can't install high sierra macbook pro mid 2014

Basically the internal SSD drive on this macbook died before High Sierra was ever installed on it. Since it was no longer under warranty an OWC 1tb drive was installed to replace the old broken hard drive. Unfortunately the new drive is not seen by the laptop, I called OWC and it looks like the laptop needs to be on High Sierra before the drive can be detected and used, basically the firmware that is contained in the High Sierra update allows the computer to detect the OWC drive and use it.

I tried setting up the computer to run from an external USB drive running Sierra and install the update that way, unfortunately I keep getting this error: "An error occurred while verifying firmware. Quit the installer to restart your computer and try again." The computer will boot into Sierra perfectly fine, but the update will always fail with the above error, regardless of if I try from a USB stick before booting into the OS or from starting within Sierra.

Is there a way that I can update the firmware only on this macbook pro so that I can then use the internal drive and restore from my time machine backup?