Q: Firmware update and SATA II hard drive

Ok after trying everything to get my Corsair P256 running in a late 2008 macbookpro, i tried something really stupid. I opened the harddrive/battery enclosure and attached my ssd to the internal sata cable but let the ssd outside of the macbookpro. i could not believe what i saw, leopard installation was rapid fast. after leopard installation i installed windows xp sp3, also in ultra speed. after putting the ssd back inside the macbook pro, it wont even recognize my ssd. it sounds stupid, but everyone who has the beachball thing should try this out. for me its definately a broken cable.

cheers
picea

piceaadc wrote:
Ok after trying everything to get my Corsair P256 running in a late 2008 macbookpro...

The issue in this thread is specifically about the firmware 1.7 update, which only applies to the new, mid-2009 13" and 15" MacBook Pros -- the ones with the SD memory card slot. Your issue is something different.

OK. Not sure if this is the fix or not. Got the new MacBookPro 13 inch (2009) model. Swapped out the 160gb for a 320gb 7200rpm Seagate. Transferred everything from the stock 160gb to the 320gb disk using SuperDuper. Shut down, disconnected the OEM 160gb drive (now in Firewire case) rebooted. Grey screen for a l o n g time, then computer booted. Was s l o w. Tried to set new 320gb drive as startup drive. It didn't show as an available startup drive. Connected OEM drive. It showed as an available startup drive. Booted from it. Ran all sorts of disk repair procedures, disk permissions, Drive Genius, Tech Tools Pro etc. NOTHING WORKED. Recopied everything using Carbon Copy Cloner. Same issues. Then looked at System Profile Information. The only difference was the Partition Scheme. The 160gb OEM was GUID. Repartitioned the 320gb Seagate as GUID. Recopied using SuperDuper. All was good and has been since.

My X25 has always been in GUID partion scheme, so that is not the solution, at least not for me.

Update:
ocz vertex ssd + mbp 13 (3 different machines) fw 1.6 or 1.7 = beachball
same ssd + new mbp 15 2.66 fw 1.6 or 1.7 = perfect
same ssd + new (my wife's) mbp 13 1.7 preinstalled = perfect
lately I've been installing using the following procedure:
doing a time machine and upgrading everything on the original drive then carbon copy cloning it to the ssd (external case), then swapping the drives.
?

Do new MacBook Pros come with the update preinstalled?

I'm buying a 13" MBP very soon and I intend to upgrade the hard drive, is it possible for me to just not download the 1.7 update through Software Update? Or is it preinstalled (and thus impossible to get rid of)?

sirlenin wrote:
Do new MacBook Pros come with the update preinstalled?

Yes, the second MacBook Pro I recieved from Apple comes with 1.7.
I installed Windows XP on it and the installation was very fast!
So, perhaps you just have to reinstall Mac OS X again.

sirlenin wrote:
Do new MacBook Pros come with the update preinstalled?

I'm buying a 13" MBP very soon and I intend to upgrade the hard drive, is it possible for me to just not download the 1.7 update through Software Update? Or is it preinstalled (and thus impossible to get rid of)?

At this point, it's likely you'd be getting a MBP with 1.7 pre-installed.
Some people seem to have had more luck with a pre-installed 1.7, as opposed to the update.
Another option is to buy the laptop and replace the hard drive right away -- if it doesn't work, but the old one back in and return the MBP under your 14 days, and pay the 10% restocking fee.

Personally, I wouldn't risk it with how pervasive this problem appears to be and with how Apple is turning away so many affected customers who only upgraded a user-serviceable part.

Some have been saying recently that the hard drives Apple supplies are firmware-limited to 1.5 Gb/s.
How may I verify this?

For my Apple-supplied hard drive (which works fine - and I'd like to nail down why)...
...System Profile tells me nothing apart from the chipset speed capability on the logic board.
...SMART Utility tells me "ATA Version: 8" and "ATA Standard: Not recognized. Minor revision code: 0x28".

Also, are there any Apple-supplied hard drive upgrades that are *not* firmware-limited to 1.5 Gb/s.

Ideally, I'd like to go to Apple, buy an upgrade to a drive I know is not firmware-limited, then make them at least acknowledge the issue that way (since they want to pull the 3rd party HDD 'get out of jail free card' then stick their fingers in their ears going "La-la-la-la-la!).

Apple has specifically said that they do not offer/support drives that run in 3.0 mode. I'm not sure how you would "prove" that, but that was their statement with the 1.7 firmware update:

+*About MacBook Pro EFI Firmware Update 1.7*+

+*MacBook Pro EFI Firmware Update 1.7 addresses an issue reported by a small number of customers using drives based on the SATA 3Gbps specification with the June 2009 MacBook Pro. While this update allows drives to use transfer rates greater than 1.5Gbps, Apple has not qualified or offered these drives for Mac notebooks and their use is unsupported.*+

http://support.apple.com/downloads/MacBookPro_EFI_Firmware_Update_1_7

And there lies the gist of the problem. Apple does, in fact, offer a drive that runs in 3.0 mode, namely the 500 Gb 7200rpm Seagate ST9500420ASG. Now, if that drive is jumpered or, as Fishbert is saying, firmware limited to 1.5 mode, then that is something worth finding out. Many here have had problems with both the Seagate ST9500420AS and ASG models of this 500 Gb drive. I am one of those with an AS model which can be jumper-limited to 1.5 mode but doing that still doesn't help in the least. The drive is now on its way back to Seagate who, I am sure will be the case, will find that there is absolutely nothing wrong with the drive itself.

For Apple to offer this drive means that they should also support it whether it is firmware or jumper limited to 1.5 mode since it does operate in 3.0 mode as well. So, in fact, their statement that they do not offer these drives is incorrect or, at least, misleading.

I have the 13in 2.26 MBP that was purchased as soon as they went on sale. I immediately installed a WD Scorpio Blue 500gb HDD and updated the firmware to the 1.7 update and have had absolutely no problems whatsoever. I did however do a clean install of the OS. In the get info section it shows the speed is 3gb.

Are you running anything intensive on it, such as VMWare/Parallels or the Autocad Suite? I only ask as some people have only had problems under heavy load. Personally, I get the problems when using Safari but YMMV. I've got the WD 320GB BEVT and couldn't get it to work. I'm tempted to just get the 500GB WD and do a fresh install.

This may be of interest to some, but after having a WD Scorpio Blue drive that was effected by the EFI 1.7 Firmware update for a while now, I put the stock Hitachi drive back in and placed the WD in an external enclosure and let it be for a while. After returning here a few times to see about others' experience with the firmware update and reading that some are having issues while others aren't, I decided to go out and purchase another drive (same one), noting the dates on the drives. The older one was March 09, while the one I just bought today was July 09.

The previous drive would only get to about 1/4 of the install complete before crapping out and before giving any type of error message, it would state about a 10 hour install time. This time around, the install took less than 20 minutes.

I'm going to test it out for a few hours and post again later to let you guys know how things go.

Along the same lines of your test:

I have two July 09 WD Scorpio Blues, and both worked flawlessly on two different MBP 2.26 mid 2009's with EFI 1.7 (I upgraded my girlfriend's hard drive as well and no problems).