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10.8.3 update: issue with HDD in optical bay of MacBook Pro

After updating from 10.8.2 to 10.8.3 the second internal HDD which is placed in the optical bay of my MacBook Pro late 09 gets lost after some minutes. That means it suddenly unmounts (with a warning message about improper unmounting) and can't get activated again. Diskutil will not see it any longer. After a restart its mounted - until it spontaneously vanishes again.

Before everything has been working flawlessly for about 2 years, with SSD in the original HDD Bay an the HDD in a optical bay caddy. Firmware is EFI 1.6 (downgraded, because 1.7 won't work properly with such a constellation).

Has anybody else made similar observations or maybe already found workarounds for this issue? I was forced to go back to 10.8.2 because I need this second drive!

Posted on Mar 17, 2013 5:08 AM

42 replies

Feb 3, 2014 1:04 AM in response to pebewe

wow, thats the news of the YEAR so far, i upgraded my old mbp to mavericks and forgot the optibay/ssd issue (my EFI version is still 1.6).

somewhere around 10.8.4 - 10.8.5 there was a SATA upgrade which caused accidental HDD unmount when HDD was in the Optibay, it was very disturbing and i went back to version minus one.

according to your case, this SATA driver upgrade is only working properly w/ EFI 1.7 i will gove it a try, thanks!

pebewe Author

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Feb 3, 2014 1:11 AM in response to Hargitanandor

I think the SATA upgrade came with 10.8.3 - 10.8.2 was the last OS that worked with EFI 1.6 plus optibay/ssd.

Let us know if you can confirm my observations.

Feb 4, 2014 3:56 AM in response to pebewe

first thoughts: my 2009 MBP is on mavericks now and i couldnt find the hidden EFI update on App Store, i looked after, downloaded the EFI 1.7 from Apple, installed it (VERTEX2 SSD in the Optibay, Samsung HDD in the HDD slot), and probably something went wrong at the install process - the computer did not start booting (stayed off) after restaring, and when i started it myself, it gave a suspicious beep, showed the progress bar (EFI install), and after restart, there was no boot device.

i tried every startup command, maybe the safe boot helped, but im not sure. the EFI was not installe properly, boot ROM version was B00 instead of B03.

so, i tried installing again, it was the same (not restarting properly, after manual start, the beep, the progress bar, the restart and the grey screen og (death) nothing...)

i rolled the machine back to EFI 1.6 (its routine now), and started searching again for the original software update of EFI 1.7 without any luck.

im rolling back to 10.8 with a clean install, lets see what happens.

pebewe Author

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Feb 4, 2014 4:27 AM in response to Hargitanandor

I remember a couple of month ago the EFI 1.7 update disappeard from automatic Softwareupdate. Luckily I had downloaded it before and kept it for my MBP late 2009. It's MacBookProEFIUpdate1.7.dmg containing

MacBookProEFIUpdate.pkg. Maybe your updater was the one for the Mini?

Feb 4, 2014 4:45 AM in response to pebewe

it looks the real thing, from here: http://support.apple.com/downloads/MacBook_Pro_EFI_Firmware_Update_1_7_

it does contain the pkg you mentioned, the pkg puts an app into applications, i ran the app which prepares the EFI install, restarts the machine and finishes the install.

somehow the restart fails (or i should wait with black screen and no lights more then 3-5 minutes for the restart to happen)?.

when i turn the computer on manually, there is this unusual beep, the process continues, and after finishing, the machine gets stuck with the grey screen (cant see the the SSD).

your config is slightly different, you've got Intel SSD and you keep it in the HDD bay, arent you? maybe thats the problem - my OCZ Vertex2 is in the Optibay.

pebewe Author

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Feb 4, 2014 5:31 AM in response to Hargitanandor

Yes, you obviousely get the real thing. The process of Firmware upgrading also seems to be the same as here - I also had to restart manually, than came this beep and so on. So it has to be your different configuration (if it's not Mavericks). What about changing SSD and HD with the system volume on the primary SATA Bus? Hopefully it's not a incompatibility of your Vertex2.

Feb 4, 2014 5:34 AM in response to pebewe

in the meantime i read more carefully the installation instructions of the EFI update:

- shutdown + manual start is normal (like you wrote)

- if you press and hold power button by manual start, there is now beep.

however, the update did not work, now im trying to swap the disks

Feb 4, 2014 6:25 AM in response to Hargitanandor

i succeeded by switching the hdd and the ssd (ssd in the primary, hdd in the optibay), EFI is updated, and i could boot.

im running a test with the new environment to make sure, that the HDD does not get unmounted every ~30 minutes

pebewe Author

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Feb 4, 2014 7:19 AM in response to Hargitanandor

great - glad to share happiness :-) The only minor issue I found meanwhile shows up when copying large files (>500 MB) from the SSD to the optibay HDD - the copying suddenly pauses for 10 secs or more, than continues, stops again and so on. But it alway finishes copying, even very big files (30 GB i.e.), it just takes time. Reading from HDD works as it should, fast and without interruptions. It's not really annoying me, because I don't have to write such large files very often to the HDD. Yet it seems to be some remaining SATA bus issue, at least with my Samsung HDD.

Feb 4, 2014 7:42 AM in response to pebewe

thanks, i will test it against very large files.

i run the blackmagic disk speed test to measure speed with sata2 enabled, the vertex2 performed poor (80MB/s write and 170MB/s read - the Samsung HDD's speed was normal 70/75 write/read)

BUT at least the work 🙂

pebewe Author

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Feb 4, 2014 8:35 AM in response to Hargitanandor

blackmagic here shows 176/248 for the Intel SSD with SATA 2. But the Samsung performs disappointing with only 44/43, although recognized with 3 Gb/s. It might be a problem with the bridge chipset in my cheepcheep optibay from China... BTW: I just tested with a SATA 1 Seagate Momentus HDD in the optibay - no longer any writing issues at 1.5 Mb/s! I wonder if you encounter problems with large files - if not, it's my optibay adapter.

Feb 4, 2014 8:37 AM in response to pebewe

mine is also a 10 dollar piece from ebay, and working fine. 45 MB/s is not that bad for a HDD, it could be fragmented - try another folder in Blackmagic

10.8.3 update: issue with HDD in optical bay of MacBook Pro