A1398 (EMC 2881) dump/EFI request

No I don't disconnect anything except for the battery

Well, this is what I did;

- MAchine is bricked, apparently, but anyways, I powered it on. Left it on for a minute. Then turned it off holding the power button for a few seconds.
- Left charger and power cord connected.
- Disconnected all: ssd, wireless card, fans connectors, speakers connectors... everything.
- Connected the 8pin thingy to the chip, properly aligned.
- I was able to read the chip and make a bin file of the content. Size is exactly the same as the one posted here by fellow forum user.
- I was able to erase the chip and program it with the .bin provided in this thread.
- During verification I got an error. I tried again, and again error. I attach a photo of the screenshot of the errors, maybe you guys know something about it.

- The last, I just programmed it, with no verification, seemed to work. took out the 8 pin plug from the chip. Plugged all connectors back, powered on the machine... it doesn't boot

It wasn't a successful write without verification... You just took away your programmer's ability to tell you it didn't work lol.

Get a raspberry pi and try it. I was struggling to get my bus pirate to work properly, and you'll get much better support here when your equipment has been (most likely) ruled out as a problem. I have read of tons of failures with other programmers that have worked fine with the pi, and even when reading with the pi, one in ten reads doesn't md5sum right

well, it seems like the problem with this machine is different. It booted a couple of times, very slow. In one of the times it booted i let it finished, and now it is locked with 4 digits... how cool is that?



I could unlock it with brute force, but now it doesn't want to boot. It's very erratic...

Your firmware may unlocked, but the iCloud lock may still be stored in nvram. Boot with cmd-opt-p-r to clear the nvram.

I would guess that error you got while flashing would mean that your firmware right was corrupted somehow, and that could easily lead to strange behavior and malfunction.

Reset the SMC while you're at it

No, the computer is now locked because the dump you uploaded here is from a locked computer. In any case, this computer has another issue, apart from this new lock. I will just put back the dump it had and move on to another thing.

i've double checked, and my firmware has the lock removed. i just unlocked A1278 EMC2555 last night, and AFTER cleaning firmware, it boots to the iCloud screen saying "screw you" lol. no worries, power off, reboot, reset NVRAM, and boot. this time, no bootable device screen.
this was the first one i've found that's actually been remotely erased, but there's a good chance yours has too and there's no OS X to boot. have you tried booting a USB?

you're awfully close to having that mac up and running, and to just throw in the towel is crazy

this machine HAD a problem completely unrelated to efi. I though it was the info in the chip, but now I see it wasnt. It doesn't booted well, and it doesnt boot well now. No usb boot of course, machine is fucked up. Maybe the guys fried the chip when unsoldering it... I don't know. I do know that nvram reset pram reset or any smc reset will not unlock it, LOL! I could unlock it with the standard way, but anyways, I will just put the old dump in, and give the computer back.

Thanks for the help anyways.

That firmware is clear of EFI password, I just opened the hex and checked. I must've forgotten to clear the iCloud before saving it, but you should be able to clear the nvram nonetheless. That bin I used myself and can vouch for.

That MacBook I did last night, after reflashing EFI it took FOREVER to boot, and planted me at the iCloud lock screen. After resetting nvram, it proceded to flash the (/) sign because it had been remotely erased.

Have you tried disconnecting the internal keyboard and using only an external? I had a Mac with a bad keyboard which was always sending the T key, causing it to boot to target disk mode. That took forever to boot and resulted in a dancing FireWire logo.

I thought about that possibility, has happened with other macbooks with faulty keyboard.

Tonight I have some hours to give it anohter try. Other option I considered is the ssd being faulty or from anohter macbook... keyboard damaged seems more likely though.

Try booting with an external keyboard (only) to rule out safe boot or network boot or anything like that. I found a neat article about forcing SMC and firmware update through the EFI shell available on the rEFInd bootable USB. Apple provides firmware downloads from their website and you can extract the installation script and payload to execute manually

Im on my phone at the moment, but here's the link that opened the door in my mind:

www.ifixit.com/Answers/View/102026/SMC+won't+reset.+Is+there+another+way

Well, for some strange reason, that screen with the 4 digit code never appeared again. I managed to boot from usb, it booted, did a clean install, the machine seems to be working perfectly now, and now with a serial number, before it had known. This dump should be cleaned and put on the repository.

Thanks all for the great help, I appreciate it.

My apologies for the firmware. My personal storage technique requires some work for sure.

Glad to hear you're up and running, after being so close to throwing in the towel.

well, as expected, the machine is actually fucked up, and i don't know what the problem is. laptop returned to the owner and now I can move on.