hey come back computer user group this
is petermac doctor and i'm going to do a
video on unlocking
macs that have the efi or firmware lock
on them
and
uh
there's a couple other videos i want to
do on
upgrading solid state drives in the
imax that have the screens that are
adhesive on
uh so let me do this first video
unlocking
efi and firmware
so i have a mac mini here
that um has the firmware lock on it and
i'll show you
the indication
once i turn on the power
and hold down the option key
so that i could load a external usb
system or boot
to the
command r
can't do anything any key
that you press
you'll get this lock and
if you don't know the password you can't
get into the mac
so
let's get rid of that
and this would be for
macbooks
and
desktops laptop and desktop machines
and also
i can
remove mdm
the remote management software that
apple uses i can remove that also but
we're going to just concentrate on the
efi and firmware updates on this video
so on the logic board of this many
many macbook pros or all the macbook
pros actually in the imacs
have a chip it's an efi chip or a
firmware chip and on that chip has the
code
uh for locking and unlocking the mac
itself
we have to get to that chip and we have
to reprogram that chip sometimes it's
done through
um hardware and sometimes it's done
through software
with it with something connected to the
board
what i use is this tool right here and
i'll explain that a little bit uh as we
go along but first we gotta take out the
logic board
on the mini
some
max you don't have to take out the logic
board and some you do
and for the imax you have to take off
the screen
but uh let's take this mini apart
okay we've got a our logic board out of
the mini
door mostly all the way out
there's a couple of things one is
there's a connector here it's hard to
see in the video probably but there's a
connector here and there's a connector
here when you slide that logic board out
you want to make sure that you
disconnect these connectors first i've
repaired
many of these connectors right here that
were broken off because the person slid
the
logic board out and
uh didn't have that connector
disconnected
anyway
now that it's
out
move this aside
here's the logic board
and
i'll turn the
logic board over
and again this is going to be kind of
hard to see
but
on the
logic board the firmware chip
the efi chip is always a
an eight pin chip
a little bit closer it'd probably be
eight pin chip
and it always has a little dot
for pin number one that's important so
that's the chip we've got to reprogram
this is my tool
and i do sell these
and this tool has an alligator clip that
clips onto that chip
and
if i turn this tool on
i get a
programming number it tells me i've got
three licenses left
licenses left
on this chip
and
it gives me that information about it
being an eefi so i'm gonna turn it back
off
and it also has another connector some
of the logic some of the
firmware chips you can't
especially the newer models you can't
ship you can't clip a alligator clip on
the chip
so you but there are connectors
there are connectors on the board and
you can plug these
that's for a
macbook pro or macbook air and that's
for macbook pro you can plug this right
onto the logic board
plug it into the tool and it will work
just like the alligator clip so let me
just
clip this on
i look for my number one pin
on the clip
connect that to my number one pin on the
firmware chip
and then i'm gonna turn this
tool on
and you'll see the readout maybe i don't
know if it'll come out in the video but
here we go it's on
tells me there's three licenses left on
this tool goes to p2 goes to efi
and
i can tell that the alligator clip is
not firm yet so it's not connected
correctly so i'll reseed it
if the tool doesn't do anything
i know it's probably not connected to
that ship right
so i reseed it
turn it back on again
there it says busy one busy two busy
three busy four
then it'll take a little while longer
and
you probably can't see that but it says
busy four and still programming the chip
take a couple more seconds
and it says done so now i know that chip
is programmed turn it off
unplug it it would be the same on a
macbook pro or an imac on a macbook pro
on macbook air you want to make sure you
disconnect the battery
before you do the programming and
um
on it of course like i said on the
imac
you have to take the front glass off so
now i'm going to put the mac the mac
mini back together and we'll try it out
okay i've got the mini back together but
just enough to try it out just do the
fan back in and some memory
um i'll complete
put it together completely once i try it
out to make sure it's going to work make
sure that the firmware unlock worked
if you remember before if i tried to
boot it and hold down the option key or
hold down the command r key it would
give me a lock symbol letting me know
that it has an efi or firmware lock so
now we're going to try it that it's done
i'll hold down the option key
and it's got a usb thumb drive that i'm
booting from
give it a couple of seconds hey there we
go now we have the hard drive
and we can just hit that
enter and voila it's unlocked
so let me put some memory in it put a
solid state drive in it
and uh
post it for sale
look for more videos to be coming
especially like i said i really want to
do that uh how to upgrade
a
solid-state drive in an imac one of the
2013 to
current imacs
peter mac doctor
you