteed to work in all SATA-compliant computers... at least, in theory.

Not saying the EFI 1.7 update didn't break the machine, I am positive it caused the trouble... but maybe NVidia didn't build in support for Apple's HDD firmware?

At this point, I'm with the majority... who cares, just FIX it!

With RPS settings things SEEMS (don't be happy, just SEEMS) to be better.

Anyway most of the programs, when started, took more than 15-20 seconds and the computer freezes...well not really...I can see background applications still working (Flash animations, clock etc..)

I wrote to apple through this forum

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

I invite you to do the same.

IanBurrell wrote:
Has anybody had any problems with new MacBook Pro after yesterday's firmware update with third party hard drive?

No, but with the Apple hard disk drive.


IanBurrell wrote:

After the firmware update yesterday, the machine has started freezing randomly

This is exactly this what I noticed when my hard disk drive is in "heavy" use. Playing a movie in QT, working with Safari, etc.

efenska: I don't know how to check to see if my hard drive has "Apple HDD Firmware 2008" installed. I saw on a forum that someone mentioned seeing this information printed on a sticker on their hard drive, and I would rather not crack the seal on my MBP to check...

Here's the system profiler info for my stock drive that's causing problems:
Capacity: 465.76 GB
Model: Hitachi HTS545050B9SA02
Revision: PB4AC60Q

More failed attempts--

First, I posted feedback on the MacBook Pro feedback page mentioned above.

Then I called AppleCare again, explained my situation, and asked if there was any solution underway or anything they could do. The technician said he was filling out a report to be passed along to the hardware people. What effect that will have, I don't know, but it can't hurt.

The only thing he could think of that I could do is to contact an ASP or an Apple Store and see if they have a Firmware Restoration disc to downgrade my firmware to it's original. He said that while I was unable to do that because the model was so new, it was indeed possible for a tech.

I know a few posters have not had luck with dealing with the Apple Store, and I was no different. I called, talked to a specialist (Apple Store at Millenia Mall in Orlando), and was told that "as policy" they cannot revert the firmware in the store. Why this would be a "policy" I didn't quite understand but I didn't feel like arguing over the phone. I plan on calling my local Authorized Service Provider tomorrow when they're open as they've been helpful in the past. I'll post back if I have any luck with this.

Kind of grasping at straws now, but I've raised a ticket with Western Digital to see if they have a software tool to set the drive speed.

Just a question for all those with trouble.
When I got my macbook pro it soon had the 1.7 efi update installed, but I also had trouble with my temperature/fan, the temperature could raise itself to 85, 90 degrees Celsius, but the fan wouldn't rev up, it would stay between 1999 and 2006 rpm.
Anybody else noticed this odd behaviour?

For me it was the same .. my fan started spin up from the smooth 2000rpm as the CPU was at 102 degrees celsius (if I can believe iStats)

but thats another topic.

APPLE, UPDATE THE FIRMWARE, I WANT TO USE MY MBP AGAIN!

Yeah I noticed the same odd behaviour.

It got back to normal when I put the old hard drive back in place.

really? so u think the fan starts earlier with an Apple HDD inside?

Well, it didn't go back to normal in my case, this morning I was doing some big unzip work, together with two parallels windows xp and that heated it up to 100C, so I did shut-down some apps.
I went to the store, got a genius to speak and tested several MBP's 13" that they had on display there and all of them did the same behaviour:
when graffer and yes > dev/null was used the CPU fired up to 100%, after which it reached well over 100C with the fan at 2006rpm , after reaching over 100C, the fan would kick in really fast, get up to ±5700rpm or even up to ±6150rpm and the temp would get down to 85C, after which the fan would rev down until it was at about 4700 rpm.

This seems like a form of (non)logic behaviour and might be related to keep the fan as long as possible as low as possible, just to save energy?!

I'm just worried as **** that my processor one day will terminate because of overheating, to say the least, because I have the idea that it will shorten the life of my processor considerable.