FOLLOW-UP: EFI MacBook Pro Firmware Issue SOLVED (for me, at least)

[Zoidberg]

re/ http://forums.macresource.com/read/1/360853
re/ http://forums.macresource.com/read/1/360...msg-360674

I've posted this over at Apple Support Discussions as well; the problem appears to lie in how the disk is partitioned, as celliot noted. If it's not GUID the firmware updater won't work. I didn't even know the drive was partitioned as such but I did install the newer 160GB drive myself, partitioning it using the defaults in Disk Utility to do so.

DIscussions with OWC Jamie are confirming this too; how on earth is an APM partitioned drive booting an Intel Mac? And not only the internal drive, but from an external backup as well?

FWIW, here's my post from the Apple Discussion thread @ http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa...ID=1153920&tstart=0

---

Success -- after repartitioning the internal drive as GUID instead of APM (i.e., backed up to my external drive, booted from external, then (from backup) partitioned and restored) the EFI Firmware updater worked fine; my Boot ROM Version is now MBP22.00A5.B07 (confirmed via System Profiler).

Now, why the drives were partitioned as APM I dunno, but that had to be the default when I set up the drives via Disk Utility (all I did was initialize them using DU's default).

Another question is, of course, how my Intel-based MacBook Pro could even boot from an Apple Partition Map partition, as those are supposed to *only* boot up a PowerPC Mac. (Unless I'm missing something in the technical side of this.)

[BigGuynRusty]

There is a way to make a "Dual Boot" format disc that will boot Intel and PowerPC Macs, are you sure someone didn't do this to your MBP?

BGnR

[Zoidberg]

BGnR -- I'm sure; I'm the only one who uses it. I got the drive from OWC months back. Put it in an On The Go enclosure and formatted it (again, using the defaults in Disk Utility; the only thing I remember doing is unchecking the "install OS 9 drivers" box and making sure it was set as journaled.) After that, I swapped it out for the internal, did the clone/restore bit, and then erased the old external in D/U in the same manner.

And the same goes for all the backup drives I've ever used; I always erase them via D/U before use.

All I can figure is APM is the default setting, since I most definitely never changed it to that.

[celliott]

Thanks, glad my suggestion seemed to work. Here is another mystery. I booted my MacBook from an external HD in a OWC case via USB and then again via FW and it is also formatted as APM! But for some reason the updater doesn't play nicely with a drive formatted APM.

[MacMagus]

> how on earth is an APM partitioned drive booting an Intel Mac?

Take a look at the file system on your install DVD some time.

[BigGuynRusty]

[quote celliott]Thanks, glad my suggestion seemed to work. Here is another mystery. I booted my MacBook from an external HD in a OWC case via USB and then again via FW and it is also formatted as APM! But for some reason the updater doesn't play nicely with a drive formatted APM.
I wonder if this is a "Feature", or a bug?
Just slid a blank 1TB HD into my MacPro and it formatted as GUID as default.
Here is the link to install multi-bootable partitions for a rescue drive.
http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?stor...1104222189
I wonder if you stumbled on a new feature that is still being worked on?

BGnR

[GGD]

I think the real restriction is that the OSX Installer will not install an Intel OSX on a APM partitioned drive. The Intel Macs will however boot an Intel OSX from an APM drive. I think if you clone an Intel OSX volume from a GUID drive to an APM drive it will boot from that APM drive.

Cloning might have been the way that Zoidberg got into this situation in the first place.

[BigGuynRusty]

[quote GGD]I think the real restriction is that the OSX Installer will not install an Intel OSX on a APM partitioned drive. The Intel Macs will however boot an Intel OSX from an APM drive. I think if you clone an Intel OSX volume from a GUID drive to an APM drive it will boot from that APM drive.

Cloning might have been the way that Zoidberg got into this situation in the first place.
I think you got it GGD!
I think that cloning brought over the bits and bobs required for booting but was unstable.
Maybe this answers a lot of those "My Mac is acting strange" problems we read about here,

BGnR

[Zoidberg]

Indeed, that's how I did it -- I cloned the internal drive to the new drive (which was in an external case) via SuperDuper. I then installed the new drive in the MBP, and put the old internal in an external case (which my wife uses as her backup drive).

My two external backup drives are both the products of cloning via SuperDuper. I can't say I've experienced a lot of system oddities; still and all, I'm in the right kind o' partition now.

Thanks for shining the flashlight on that GGD; that appears to solve the case.