Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Status
Not open for further replies.

OneRing2Rule

macrumors newbie
Oct 8, 2007
20
0
well it works if you are the first iCloud user

Okay, the trick works if you are the first iCloud user. But if you are the second one to set up an iCloud account, this won't work. For instance, I have a macbook that a friend bought second hand. For three weeks, it worked perfectly. Then she set up an iCloud account and upon reboot, it locked. When I mount the HD using TransMac on my PC, I can see her iCloud account name and her 123456789.lock (not real numbers). Opening up her contact @me file in the same directory verifies that this is her lock key, not the original owners.

But I've tried every permutation and can't get it to unlock. Upon using a brute force (punching in about 3000 combinations), I got it to unlock. Two reboots later, it's locked again.

Clearly the original owner is locking this with Where's my mac. And my friend bought a stolen laptop.

And I'm washing my hands of it.

Good luck all.
 

ExciteWalk

macrumors member
Original poster
Sep 11, 2012
46
7
@leminkien, Once set, the PIN code cannot be changed unless it is unlocked and then set again.
Not sure if updating the firmware will affect the PIN code. How would you update it anyways?
That's one of the reasons I like to have a DIY solution. I don't always want to make the trip to an "Apple approved city."

@OneRing2Rule, in my case, the Mac wasn't locked again. How exactly did you set up the "second" account? In my opinion, I think you should backup your data, wipe the drive, then setup fresh so that no trace will be left from the previous owner. I didn't include that in my original instructions because I assumed readers were the original owners. But hey, try it out, and see if will work to keep out the previous owner.
 

bluespaceoddity

macrumors regular
Jun 14, 2009
131
0
Okay, the trick works if you are the first iCloud user. But if you are the second one to set up an iCloud account, this won't work. For instance, I have a macbook that a friend bought second hand. For three weeks, it worked perfectly. Then she set up an iCloud account and upon reboot, it locked. When I mount the HD using TransMac on my PC, I can see her iCloud account name and her 123456789.lock (not real numbers). Opening up her contact @me file in the same directory verifies that this is her lock key, not the original owners.

But I've tried every permutation and can't get it to unlock. Upon using a brute force (punching in about 3000 combinations), I got it to unlock. Two reboots later, it's locked again.

Clearly the original owner is locking this with Where's my mac. And my friend bought a stolen laptop.

And I'm washing my hands of it.

Good luck all.
Tell your friend to contact Apple and let them verify the serial number for that Mac. If the original owner registered it there should be contact info on record and Apple can mediate. If the Mac was stolen your friend should contact the seller, arrange for a nullification of the sale and arrange for a return to the
rightful owner.
If the purchase was legitimate your friend can arrange for Apple to fix the lock.

http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Receiving+Stolen+Property
 
Last edited:

leminkien

macrumors newbie
Nov 23, 2012
5
0
Several attempt of Bruteforce method

Several reports proved that bruteforce method (punching it 10000 combinations) won't work any longer. In my case, too.

I think Firmware update does not changes the PIN code numbers but do chage the way it works.:confused:

Switchback666, what do you mean restore OS? Erased/Formatted hard can be work, passing PIN code lock screen?
I tried to boot my MacBook Air without built-in SSD, but lock screen appears.

Thank you all.
 

sammyt60

macrumors newbie
Nov 20, 2012
8
0
no data on all those volumes except for one recovery partition and the efi, now iam scanning the whole hard drive for anything lost or trashed or formatted .. i know its a long shot with a SSD but u never know,.. after this i think iam gonna try again with disk warrior and disk genius and file salvage and one more shot with test disk photo recovery i hope to get some results since iam scanning the original hard drive and from mountain lion


Any further updates Ron?
 

sammyt60

macrumors newbie
Nov 20, 2012
8
0
Several reports proved that bruteforce method (punching it 10000 combinations) won't work any longer. In my case, too.

I think Firmware update does not changes the PIN code numbers but do chage the way it works.:confused:

Switchback666, what do you mean restore OS? Erased/Formatted hard can be work, passing PIN code lock screen?
I tried to boot my MacBook Air without built-in SSD, but lock screen appears.

Thank you all.

