Vulpine Acid

Q: new macbook air suddenly efi locked after connecting to internet

Bought a macbook air so i could run the programs i have on a bootable backup of my old macbook pro.  Worked fine but when i finished ny project i signed onto the internet to send it off and walked away from the computer for a second.  ...im not sure what happened... But when i came back in the room it was stuck on some weird screen and when i tried to boot it back up from my drive the EFI lock screen appeared.

 

So my question is,  could the lock for the internal hard drive have kicked in if i was using an external drive to go online? Or could it be the lock set for my old laptop that caused it to trigger since this drive was a copy of the one i lost?  I have used the drive quite a bit since then so i dont know why it would suddenly do that but i dont think i was using this partition of the drive b wecause i prefer the partition with an older version of mac osx which for some reason wouldnt work to boot this laptop. How do i fix it?

MacBook Air

Posted on Dec 14, 2015 6:24 PM

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Q: new macbook air suddenly efi locked after connecting to internet

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  • by Nubz N.,Helpful

    Nubz N. Nubz N. Dec 16, 2015 3:15 PM in response to Vulpine Acid
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    Dec 16, 2015 3:15 PM in response to Vulpine Acid

    Hi there Vulpine Acid,

     

    It sounds like you were working offline and it seems like as soon as you connected to the internet your computer was locked with a firmware passcode. That indicates to me that the MacBook Air may have been put into lost mode remotely with iCloud if it looked like this:

     

    Find My Mac

    When you use Find My Mac to lock your Mac, it also prevents your Mac from starting up by setting a firmware-based password. As soon as it receives the lock instruction from iCloud, your Mac displays a lock screen that has four to six blank fields.

    To unlock your Mac, enter the code you created when you locked your Mac from the Find My Mac website.


    From: Use a firmware password on your Mac

    https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204455

     

    There is a section in the article that talks about taking it into a Genius bar for an appointment if you don't remember the passcode but it would require the original purchase receipt:

     

    If you forget your firmware password

    If you can't remember the password you set using the Firmware Password Utility or Find My Mac, schedule a service appointment with an Apple Retail Store or Apple Authorized Service Provider. Bring your proof of purchase (original receipt or invoice) with you. If you plan to visit an Apple Retail Store, make a reservation (available only in some countries).

     

    You may need to reach out to the person you purchased the computer from for the passcode.

    Thank you for using Apple Support Communities,

    All the best. 

  • by Vulpine Acid,

    Vulpine Acid Vulpine Acid Dec 16, 2015 3:26 PM in response to Nubz N.
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 16, 2015 3:26 PM in response to Nubz N.

    okay thank you that helps a lot because that is not the screen that is displayed.  the screen that comes up is simple grey with a white lock with rounded corners.  The input field does not limit you to four characters or to numerals.  This was the way the old efi lock screen looked years ago. Or FileVault I forget which.  But either way it must be something that is linked to my drive somehow unless FileVault still uses that screen.  But I still don't understand why my external drive would be capable of setting off either of those features.  None of my partitions came from a MacBook Air.  I giess I will try every password I can remember