Q: Firmware update and SATA II hard drive

Ok, I read almost all of the pages... 58 pages!

I'm pretty sure I have the same problem with my brand new G.Skill Falcon 128GB not being able to boot from it after successful installation (when it succeeds).

The most "horrible" thing is, it worked for a couple of hours... and stopped! It was fast and amazing and now... had to revert back to the 320GB 7200 HDD that came with my macbook pro.

I'm sorry to bother with this question but do you think I should exchange my Falcon SDD for an OCZ Vertex? will it work or will it have the same problems?

(btw, thought of a new Mac VS PC ->
PC: "Hey Mac"
MAC: "Hey PC, what's that you have there?"
PC: "Oh that? that's a new 3rd Party SSD I got to use with Win7"
MAC: "Was it easy to install? Didn't MS have a problem with it not being their own SSD?"
PC: "No, I just went to my local PC store, a few minutes and it was up and running... why can't you install 3rd party SSDs?"
MAC: "Amm..."

-> I'm not trying to be funny....

I've been an evangelist of Apple's for years, slowly recommending/migrating all my friends and relatives who frequently called for PC support with their dodgy Windows machines over to Mac. Having just upgraded my own Mac to a Mid-2009 MBP and hoping to install my old WD 320GB drive in it, I too have had these same problems with beachballs etc. I am astonished there isn't even an acknowledgement of the problem from Apple! I don't buy the excuse that aftermarket drives aren't guaranteed to work - it's just shoddy to say something like that when there is a general convention in the industry that such standards allow swapping of devices. I'm in two minds as to whether to return my one-week old machine or wait in hope. If it's not resolved soon, I can't see myself being a recommender any longer. Apple needs to realise that the same people who customise their machines with hard drives and most likely the very people who are opinion-formers driving new business for them.

All you folks who are experiencing these same issues, I'd heavily suggest that you do all of the following:

1) Call Apple support -- they will probably refer you to the rollback utility, in which case you can ask them about stable SATA II support in your "modern" laptop. Don't abuse the system, but support is expensive, and Apple will notice if many people are calling in about the same issue.

2) Tell Apple what you think by filling out their online feedback form (http://www.apple.com/feedback/macbookpro.html). Again, lots of people complaining about the lack of stable SATA II support is likely to get some attention.

3) *Very important* -- Ask/beg/plead Apple-centric news sites to cover the issue. This problem has not received any press, apart from possibly a mention in one Apple-centric podcast. That's not good enough. I've noticed that whenever an Apple-related news site covered the click/beep problem with 7200RPM drives, about half of the people in the comments section had symptoms of this firmware 1.7 problem instead, but didn't appear to know anything about it. This issue needs coverage.

4) Warn others who you think may be in the market for a laptop to avoid this generation of MacBook Pros. Apple may not be acknowledging this issue, but that doesn't mean that other consumers should not be informed about the serious problem that so many of us have been running in to. It may not make a difference to some, and that's fine, but to others it may save them the headache of spending thousands on a "top of the line" laptop only to find it's less capable than a cheap netbook in certain areas.

Great advice fishbert. Do not be lazy folks. Just posting on this forum is not enough.

Question for the folks who were having issues and had the rollback done.

Is everything working normally? I am still getting the occasional pause when I push the drive but no where as bad as on 1.7 and the drive jumpered to 1.5/SSC disabled.

I have not had time to wipe the drive and start fresh. I am using a Seagate Momentus 500GB 5400.6.

Thanks.

Guys, I'm thinking of exchanging it for a MBP 17' model...
Please help me confirm that this issue doesn't affect the 17 inch model..?

Thank you

Never mind... can't exchange the 15'... not allowed.
Guess I'm stuck with this ****** problem

Ok, just a thought;

EFI is basically a different BIOS right? There has to be a way to enter the settings, has to.
Once we're in we can check and see if there's something we can do.
The Firmware Update changed something in the EFI's settings... why can't we?
If PC dudes can do that... why can't we?

I'm willing to be a guinea pig, just need help entering the EFI's settings dudes...

pinnocio wrote:
Guys, I'm thinking of exchanging it for a MBP 17' model...
Please help me confirm that this issue doesn't affect the 17 inch model..?

Thank you

I bet fishbert is loving this...

Pinnocio, it's been mentioned repeatedly that it does not affect the 17 inch model.

fishbert wrote:
3) *Very important* -- Ask/beg/plead Apple-centric news sites to cover the issue. This problem has not received any press, apart from possibly a mention in one Apple-centric podcast. That's not good enough. I've noticed that whenever an Apple-related news site covered the click/beep problem with 7200RPM drives, about half of the people in the comments section had symptoms of this firmware 1.7 problem instead, but didn't appear to know anything about it. This issue needs coverage.

I'm still fairly new to MAC land, can you please suggest which are the key news sites I / we should be contacting to raise coverage?

EFI is strictly controlled by Apple (for good reasons) unless a hack of some sort is performed.

Is that really what you want to do hack into the EFI firmware on a New $1200.00 - $3700.00 piece of equipment, when it is under warranty despite what the individual Apple reps are telling you.

Would it not be easier to put the original drive back in until a fix comes out. If you are experiencing problems with the stock then Apple sure cannot argue about the warranty.

For those with beachballs every hours for 15-30 secs, how many installed "smartmontools" from (mac|darwin)ports? It installs by default a daemon startup files (/Library/LaunchDaemons/net.sourceforge.smartmontools.smartd.plist) that starts "smartd" on startup. After I installed a generation 1 X25-M 80GB on friday, I installed back smartmontools and smartd caused my boot time before the login screen to triple. Also, caused beachballs every hours.

I remembered today that smartd caused a lot of problems with the stock hard drives when I got my 13" MBP. Anyway, I don't want smartd on startup and removing the file I mentionned stops it from launching.

I'm now a happy camper with a 80GB X25-M in my 13" MBP (EFI 1.7 installed) that works perfectly! I hope this post can help a few here.

katmeef wrote:

fishbert wrote:
3) *Very important* -- Ask/beg/plead Apple-centric news sites to cover the issue. This problem has not received any press, apart from possibly a mention in one Apple-centric podcast. That's not good enough. I've noticed that whenever an Apple-related news site covered the click/beep problem with 7200RPM drives, about half of the people in the comments section had symptoms of this firmware 1.7 problem instead, but didn't appear to know anything about it. This issue needs coverage.

I'm still fairly new to MAC land, can you please suggest which are the key news sites I / we should be contacting to raise coverage?

I frequent macrumors, appleinsider, tuaw, 9to5mac, arstechnica (has an Apple section), and a few others. But feel free to search for more.

I'm on those as well. I will add a few more good sites to petition for coverage of this issue:

MacNN, Engadget, Gizmodo, Tom's Hardware, possibly even ModMyi since they now have a Mac section.

I've now had my logic board replaced and the Crucial SSD that was forcing me to hard restart after a minute or so is now working perfectly.

First thing I did was to Ignore the EFI update, and I'll certainly be more careful about applying updates in the future.

Apple should roll out the firmware reversal tool while they come up with a long term solution.