Have you tried brute force then?
 

sammyt60

macrumors newbie
Nov 20, 2012
8
0
@leminkien, Once set, the PIN code cannot be changed unless it is unlocked and then set again.
Not sure if updating the firmware will affect the PIN code. How would you update it anyways?
That's one of the reasons I like to have a DIY solution. I don't always want to make the trip to an "Apple approved city."

@OneRing2Rule, in my case, the Mac wasn't locked again. How exactly did you set up the "second" account? In my opinion, I think you should backup your data, wipe the drive, then setup fresh so that no trace will be left from the previous owner. I didn't include that in my original instructions because I assumed readers were the original owners. But hey, try it out, and see if will work to keep out the previous owner.

Have you been successful with any of these?

----------

Restore the OS/wipe put mate, problem solved.



Have you been successful with anything?

----------

Rite guys, here's where I am...I've got a mid 2012 MBP that's been locked and wiped...I've plugged the HDD in my windows machine and used Stella to look for files and have recovered 5 folders in which I cannot find the .lock files but have found lots of .efires files....iv started brute force (1000 so far). Some of you mention that this isn't working for you. I'm starting to get stuck, am I missing somerthing? Is there anything else I can try?

Thanks
 

leminkien

macrumors newbie
Nov 23, 2012
5
0
Try other 9000, but you must be frustrated :mad:
I've done it twice. I'm very sick of it.
In case, in my office, watching dozens of movies, it takes almost one week. I thought that is worth trying for. But the second time...:(

Apple is not an idiot hiding PIN Code in the .lock file like 123456789.lock
But, first thread is very lucky case of all combinations.

I think after EFI Firmware update, it changed the way Mac access to the PIN code lock or erased HD formatted state. Like your case...

Everytime I locked in PIN code state, My HD was erased like factory state. :mad:

Maybe Apple initially barricade to be factory mode or to restore...
 

ronmathews

macrumors newbie
Nov 2, 2012
15
0
Fail

i installed ML into another hard drive swapped efi and recovery with the original SSD..no boot.. tried with installed recovery no boot.. only the efi no boot . deleted recovery no boot, deleted macintosh HD and left only the EFI and recovery no boot..so anybody got any ideas? and also would that make a difference since i installed it from a different machine with different hardware setup than the macbook pro?
 

ronmathews

macrumors newbie
Nov 2, 2012
15
0
here is the efires

@leminkien, Once set, the PIN code cannot be changed unless it is unlocked and then set again.
Not sure if updating the firmware will affect the PIN code. How would you update it anyways?
That's one of the reasons I like to have a DIY solution. I don't always want to make the trip to an "Apple approved city."

@OneRing2Rule, in my case, the Mac wasn't locked again. How exactly did you set up the "second" account? In my opinion, I think you should backup your data, wipe the drive, then setup fresh so that no trace will be left from the previous owner. I didn't include that in my original instructions because I assumed readers were the original owners. But hey, try it out, and see if will work to keep out the previous owner.
here is a link only the disk password iam gonna zip the whole folder up and upload

http://www.filefactory.com/file/5cvsxjjq60g1/disk_passwordUI.efires
 

ronmathews

macrumors newbie
Nov 2, 2012
15
0
@Excite

here is the rest of the stuff which i recovered with stellar mac i removed two basesystem.dmg files they are about 450 mb each and i guess they are for ireinstall it would be the same on any install disk and if u look in the folders u can see a whole bunch of password .efires files

http://www.filefactory.com/file/6q3l483hk39l/Macboob_Pro_Recovered_files.rar

----------

Have you been successful with any of these?

----------





Have you been successful with anything?

----------

Rite guys, here's where I am...I've got a mid 2012 MBP that's been locked and wiped...I've plugged the HDD in my windows machine and used Stella to look for files and have recovered 5 folders in which I cannot find the .lock files but have found lots of .efires files....iv started brute force (1000 so far). Some of you mention that this isn't working for you. I'm starting to get stuck, am I missing somerthing? Is there anything else I can try?

Thanks

i bet the only way would be to crack or open the .efires file i uploaded the whole copy of it hopefully Excite or some one else, the real tecnology guys figure it out ..
 

sammyt60

macrumors newbie
Nov 20, 2012
8
0
Try other 9000, but you must be frustrated :mad:
I've done it twice. I'm very sick of it.
In case, in my office, watching dozens of movies, it takes almost one week. I thought that is worth trying for. But the second time...:(

Apple is not an idiot hiding PIN Code in the .lock file like 123456789.lock
But, first thread is very lucky case of all combinations.

