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Mackbook Pro Early 2011 does not power up WD 4T...

Sorry for the long history but it was necessary to strike the methods I already tried.

I have an early 2011 17’’ MBP that originally came with Snow Leopard installed.

Recently I upgraded to Yosemite on a separate partition.

Later I have bought a 4TB WD MyPassport Thunderbolt hard drive.

The thunderbolt port failed to power up the external drive.

So this is not a ‘’recognition’’ problem. The port does not supply power to the drive to begin with.

To locate the problem;

- I tested the drive on my sisters identical MBP (early 2011, 17’’) that runs on Mountain Lion.

- I tested my Thunderbolt port with a display.

Everything worked. Neither the drive nor my Thunderpbolt port are malfunctioning.

To make sure it’s not an OS related issue I tested the drive on

- Yosemite (on the actual partition)

- Snow Leopard (on the old partition)

- Mavericks (on a new partition I made to test the drive with the OS)

None of the OS’s managed to power up the drive.

I have reset PRAM and SMC several times.

I have looked through all the available Thunderbolt updates in Apple downloads and updates but none was made to work with any of the 3 OS’s installed in my MBP. They all returned error messages like ‘’This software is not supported by your system’’.

I found a SMC update (Macbook Pro SMC Update 1.8) which I thought could solve the problem and which was compatible with Snow Leopard. I tried to run it with Snow Leopard which ended up with a frustrating ’This software is not supported by your system’’ error again… which was not supposed to happen as the update is announced to work on 10.6.8.

I compared the firmware versions of my and my sisters thunderbolt connections.

my MBP: Thunderbolt Firmware 13.0-2.8 / Port Micro Firmware of 1.2.1 (not working)

sisters MBP: Thunderbolt Firmware 22.0 / Port Micro Firmware of 2.1.3 (working)

I tried all the options in my knowledge with no result sofar. All I know is that my sisters Thunderbolt has a higher firmware and it supports the 4TB WD MyPassport. I also know that the SMC update that was supposed to work on Snow Leopard did not work.

So, hoping that one of these will solve the issue I need suggestions to:

to update the Thunderbolt Firmware

to make the SMC Update 1.8 work on Snow Leopard.

Or any other suggestion that you think can help.

Thank you for your time.

That model has two Thunderbolt ports, I believe. One may be video-only. Try the other port. Otherwise, contact WD tech support.

Kappy, no the model has only one Thunderbolt port. And the device works fine on an identical MBP (early 2011 17'') with a higher Thunderbolt firmware. I just need to find a way to update the firmware from version 13.0-2.8 to 22.0.

As for the computer here are the EFI and SMC firmware updates:

I don't know if there is a Thunderbolt-only firmware upgrade. The firmware version you gave is not for the computer's EFI or SMC firmware. This is the latest Thunderbolt firmware update I could locate. You will find more related files here.

I found out additional information. My sisters identical notbook that could operate the WD drive had a logicboard replacement a few years ago which explains the newer Thunderbolt firmware version. The question that remains now is: Is there an enduserfriendly method of updating that firmware? Or do I have to take the MBP to Apple? Or worse, am I stuck with the Thunderbolt firmware that originally came on the logic board because there is no way of updating it? Anyone?

You would need to see if a local Apple retailer can upgrade the firmware or tell you the upgrade also requires a new motherboard.

After a long and painfull process here is where I ended up:

WD support asked for my system logs and informed me that the problem is at the Apple side.

I took my device to an Apple service as Apple support suggested and the service confirmed that the thunderbolt port is in perfect working condition. I sent the same logs to Apple as well and they told me that a logicboard replacement was in order to solve the situation.

Which only means that this is a factory default deficiency of the port and the logic board of this particular MBP model will NOT recognize or power up the MyPassport TB drive. Apple left me with the only option to upgrade the logicboard outof my pocket ALTHOUGH the authorized Apple service confirmed that the thunderbolt port is in perfect working condition and reasoned it with 'your warranty has expired'.

I wrote to the same customer support representative that I think Apple should allow a free logic board replacement since this is not device specific malfuntction and that is a default deficiency but I never got a response and now I can not even reach him with the phone number he provided. In my regard this is an epic let down of a customer and (obviously) I am up set about the whole thing, not only because I can not use the newly bought harddrive but now I can never be sure which thunderbolt device I can buy because devices are not sold with their thunderbolt port compatibility specifications.

Ok, guys. I decided to write it here as I spent 5 hours trying to figure out why the **** my Macbook pro early 2011 can't see my OWC thunderbolt 2 dock.

After some research I figured out that a possible problem is the firmware of my thunderbolt port. It was 1.2.something. And yes, I had my motherboard replaced 3 years ago.

My system was El Capitan but none of the updates could be installed. I tried: pram and cms reset, safe mode, update to High Sierra. No luck.

But I managed to update my firmware with the link from a neighbouring thread. I installed 1.0 and now the OWC dock is connected.

Hope this gona save your time.

最後更新：2017-10-09 00:46:10

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