[angelmb]

Here goes a challenging one… A friend of me has this nasty issue with his MacBook: for some reason (beware the thieves, due to his work he travels a lot) he had password protected the firmware on his MacBook, while this could keep thieves away, well not that's entirely truth they well could smash the MacBook once it is proved to be useless…

Anyway, he would like to wipe the whole hard disk since he can't do anything to become the computer's administrator… his account is as standard, so far he has tried the Apple Firmware Restoration CD thingy as shown here:

Apple - Support - Downloads - Firmware Restoration CD 1.4

but while that page states than: A progress bar appears beneath an Apple logo on a gray screen. The progress bar indicates the firmware is being updated. Actually there is NO progress bar being shown, needless to say that would make any further attempt a futile exercise…

He can't neither delete the internal hard disk, I think something in the line of
[i]diskutil eraseDisk HFS+ nombredisco disk0[i/] would delete the MacBook internal HD but wouldn't make any for to solve the Firmware issue, right?

While he has his iMac to work at home, he can't go here and there with it… so, what are we missing here?, I haven't dealt with Firmware issues since maybe the Yosemite G3 in order to update to what… OS 9 and/or OS X DP4…

Hints?, tips?, any advice no matter what is GREATLY welcome.

[Cold Warrior]

If he forgot his firmware password, he can reset it. He won't be able to make any other progress unless he resets the firmware password.

Here's an Apple article about firmware passwords and what is locked down if it's enabled: Setting up firmware password protection in Mac OS X

To disable the firmware password, you'll need to remove one of the RAM modules.

[angelmb]

Thanks Cold Warrior. Thing is he had tried it removing the RAM as you say but that didn't help at all, can't elaborate about it -I wasn't a witness so to speak-.

As for the link above after reading the 'how to' shown below…

Warning: The Open Firmware Password can be reset and changed by any one of the following:

By any administrator user, as designated in the Accounts preferences (or in Server Admin).
Via physical access to the inside of the computer.
When the computer is started up in Mac OS 9.


It is crystal clear…
- he can't run as an admin user, no luck there.
- physical access… does that just mean removing the RAM or are there any other options… like CUDA switchs on old Power Macs mo-boards…
- needless to say to start it up in OS 9 is a no-no…


So we are hanging there as kernels panic like to yell…

[turtle777]

1) Add or remove DIMMs to change the total amount of RAM in the computer.
2) Then, the PRAM must be reset 3 times. (Command + Option + P + R).

-t

[angelmb]

Yes, yes… yesses !!!

As stated before he had tried to remove the RAM, albeit the expansion module, not the 'factorized' one. So after removing such module and reseting the PRAM the MacBook is back. This is really nice, the guy had been looking for this for a while and now it is done.

Firstly he was able to boot it from TDM which needless to say were great news. Then he was able to boot from Leopard's DVD disc, managed to change the password -long history made short, it has to be with the guy's surname translated into alphanumeric characters, BUT since while you're on login window the keyboard map is not 'yet' set in spanish that was just a mess to deal with- so restarting the MacBook he was presented with the log-in window and finally went to System Preferences to make clear his user wasn't any longer a standard user but Admin and he was done.

In a nutshell, the key was to remove the RAM installed from factory, can't understand really why removing the remaining module wasn't helpful but that's another matter.

Once and again thanks for paying attention, Cold Warrior and 777-777-7777

[JKT]

Fwiw, you can display international keyboards at the log-in screen - go to Accounts (or possibly International Preferences... sorry not on a Mac just now) and it is one of the log-in options

[angelmb]

you indeed right, --> Accounts --> Login Options. Thanks