I think after EFI Firmware update, it changed the way Mac access to the PIN code lock or erased HD formatted state. Like your case...

Everytime I locked in PIN code state, My HD was erased like factory state. :mad:

Maybe Apple initially barricade to be factory mode or to restore...


What year is your Mac that you tired brute force?
 

swiftes

macrumors newbie
Oct 1, 2012
1
0
Glad to see there is more people out there with this problem.

My story:

Bought a mid 2011 27" iMac from AVForums. Good Price, seller seemed legit. Used for 2 months until one day I thought I would sort out the iCloud account. Clicked to de-auth the previous owner, and blam, it rebooted into the lovely iCloud firmware lock screen.

It turns out the seller was lying about being first owner and was the 3rd or 4th, and it had been passed around quite a lot, I knew this as the iCloud account name was different to the sellers name, and the apple store later confirmed the original owner had a different name too.

As the seller was no help, I tried Applecare, and guess what they were useless too. As the nearest Apple store to me is Exeter (45 miles away :( ) I had to bite the bullet and get down there. First time was literally no luck at all and was sent home, only to be emailed back by them a few days later saying they had a fix. So took it in and got the firmware pass removed.

Got home, to find it still had the iCloud lock for installing OSX :( this wasn't a massive issue for me because I was just glad to have a working machine and installed Windows, which ive been using for the last 4 months.

However, I do need to use Logic again, so got to work sorting it. Tried all suggestions in this thread but as the drive had been formatted loads previously (by me reinstalling and trying different ideas) it was no luck, even with the use of different data recovery solutions. So I used killdisk and wiped and refilled the drive, thinking it may be a file on there that is the lock (Read somewhere that someone had their HDD replaced and it worked).

No luck.

Tried a different hdd, no luck, wouldnt even boot of my Lion or Mountain Lion install discs. Had it apart about 3 times which is always fun and games.

So yeah, sorry for the essay, but just glad to see someone else feels my pain, Apple need to sort it out, half of their reps/staff hadn't even heard of this remote lock when I spoke to them and it appears this frankly annoying issue is almost undocumented by them.

Ive subbed this thread and will be helping to get this sorted, I need to be back on OSX.
 

ronmathews

macrumors newbie
Nov 2, 2012
15
0
Welcome to the club

Glad to see there is more people out there with this problem.

My story:

Bought a mid 2011 27" iMac from AVForums. Good Price, seller seemed legit. Used for 2 months until one day I thought I would sort out the iCloud account. Clicked to de-auth the previous owner, and blam, it rebooted into the lovely iCloud firmware lock screen.

It turns out the seller was lying about being first owner and was the 3rd or 4th, and it had been passed around quite a lot, I knew this as the iCloud account name was different to the sellers name, and the apple store later confirmed the original owner had a different name too.

As the seller was no help, I tried Applecare, and guess what they were useless too. As the nearest Apple store to me is Exeter (45 miles away :( ) I had to bite the bullet and get down there. First time was literally no luck at all and was sent home, only to be emailed back by them a few days later saying they had a fix. So took it in and got the firmware pass removed.

Got home, to find it still had the iCloud lock for installing OSX :( this wasn't a massive issue for me because I was just glad to have a working machine and installed Windows, which ive been using for the last 4 months.

However, I do need to use Logic again, so got to work sorting it. Tried all suggestions in this thread but as the drive had been formatted loads previously (by me reinstalling and trying different ideas) it was no luck, even with the use of different data recovery solutions. So I used killdisk and wiped and refilled the drive, thinking it may be a file on there that is the lock (Read somewhere that someone had their HDD replaced and it worked).

No luck.

Tried a different hdd, no luck, wouldnt even boot of my Lion or Mountain Lion install discs. Had it apart about 3 times which is always fun and games.

So yeah, sorry for the essay, but just glad to see someone else feels my pain, Apple need to sort it out, half of their reps/staff hadn't even heard of this remote lock when I spoke to them and it appears this frankly annoying issue is almost undocumented by them.

