Is it possible to make a bootable USB stick for a Macbook Pro to do firmware update?

Question

I know there are some possible duplicates. But the questions are not solved. Such as: Copy Crucial SSD Firmware Update ISO to Bootable USB

I am trying to upgrade the firmware of my SSD (crucial m500) from my macbook pro (mid 2010). My DVD drive is broken and I cannot replace it because the exit of the DVD is broken too. (the DVDs cannot get out after inserting.)

I found a lot of articles and followed them exactly, but none of them worked. There are two typical methods I found.

1) using terminal to make the USB stick. Reference: http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop/create-a-usb-stick-on-mac-osx I am very sure I did it correctly. But when starting my mac, it did not recognize the usb stick.

2) using natural osx applications to make the USB stick. Reference: http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/apple-in-the-enterprise/how-to-create-a-bootable-usb-to-install-os-x/ This one is actually for making a USB installer for OSX. But I thought I would be quite similar to make a bootable USB stick for updating firmware. So I followed it, but disk utility did not allow me to restore the USB from the dmg file.

There are also a third method which uses rEFInd Boot Manager. So I do not actually need to make a mac specific bootable USB stick. But I had a bad experience messing around with rEFInd, and I do not want to take the risk again.

Some people say the USB stick does not work because Apple disabled booting from USB functionality for security reasons. If that's the case my only solutions are using rEFInd or updating the firmware from some other computers?

Is there anyone did it successfully?

Answer 1

I can confirm that this process works:

https://fuerstnet.de/en/upgrade-crucial-m4-ssd-firmware-mac-without-cd

There are many steps to follow, both in creating the usb disk, then in booting from it, but it took me to the firmware updater as promised. After all that effort, my disk was already up-to-date, but it did work.

Crucial support says there is no option for people without a CD drive, but there is. You just have to be willing to carefully follow some instructions and be sure you're not writing to the wrong disk.

Answer 2

I haven't tried this on a Crucial drive before (only OWC), but the method is the same; you should be able to use Disk Utility to restore the ISO file to a USB drive (try going directly from the ISO instead of converting to DMG).

Here's something from the Crucial forums that outlines the process:

I've just done the MU-03 firmware update for my M500 SSD's on a MacPro. It wasn't easy, but it does fix the slow boot time issue (at least for me).

If you've already downloaded the firmware update you should have a file called

crucial-m500-1.MU03.03.S0.iso

Using Disk Utility, burn this file onto a blank CD using the Restore option.

Put this into your Mac drive and power down. Power up holding the C key down, release it as soon as you get the Crucial black screen. If a row of cccccc's appear, backspace delete them. The Firmware upgrade should then automatically open. Follow the instructions carefully (type yes when prompted and hit return ). If you have more than one SSD, it completes the first then asks again if you want to update the second.

Once everything is complete, hold down the power button to reset the computer. Power up as usual and if necessary re-select the SSD as boot drive from System Prefs.

Sources: http://forum.crucial.com/t5/Solid-State-Drives-SSD/Mac-Mini-and-M500-Firmware-upgrade/td-p/135873

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht2087

Answer 3

If you have access to a Windows PC (inside a virtual machine or real) you can use Universal USB Installer to copy the ISO to an USB stick according to the instructions available on Crucial's website.

This stick will boot fine and update your mac SSD. It worked for my Macbook Pro with a MX100 ssd.

At least you don't need to remove the disk from the mac to do it this way.