Issues reinstalling firmware

[Painter_Jane]

i am trying to boot from thumb drive with firmware (issues with cd drive not being recognized). I have a 2009 MacBook Pro. Weird alien looking symbol shows up on the screen - circle with lines surrounding it... anyone know what I’m doing wrong or what that symbol means? Itkind of floats around the screen. I cannot find the symbol online anywhere. I even took a pic with my Samsung phone and tried to use “bixby vision” to search for it. No luck.

 

[CoastalOR]

View attachment 724090 i am trying to boot from thumb drive with firmware (issues with cd drive not being recognized). I have a 2009 MacBook Pro. Weird alien looking symbol shows up on the screen - circle with lines surrounding it... anyone know what I’m doing wrong or what that symbol means? Itkind of floats around the screen. I cannot find the symbol online anywhere. I even took a pic with my Samsung phone and tried to use “bixby vision” to search for it. No luck.

It is the symbol for Target Disk Mode:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Target_Disk_Mode

 

[Fishrrman]

Seems to me I responded to a post you made about the DVD drive earlier.

Chances are that it's given up the ghost, and either needs to be replaced with a new one (not worth it), or with an external USB drive (worth it).

A warning: don't play with firmware unless you're absolutely sure of what you're doing. It could make the Mac unusable if it "goes wrong".