Q: Firmware update and SATA II hard drive

fishbert wrote:

Peter Di Arcangelo wrote:
ONce again, i ask is this 1.6 firmware roll back tool exist, i keep hearing it, keep reading of it, but no one posts any results or even any slight hints of having used it. it seems to me this firmware restore tool is as mystical as a unicorn.

Anyone used this utility yet ? or have results of it being applied?

Hmm........

LOL Next time google is down, I will know who to ask for my search results!

Google i tried google, and it didnt get me very far, this is a 52 page thread, if anyone honestly thinks an individual is going to read the whole thing... no.

Fishbert thank you for those excerpts, i am very greatful i am otw to the apple store right now.

If they tell me such tool doesnt exist, i will literally go ape **** and take a dump on the genius bar, i am so terribly frustrated i cant get any work done on this machine.

Been having this problem since the day the 1.7 firmware came out. Had to switch back to the stock drive from my Intel X25-M 80GB. After reading rumors on this thread of a firmware rollback tool at Genius Bars, I asked at my local Apple Store (Clarendon, VA) if they'd heard of such a thing. It was busy and I didn't have an appointment, but I got knowing looks about the 1.7 problem and was told it might be possible to roll back. Will make an appointment soon and report back for all you on this thread.

Related question: is anyone aware of a utility or hack to limit the X25-M itself to SATA I mode? It sounds like this has resolved the IO errors on other drives.

1801 has been replaced by 18C, compatibility is the same with both, garbage collection was added to 18C to maintain drive speed.

You may see mention of 1901 also, this is the internal designation of the 18C FW at Samsung...so 18C = 1901, same thing.

OCZ are waiting for samsung to release an end user version of the FWupdate tool, we have been promised soon...but soon has been all we have heard for a while. if you want an update to 18C you can rerturn the drive to OCZ and we will update it for you...BUT you lose all data on the drive so back up first.

Message was edited by: ocztony

I've had the classic beach-balling reported here ever since swapping the stock Hitachi 160 with the WD 320 Scorpio from my previous MacBook Pro. The problems were just infrequent enough that I've soldiered on, because I often was able to go a couple of hours before the intermittent freezes would become so intrusive as to eventually stop me in my track and force a reboot.

However, since installing 10.5.8 (I downloaded and installed the combo update) the beach balling appears to have gotten worse. The computer is no longer really usable. I finally had no choice but to swap the stock Hitachi back into the computer (MacBook Pro 13 2.26). The stock drive works perfectly (it was installed in the machine when I installed the EFI 1.7 update that was pushed to me on the day I bought the computer last month-not sure if that is significant).

Not only is there no beach-balling with the stock drive, the whole machine feels much snappier. And my older 320 works perfectly as an external drive, which I am now booting from while I pray that the Apple engineering gods are burning some midnight oil.

So, the apple store closest to me does not have the utility fishbert was kind enough to inform us of, as i expected, the genius was kind enough to spend well over 30 minutes with me so i was quickly pacified and restrained from going into a rage fit. i have contacted another apple store and they too do not have it, they suggested i call apple care.

You need to make an appointment online for the Genius and under the notes paste this thread into it and inform them that if they do not have the tool then their supervisor will have it and may have not pushed it out to the regular techs. I really suggest you read the thread in full. It will give you some ammo to deal with Apple. They do have it but some techs do not know about it. Always inform them it was pushed to the supervisor of the techs.

i did mention this thread, they did say they have a restore CD they did try it, it just didn't work, they told me that they dont have the CD for the mid 2009 MBP (hence why the one they used didn't work) they did refuse to help me, they just politely informed me that they didn't have the version the brand new machines need.

It is not a restore disk. It is a firmware disk. Just mentioning the thread does nothing because they did not get a chance to investigate. I suggest you just follow my advice and it should work out for you. Good Luck!

Thank you Ella, would you be able to refer me to the apple store which helped you out with the firmware downgrade? thank you in advance.

Mall of Georgia

Put me on the list of effected users. Entry level 13" 2009 macbook here with stock HD.

I'm also affected. Installed the new Crucial 128GB SSD and it caused havoc - OS X wouldn't install on it or would freeze up within minutes of booting and force me to do a hard reset. I had two of these Crucial drives and both behaved exactly the same.

It's ridiculous that Apple have done nothing and released no comment about this issue. Have people been battering their customer service avenues about this?

with 52 pages, apple definitely knows somethings up, they are trying to fix it, they just haven't yet:

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=763025

Apple is doing all they can, just give it time.

That's a completely different issue though. There's been no acknowledgement of this issue.