Ive subbed this thread and will be helping to get this sorted, I need to be back on OSX.
we all are trying to find a fix for this.. hopefully soon. but there is the last option of replacing the efi atmel chip a company in newjersey does it for like $175 but we dont know the gaurantee of it..one way or other .. and there are some people working on cracking the hash password sequence of the firmware,, its over at hackmac.org.. i have uploaded some files and waiting on Excite to look at it and see what he can figure out
 

ronmathews

macrumors newbie
Nov 2, 2012
15
0
looks like somebody found a way

here is the link
http://www.hackmac.org/forum/topic/1016-hash-request/

HackMac.org Regular
PipPipPipPip

Add as Friend
PM this member

Posts: 137
Joined: 19-October 11

Posted 22 May 2012 - 12:36 AM
i cracked it by using the 18-in-1 wordlist. this is the best free wordlist i've found so far. it was created from 18 different well known leaked/hacked sources and contains over 5 billion unique words. then i used splitlen from hashcat's utilities to optimize the wordlist. since oclhashcat-plus has a max limit of 15 characters there's not point in keeping words that are longer than 15. it sorts the words from shortest or longest then outputs them into individual files. the hashcat kernel also handle and buffer words in a more efficient manner (without going into too much details) making it faster.

the nice thing about wordlist (dictionary) attack is that it's not process intensive (unless you mutate with rules) compared to bruteforcing. even with 6 GPUs it hardly used any processing power as you can see below, so you can use CPU based hash tools to achive similar results without having to wait until the end of the universal before it finish cracking.

c061e04c5c6a96856a90e94fb0bdd39409676f2b9906b87e:beller0ph0n

Status.......: Cracked
Input.Mode...: File (../18in1/11)
Hash.Target..: c061e04c5c6a96856a90e94fb0bdd39409676f2b9906b87e
Hash.Type....: OSX v10.4, v10.5, v10.6
Time.Running.: 1 sec
Time.Util....: 1173.0ms/934.4ms Real/CPU, 391.7% idle
Speed........: 9427.9k c/s Real, 56202.0k c/s GPU
Recovered....: 1/1 Digests, 1/1 Salts
Progress.....: 11059200/190902395 (5.79%)
Rejected.....: 0/11059200 (0.00%)
HW.Monitor.#1: 1% GPU, 58c Temp
HW.Monitor.#2: 0% GPU, 58c Temp
HW.Monitor.#3: 0% GPU, 58c Temp
HW.Monitor.#4: 0% GPU, 60c Temp
HW.Monitor.#5: 0% GPU, 58c Temp
HW.Monitor.#6: 0% GPU, 57c Temp
 

ronmathews

macrumors newbie
Nov 2, 2012
15
0
.efires files

here is what i got around looking

3 down vote accepted


These files contain resources required for displaying the boot screen of OS X Lion before loading the actual operating system or in cases there is no system partition (or when it's broken).

They contain a flat list of files (no hierarchy), and each file has a name of up to 64 characters. The file format is as follows; all numbers are little endian, i.e. least significant byte first.

Two bytes 0x0200 with unknown purpose
Two byte short integer with the number of file entries (e.g. 0x3800 is 56 files)
Now there will be one record for every file entry:
64 bytes ASCII file name, with NUL bytes used to fill up
4 byte integer offset of the file data within the archive file
4 byte integer length of the file data within the archive file
There is an additional unused record after the file entries consisting of 72 NUL bytes.
Now there is the actual file data. There are no gaps or separators, the file entries described above position the data of all files right next to each other.

The first file's data offset in e.g. an archive file with 56 entries is 0x0C10, or 4108 bytes, by default:

2 bytes unknown + 2 bytes file count + (56+1 file entries) * 72 bytes each = 4108.

The second file's data offset in the same file is 4108 plus the length of the first file's data.
 

sammyt60

macrumors newbie
Nov 20, 2012
8
0
Sammyt60 my Mac is MacBook Air Mid-2011 and I upgraded EFI firmware update around mid-2012...

hmm replacement of HDD or erased HDD won't work?! Very very disappointing...

If just sent my logic to the man on eBay claiming to be able to remove firmware....fingers crossed
 

ExciteWalk

macrumors member
Original poster
Sep 11, 2012
46
7
Hey guys, I'm back. :) Had no connection as I was between machines. Black Friday can rock your world like that, haha!

