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Hello guys. I just bought a Macbook Air A1369 Intel Core i5 on eBay and I found out today that it is blocked with a firmware password. What can I do to reset the password?
If he can’t give you the password, use your Buyer Protection Program on eBay and get your money back and leave this thief really negative feedback.
Hi, I bought a 2009 A1304 Macbook air with firmware password set, and no OS X installed. So I get the HDD from the Macbook Air and installed El Capitain 10.11 with a Macbook pro used the HDD as external drive with a special connector. That was a little bit tricky with the ribboncable. After I installed the drive back in the Macbook Air it boots successful. Then I open a Terminal shell and call nvram -c and set a new firmware password with firmwarepasswd and deleted it with the command to ensure it was written to the EFI chip. Now no hardware password is set and I can boot from external devices. nvram -c firmwarepasswd -setpasswd (I use 1234) firmwarepasswd -delete
I am working on a MacBook Pro mid 2014 that was bios locked. I bought a bios chip from bios depot on eBay and fed him the serial number and info and he made me a new bios chip. I replaced the one on the board and it worked fine for about a month then it failed and bricked the machine. I found a company in the Netherlands that make a small circuit board with the preprogramed bios chip on it. It plugs right into a port on the motherboard and it is awesome. It overrides the bios chip in favor of the new one and in minutes after getting it I am up and running. on eBay they have a few of the matts but if you look up there site they have many Mac models they support. I don’t have the info in front of me but if you go to eBay and search for MacBook bios chip and “Matt” or EFI BIOS firmware Matt Card Apple MacBook Pro 13" 2015 that will get you to one of there listing and get you in touch with the company. This turned my bricked MacBook back into a working machine in minutes. did take it a week or so to get here but it was worth it. Hope this helps
The Genius Bar people can reset the firmware password but they will need a proof of purchase for the original purchase. I have the same problem with a MacBook my college roommate gave me and they told me he has to provide them with the original proof of purchase (or the credit card he used to buy it since he bought it at the Apple Store) in order to unlock it.
this was efi chip that was used from 2010-2013 on almost all models macbook pro 13 15 and 17 also the imac and mac mini. they have 8 legs very common and easy to reprogram with right tools.
I found this. hope this helps http://osxdaily.com/2015/01/28/forgot-ma…
if you have proof of purchase and are still under warranty go to apple . if not your going to have to pay a third party to remove it by reprogramming the EFI chip (AKA bios chip) be careful as this can brick your machine if not professionally done I have had many technicians even 20 year plus veterans come to me after they fried the motherboard. At that point you might as well buy a new machine. For more info look for programming efi bios chips. It sounds simple but its more of a electrical engineering thing than a I.T. thing. mxic6406e was the chip they first used to hold the bios info. as of last 2 years there is a couple of different chips depending on model and year that I don’t know off top of my head but I do have plenty of pictures somewhere as I always would document a new machine after my work is done. HOpe this gives you insight and don’t brick it!!! Try apple or third party or sell it (Not to me I have plenty) if you don’t want to invest more.
I have a MacBook Air mid 2013 that i got off of eBay it’s could be iCloud locked or efi password locked i took it apple showed them the bill of sale from eBay they told me that i need the original bill of sale that came from apple not an eBay bill of sale it’s not stolen i checked eBay won’t give my money because it’s been over 30days the seller won’t give me the password unless i will pay him for it and eBay told me he had no returns so i went and a matt card it really works got the card from eBay. I what know what i was told by eBay and there’s no need for you trying to get smart Ebay doesn’t help after 2 months from purchase or if you purchased the item for spares/repair. If you choose to buy a non working item you’re supposed to know what you’re doing. Free meals are a rare happening in this world. And other thing it wasn’t listed as non working and its 30 days not two months Don’t care it’s working now don’t believe that’s it 30days from the time the product is delivered to you check eBay money back policy it say 30 days
Still the same method of unlocking it is to rewrite the chip using an eeprom programmer and for those that bought their products off of eBay and had problems and issues I had been told by a person that I worked on their machine that I could not do it was a 2018 the 2019 with the new t2 chip that if you just get a police report and send it to eBay they will refund your money for the purchase And for the record anything before 2018 can be done it’s only 2018-2019 and 2020 that are very difficult but not impossible
I have a device I bought in England that does this in 10 seconds.
