Can't upgrade macOS/firmware with a third-party SSD

[MissCat]

Hello, I'm trying to use again my MacBookAir 6,1 that had a dead SSD; I bought the right adapter with a M2 SSD (Crucial P2) to replace it.

With a bootable macOS 10.13 (High Sierra) installer I can select the new SSD formatted in Mac OS Extended (Journaled), but after 5 minutes of installation and a reboot I get the "?" blinking folder.

With the internet recovery, I was able to install OS X 10.8.5 (Mountain Lion) on an external hard drive, it was not detecting the internal SSD. With the High Sierra installer downloaded I can't select the external HDD because "You may not install to this volume because the computer is missing a firmware partition", even if it contains a 200MB EFI partition.

I tried to run FirmwareUpdate.pkg from the installer but the boot ROM version didn't change (MBA61.0099.B21).

What can I do? I also tried to reset the PRAM, NVRAM and SMC.

 

[diego.caraballo]

Hello, I'm trying to use again my MacBookAir 6,1 that had a dead SSD; I bought the right adapter with a M2 SSD (Crucial P2) to replace it.

Hi there.
Since you can get a cheap, genuine-Apple disk from eBay I would recommend to follow that path.

Be aware that some adapters could cause a short circuit against the metal part of the Mac disk connector
if not properly isolated:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/upgrading-2013-2014-macbook-pro-ssd-to-m-2-nvme.2034976/post-25170394

After checking the above you can give a go with your current disk with internet recovery:

• On an Intel-based Mac, you can use Shift-Option-Command-R during startup to be offered the macOS that came with your Mac, or the closest version still available. Or you can use Option-Command-R during startup to be offered either the latest macOS that is compatible with your Mac, or in some cases the macOS that came with your Mac or the closest version still available.

Put your Mac near to your WiFi router to avoid issues while downloading the installer.

 

[MissCat]

Shift-Option-Command-R does nothing, Option-Command-R offers to install OS X 10.8.5 (Mountain Lion).

Does that mean I must have an official Apple SSD to be able to upgrade the firmware?

And thanks I will check my adapter!

 

[MissCat]

After a lot of time spent I was finally able to fully update everything!

At first I reinstalled the old Aura SSD but I couldn't install High Sierra on it, "This disk is locked". I had to format it with diskutil from the terminal, the graphical disk utility was not progressing.
Then I got another error: "macOS High Sierra cannot be installed because the third-party storage installed in your Mac is not compatible". It's a known issue, but the MarvellTray utiliy requires Mac OS 10.9.
Apple does not provide it anymore, thankfully it was uploaded to archive.org. But archive utility was not able to extract it from the zip, I had to use another Mac...

At the end I could upgrade the external hard drive to Mac OS 10.9, update the Aura SSD firmware then upgrade to High Sierra then Big Sur.

The last step was to install the Crucial SSD and update its firmware, there are instructions on this forum, I posted the small modification I did for the P2 SSD.

 

[Nermal]

Well done! What a debacle...