Failed to issue COM RESET successfully after 3 attempts. Failing...

humandoing wrote:
Just in case anyone else has this problem, and wants to claw their eyes out.

I upgraded the Hard Disk in my MacBook Pro about four days ago (the new MBP, summer 2009 with SD card). I installed a Hitachi Travelstar 7K320. It worked awesome for about four days, until I went to run the EFI Firmware Update this morning.

My machine stopped booting. I held Command-V to get the verbose boot output, and eventually got the message: Failed to issue COM RESET successfully after 3 attempts. Failing... - which is where the boot halted.

I removed the Hitachi and restored the stock drive, and the laptop now booted fine. I think it's something Apple will have to look into.

Since your computer is very new, did Apple do the HD install, or did you possible violate your warrantee by doing it yourself?
I don't think this is an Apple issue as much as one you created yourself.
Perhaps you should take the computer to Apple and have them install the drive?

humandoing wrote:
nerowolfe: I disagree. And the hard drive is user-serviceable in the new MacBook Pro. It's not a warranty issue whatsoever.

I didn't know that.
Still, if the Hitachi drive does not work, why would that be Apple's problem? Did you buy the drive from Apple? Did the vendor guarantee that the drive would work? Leopard/New MBP compatible?
And then there is the possibility that the drive is defective.

Same drive, same error message.

I think Apple dropped the ball here.

humandoing:

This is the Leopard Installation and Setup forum. In as much as your info post is hardware related you might want to post here in the MacBook Pro (Late 2008 and 2009) forum where users with a similar configuration would be: http://discussions.apple.com/category.jspa?categoryID=251

ten pages of troubles over the EFI 1.7 update:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2054387&start=135&tstart=0
most can swap out the new drive, install the old one and get on.
Mine needed a new motherboard 😟

Message was edited by: AlecGold

It would appear that this is not a supported drive. From 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_."

Also, if I'm reading the specs correctly, the Travelstar 7K320 is offered in no more than 320 GB capacities while the new MBP comes with a 500 GB drive installed, so I'm not sure why users would choose to replace the stock drive with a smaller one. True, this is a 7200 rpm drive vs. 5400 rpm for the stock one, but as drives fill up their average real-world performance tends to decline because average seek times increase. (This is why published comparison benchmarks are typically run on near empty drives.) 7200 rpm drives have a small inherent latency advantage vs. 5400 rpm ones, but it is small compared to typical seek times, so seek times tend to dominate real-world data transfer patterns. There is more to it than this of course, but the result is that bigger "slower" drives are often better for day-to-day use as startup drives than smaller, "faster" ones when both contain large amounts of data.

Because of the above, the best use for the Hitachi might be as a secondary drive (in an e-SATA case & paired with an e-SATA ExpressCard), used for applications in which random R/W performance is not as important as sustained sequential performance.

R C-R - Maybe because the Hitachi 7K320 is an excellent drive, and some owners feel that good hardware should be paired with a good disk drive.

Also, could you please refrain from making comments like this, unless you have anything productive to say. Apple have dropped the ball here, something has gone wrong with the onboard SATA controller during the firmware upgrade. To be honest, with modern hardware, there isn't too much that can go wrong with replacing a hard drive.

--Deleted--

Message was edited by: mmccaskill - Wrong thread

I have a fix for this!

Read it here: http://discussions.apple.com/messageview.jspa?messageID=9734430&stqc=true

I believe posting relevant facts is productive, & a very relevant fact here is that you are trying to use a drive with an interface (SATA-II) that Apple does not currently support in its laptops.

SATA-I controllers are supposed to be compatible with SATA-II drives, but many of them are not. The problem is how some controllers implement auto negotiation, which is supposed to tell the drive to fall back to SATA-1 speeds with the slower controllers. Some SATA-II drives have a jumper to force the slower speed if auto negotiation doesn't work; some do not.

How this compatibility problem came about, & why the jumper is required, is complicated but the short version is that at least four different specification bodies had some responsibility in producing SATA specifications, & not all controllers were designed to the same standards. This includes not just the controllers Apple has been using but those in many PC's as well.

So I agree that Apple dropped the ball, but not necessarily the way you might think: it should have made it very clear that the firmware update implemented an unsupported interface speed, that it might cause problems, & (most importantly) provided a reversion strategy to the former firmware if it did.

Hopefully, Apple will take another 'swing' at this & either provide that reversion strategy or a new update that at least allows the controller to work more reliably with the faster interface. But until then, unless your drive has the jumper, my previous suggestion is probably the best you can do.

BTW, none of the current mechanical drives available for laptops can saturate a SATA-1 bus except for brief bursts from the drive's buffer, so the real loss in performance of running a single SATA-II drive at SATA-1 speeds is almost negligible, something you might notice in a benchmark but not in real-world use.

I completely agree. My only point was that putting a portable drive in an external enclosure is not a valid workaround.

I only see that Apple dropped the ball by pushing out this update when I can only assume normal QA procedures did not happen -- hence the whole unsupported thing.

I'm just disappointed that Apple have not provided any statement on the issue, and so called "product specialists" are completely oblivious to the issue

chris.broadfoot wrote:
My only point was that putting a portable drive in an external enclosure is not a valid workaround.

I guess that depends on the user & situation. Some people use laptops as desktop substitutes & want external drives; others need portable externals for various reasons. A low power 2.5" 7200 rpm drive like the Hitachi seems perfect for that.

I only see that Apple dropped the ball by pushing out this update when I can only assume normal QA procedures did not happen -- hence the whole unsupported thing.

Unsupported means just that (which is probably why the product specialists aren't helpful). Given the somewhat muddled state of SATA-II controller compatibility, I can see why Apple would not support this speed ... but not why it didn't offer a provision for reverting to the previous firmware revision.

I agree the hard drive is user-serviceable as the instructions are in the owners manual. I'm having same issues with my upgraded seagate 500gb 7200 hard drive with 3gps support.