@leminkien, second time around brute force, man that's crazy!

@ronmathews, I'll take a look at those files pretty soon.

You guys sure have been busy while I was away. Very good info here!
 

sammyt60

macrumors newbie
Nov 20, 2012
8
0
installation

Hi guy, I know this isn't the topic but can I use my friends Macbook pro 2011 DVD to install osx on my 2012 MBP?

THANKS
 

ronmathews

macrumors newbie
Nov 2, 2012
15
0
@excite

i messaged the guy (forum hero) who cracked that hash,he replied me back he is not able to do the new updated firmware
 

zbuffer1

macrumors newbie
Dec 4, 2012
1
0
Problem: Your Mac got locked via iCloud and on boot displays "Enter your system lock PIN code to unlock this Mac." It also sets an unknown password on the firmware so you can't boot from a disc. And you don't know the PIN code for a variety of reasons (not my business).
lockscreen.jpg


Solution: Mount the locked drive on another machine, find the PIN, re-install the locked drive into the original Mac, enter the PIN, resume your business.

Tutorial:
*I'm going to post what steps I did in my case and suggest steps you might take if your case varies.

Things Needed:
1. Alternate machine with space to mount an additional drive. (works on Mac or PC*)
*If you're using a PC, you'll need to download and install Mac Drive to be able to read the contents from a Windows environment.
2. You might need a SATA to USB adapter if you have a laptop without room for an additional drive.
3. Screw driver to disassemble the Mac.

Step 1: Remove the locked hard drive from your Mac.
You can find detailed guides for your specific machine at http://www.ifixit.com/Device/Mac

Step 2: Install the drive into your alternate machine. But make sure you do *not* boot from it. Boot from your regular drive.
If you do not have an alternate machine, feel free to ask a tech buddy of yours to lend you their machine.

Step 3: Once booted into the alternate system, locate your locked drive.
In my case it was drive D: on Windows. Now browse to \Users\username\Library\Application Support\iCloud
pindirectory.jpg


Step 4: In the folder "iCloud" find a file named with a bunch of numbers: ##########.lock In my case it was: 1138515150.lock
pincode.jpg


Step 5: I'd suggest that you take a picture of this file name for accurate reference. But you can also just write it down.

Step 6: Once you got the number, power down the machine and remove the locked drive.

Step 7: Install the locked drive back into the original locked Mac.
Follow your iFixit guide from Step 1 in reverse to put the drive back.
*It is important that you put it back in the machine where it was originally locked* so that the motherboard firmware will be unlocked in the next step.

Step 8: Boot up the locked Mac and referencing the number you recorded, you can start trying 4 numbers at a time for the PIN.
Try the first 4, then the second 4, and so on..
For example: 1138, 1385, 3851, 8515, 5151, 1515, 5150.
In my case the PIN was the second to last 4 digits: 1515
If you typed in more than 10 combinations, then it says that you are locked out for a minute. Just restart the machine and continue entering the combinations from where you left off.

Final note: once you enter the right PIN, the Mac will instantly reboot proceeding to where you were at when the lockout occurred. It will also remove the firmware password.

Enjoy your unlocked Mac!!
And please let us know if this method worked for you. Thanks :)

Hi
i did exactly what you told and managed to get the XXXXXXXXXX.lock file, but no matter how many tries I do and in the different combinations it won't unlock, is there any other alternative solution ?
i also remove battery from my iMac to find if it can help or not , but no help :(
 
Last edited:

ExciteWalk

macrumors member
Original poster
Sep 11, 2012
46
7
@zbuffer1

@zbuffer1, at the moment there is not another soft DIY solution other than to try all 10,000 combinations by hand :/
And please don't quote my whole first post like that, takes up so much space. Just a few words would have been sufficient ;)
 

andremoraes

macrumors newbie
Nov 24, 2012
9
0
@zbuffer1, at the moment there is not another soft DIY solution other than to try all 10,000 combinations by hand :/
And please don't quote my whole first post like that, takes up so much space. Just a few words would have been sufficient ;)

ExicteWalk, What if you've an Apple store near you? I tried and they said that my Mac mini needs a full logic board replacement and $350
What's the deal here I did not even requested to have the mini locked, I was hacked or I don't know perhaps server error
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.