Cannot upgrade to Monterey with non-apple SSD.

I ran into the same issue and contacted OWC to see if they had a firmware update available for my SSD. Talking to support, they said that it isn't the SSD that requires the firmware update, but the MacBook Pro itself, which requires an EFI update that won't be installed unless there's an Apple SSD installed. They recommended that I reinstall the original Apple SSD, then install Monterey to get the EFI update, then replace the Apple SSD with the OWC SSD, and upgrade from Big Sur 11.6.1 to Monterey. According to OWC, they've tested this fix in their lab and it works. (We'll see.)

You can get an Apple SSD and do the firmware update and then reinstall the non-Apple SSD. That is what I did for same problem on late 2013 MP.

A while ago I replace the internal Apple SSD with an NVMe drive with adapter in my late 2013 MP. I successfully updated to Big Sur with no problem but could not update to Monterey. Could not even install Monterey on a blank external drive. Then I Googled and it appeared that an Apple internal SSD has to be installed in order to update the firmware and OS boot loader. I installed the original Apple SSD which had Mojave and updated successfully to Monterey. I then booted from my Big Sur NVMe SSD and successfully updated to Monterey. I am typing this from that OS now.

Maybe this will be resolved in a subsequent update to Monterey so you can wait and try again.

Use the original SSD.

I confirm the following worked great for me on my 2015 MacBook Pro 15".

1. Installed original SSD.

2. Installed fresh copy of Monterey via the USB stick onto the original SSD (it rebooted a bunch of times, indicating a firmware update).

3. Put the new SSD back in.

4. Booted off USB stick and upgraded to Monterey without a hitch.

It sucks if you don't have your original SSD but maybe you can get a cheap one off of the interwebs. Doesn't have to be big. Likely doesn't even have to be the same one that came with your unit. Most likely just *any* genuine Apple SSD.

Good luck.

Did the same thing. I've updated my Mac with the original SSD drive. Installed macOS Monterey on this drive to get the EFI firmware update and after that placed my Samsung SSD and installed macOS Monterey. Works great!

Firmware error is resolved for try the following steps. >>-----> Apple will be so jealous after reading this solution

• Remove your upgraded SSD
• Insert your Macbook pro's original apple made drive
• Upgrade your MacBook Pro to Monterey on the original SSD because it will up-date your logic board's Firmware witch is required by Monetary
• Remove the original SSD add back your new SSD and upgrade to Monterey it works

Thank you.

vballmax wrote:

Once you install Monterey on the original SSD and replace the Aura in your Mac how did you install Monterey on the Aura SSD? My MacPro won't boot from the Aura drive once I install the Monterey updates on the original Mac SSD. I can boot the MacPro externally from the original drive.

What Mac Pro do you have? I have the 2013 trash can and to upgrade to Monterey I had to remove the NVMe drive I installed (with a simple physical adopter) a few versions ago with the original Apple SSD. Once I did the upgrade with the Apple SSD installed I could update the NVMe drive.

My Early 2015 13" MBP(Big Sur) with a third party Samsung 970 EVO 1TB crashed and won't upgrade to Monterey. I had no crashes while using mac Os Big Sur but cannot upgrade to Monetrey as I was presented with a question marked folder when I tried to force the upgrade...very frustrating. I updated to Monterey by swapping the drive to original Apple SSD and updated to Monterey, then swaped back again to the Samsung 970 EVO 1TB . Up and running now with no crashes ever since.

Add back your apple ssd upgrade to on it and simply remove it back and add your none apple it works perfectly then because the logic board firmware needs to be update only with apple supplied ssd

So today I received my genuine Apple SSD for my MacPro 6.1

BigSur installed fine on it and firmware got updated properly.

Monterey is installing as I type this. I think I did not get so far as I do now….

I finally got it to work... Took the mac to apple and (after their high-horse nonsense speil about support for 3rd party hardware) he downgraded to catalina via their network installer. That detected the OWC drive and installed fine.

This time I did an external USB monterey installer, and that worked fine. My guess is something got corrupted in the previously installed monterey recoverymode that prevented it from detecting the OWC drive (both the old one and the new one). So 3rd time's the charm.

Not sure if it was the downgrade or the USB installer (or maybe the completely fresh install rather than an upgrade), but the combination of those worked.

There is no need for the video simply insert the Apple Original ssd and upgrade to Monterey and removed it back insert your none apple one ssd and upgrade again it will work

This should work with any Apple SSD right? I don't have my original Apple SSD for my 2015 MBP, but I ordered a Apple 128gb SSD from a MBA in order to update.

Which Aura SSD do you have?

The newer NVMe ones or older strange ones.

I would contact OWC, there were problems in the past with the Aura in the trashcan

I saw a video when it comes with carefully swapping the SSD to the original SSD for the firmware update. It was difficult to find a video of it to be able to install macOS Monterrey.