Firmware update and SATA II hard drive (continued)

I can't believe it took me so long to find this thread that seems to have finally solved issues with upgrading the internal HD in my mid 2009 MBP 5,4 (and 3 hard drives later). Does this problem also account for problems that I was also having installing Bootcamp? I tried both the SnowLeopard and 3.0 version of the bootcamp installer but the Windows installer disc would hang and on rebooting would give a message of some system file not being found.

TIA,

This is terrible! I've never had such problems with an apple product. Especially the "top of the line" models. Anyway here is my issue. I have a macbook pro 5,4 (2.53ghz) unibody 15" I'm running MBP53.00AC.B03. It came with the 128GB SSD, which ran at a negotiated speed of 1.5 (sata I). I have upgraded to a WD scorpio blue 1TB. I'm having the beachball issues. I've tried to downgrade to 1.6 and it doesn't work. I used the file from this page: http://www.erodov.com/forums/sata-7200-rpm-hard-drive-macbook-pro-2009-bitter-sw eet-experience/25316.html Since the other one isn't available from rapidshare anymore. When I tried to boot the thumb drive it shows the gray screen with the flash loader for just a second this the screen goes black and reboots. I'm thinking the downgrade isn't for my 2.53 model macbook. Can anyone help? I'm going to HAVE to go back to the original drive until I can get this worked out.

Well I got it working! I guess...I'm downgraded to 1.6 with the above download. My problem was I was getting the restore problem when I was trying to make the disk image and that wasn't letting my usb disk work. I did the restore flash thing in the disk utility menu and the downgrade went fine.

My system profiler is now showing that I'm running at 1.5 (SATA I), so maybe that will fix all my trouble. I sure hope so. So, just to help with the search results and maybe help someone else who is having this problem. Here are my specs.

MacBook Pro 5,4 (2.53 GHz) 2009

Boot Rom: MBP53.00AC.B02

Current HD: WDC WD10TPVT-00HT5T1 (1 TB WD Scorpio Blue).

If anyone has any problems with finding the downgrade disk image you can email me. I have it along with the directions saved.

OK; I'm going crazy around here. This is too much. I have the same problem, THE SAME you all people have, but I have a MACBOOK LATE 2009, so I can't do the downgrade. Does anyone know how the **** I can solve this ******* problem? I was looking at the thread for people with the same computer than me, but no luck with that.

Please, I need a solution. I can't find any info about the MacBook, everybody speaks just about the MBP issue, but I swear it's the same.

Thank you.

Ok, I installed a WD 1TB hdd in my Mid-2009 15" MacBook Pro. I've done the downgrade to EFI 1.6 but I am still getting lag after listening to music for about 45 seconds. I've noticed that it only happens when my music is being played at about 75% or louder. If I have my volume at around 50% or lower i don't experience this issue. What could be my problem?

I have this issue but have NOT got an original drive - mine failed it is dead.

I have week 48 MacBook Pro 2009 with Apple care from Jan 2010 to Jan 2013.

Apple care have tried three drives (WD, Hitachi and Samsung 250GB's) none work same problem and because it is intermittent they send me the machine back!

They do not have an exact original or are they going to do anything out the norm for me that some of you guys are doing. I don't know how to do that stuff - hence I bought Apple care.

They "refuse" this issue is real which is kinda funny seeing it is blasted all over the net (even on their own forums).

Can you believe I am putting a 1 year old Mac in the bin! Well Apple if you think I am buying another Mac ever in my life eh NO back to Win for me. So if that is the plan not gonna work. Never had this problem from Dell I can tell you that.

Does anyone have recent experience downgrading to EFI 1.6 Firmware? (Link here: http://www.erodov.com/forums/sata-7200-rpm-hard-drive-macbook-pro-2009-bitter-sw eet-experience/25316.html)

Is this problem likely to be addressed in OS X 10.7?

My situation:

I recently bought an early 2011 MBP. I tried to swap in my WD 500 GB drive for the stock Hitachi 320. I get stuck at the apple screen in bootup. I'm assuming this is the same problem as others describe.

I am having the SAME problem on my MBP 2011. Moved the original drive to the superdrive slot, and wham, i periodically get the beachball effect....VERY annoying!!!

Hey todd24,

Can you send me those files? I have exactly the same MBP 5.4 as you, and I have problems installing snow leopard in a newly bought Samsung 1TB hard drive.

Maybe someone can point me out the right direction:

-The Snow Leopard clean installation process is painfully slow, even from a USB/Firewire flash drive. I have tried first also, the CD install disk that came with my MBP.

-I have formatted my new hard drive Mac OS journaled.

-Tried to recover installation from a Time Machine Backup (both wireless time capsule and a external hard drive. No use).

-When I tried to install Snow Leopard to my new 1TB drive (using a external case to store it), the installation process went very fast, no problems at all. When the installation process ended, I replace my current 250gb drive with the new one, with snow leopard already installed, but didn't work. My MBP couldn't start at all, was painfully slow. It showed me the mac logo as usual, but never get to start the computer.

Please, I'm very worried, and at this point, don't know what am I doing wrong. I want to try downgrade and see if that works.

Thanks.

OWC has been making SSDs that smoke most major brands, and they're engineered for Macbooks.

Check em' out... I'm going to order one as soon as my MBP is shipped (it's coming from Colorware, so it has a 4-5 week ETA). I'll report back when I've had a chance to test it all out.

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/SSD/OWC/

hi guys,

so much sufferings after upgrading my fully functional smaller sized 250Gb to 2 other SATA2 HDDs (bought 2 to test), my MBP freezes frequently no matter how many times i reinstall the OS.

with all these problems, i tried to install a fresh copy of Lion using DVD and USB. Multiple attempts all failed.

Finally, i came across this page

http://www.seagate.com/staticfiles/support/disc/manuals/notebook/momentus/7200.4 %20(Holliday)/100534376a.pdf

placed a jumper to cap the transfer speed down to 1.5GBPS and now the MBP is back to its old glory.

Enough of all the upgrades. A smooth running SATA1 is better than intermittently freezing SATA2.

I can now explore the new features in my Lion OS.

good luck!

Wow, two years later and apple hasn't even fessed up to the issue that they were knowingly crippling hard drives.

Na they are pretty hard on this one to the point of talking to a brick wall. I was even asked if I knew how much my asking them for help cost them. I thought that was a bit silly as Apple is a billion dollar company.

I tried to get Apple Care to do the stuff you guys are doing here they said NO. They then told me all you posters on their forums are not telling the truth. I tried more than once and even watched for a shift change to ask again. Funny they all said the same thing.

The funny thing is this does not show on benchmarking and is intermittent so they have room to dodge it. What happens when you benchmark it is it does not pick it up as the benchmarking is run from that machine. It just catches up when the freeze clears. I hope that makes sense what I am trying to say. If you have this issue you know it never causes any other problems just freezing. When it unfreezes it just quickly does all the stuff to catch up.

Apple know they are 2 years out and the minority with this issue are well out of warranty now if they can just hold on they can clear the Apple Care also. Then they are home free. They are close now.

So...I fixed this myself in the end by asking a friend to do what you guys are saying fixes it. What you guys say it goes away with. I just tore up Apple Care and will never buy a Mac again. I should NEVER have had to do this myself! The arrogance was hard for me to cope with. I spent a lot of time in the Apple store feeling bad I had to grovel for help. They made me feel it was all just me and I was crazy.

I know they have the upper hand here and I can't fight them but it is very depressing when you fall into a grey area repair.

To be fair the phone guys with advice were good but once I got to the shop stage it was a disaster.