Firmware Password protection = slow firewire speeds

i've been trouble-shooting a seagate freeagent fw800 external drive which is suffering from abnormally slow read speeds when connected to my macbook pro. i tested it with Drive Genius's Benchtest - around 8mb/s. the drive works fine on my imac, so the drive isn't at fault.
after much head-scratching, i remembered that i have firmware password protection switched on, so i just turned it off with the 10.6 dvd and retested the drive, and it performs normally (around 40mb/s).
i've not found any mention of this issue apart from one post from 2 years ago:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=8448187
so now i have to choose between a safer mac, or decent read/write speeds for my audio multitracking work. great. its not exactly convenient having to turn FPW on and off via the dvd...
anyway just thought i'd mention this for future baffled searchers.
reported it as a possible bug to apple too.

This should allow you to reset the root password
1. Restart your MBP while holding down Apple/S
You will see a bunch of scrolling text, when that stops
2. At the Localhost% prompt type:
*/sbin/mount -uw /*
/sbin/SystemStarter 
You will then see the services starting up.  
3. When the Localhost% prompt reappears, type:
*passwd root *
It will then ask you to type the new root password twice
4. After entering the new password, type:
reboot
5. Login as root with your new password and proceed from there.

Similar Messages

Disable Firmware Password Protection

I have a G4 Digital Audio. Since i installed a 1,7GHz procesor upgrade (Sonnet Encore) and had to apply a patch to the firmware it seems that open firmware password protection is enabled. Now i'm in trouble as i can't start up from a selected disk (i didn't consider it's on a > 128 GByte partition) and as i don't know the password (i haven't enabled it) i can't use the option key, so i can't startup the computer from any disk. Reading this: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106482 i realized about the password protection and that there may be a way to bypass it having fisical access to the computer. Any hint what i can try to start up my computer again?

Hi, Olaf -
There is a way to do that, but to help others avoid having their Mac's security breached (particularly those with laptop machines) it is not publicized. You should contact Apple Support by phone, or take your machine to an AASP.

Intel iMac, Open Firmware Password Protection and booting from CD

I have an Intel iMac I'm setting up for use in a public library. I want to prevent single user login with the Open Firmware Password Protection utility, but if I do, how do I boot from the OS disc, zap PRAM, etc? The OFPP page has instructions on removing the OF password, but it does not work on Intel Mac's. Also, is there an alternative way to prevent single user login?

No, you were right, I just misunderstood. Technically it's called single-user mode. But, you were right.
Anyway,
Since it seems that there might not be an answer directly related to your topic you could maybe give this a try.
In Simple Finder the user can not restart or shutdown. They can only sleep and log out.
The other problem, however, is if they log out then there are those Sleep, Restart, and Shut Down buttons on the login screen. Luckily, though they can be turned off.
So as of now, if some is logged in in a Simple Finder account they can not restart or shut down the computer in order to get into single-user mode. They can also not get into the Administer account since it is password protected.
The only problem I can see with this is that a person could do a hard shut down, hold the power button down until it turns off, and then boot up and enter single-user mode.
If you want to go ahead and do this, in order to get the computer up and running in the mean time, just post back and I'll be glad to help you set up a Simple Finder account.

Open Firmware Password Protection?

Anyone had any luck setting this up? I don't see it on the DVD... I am hesitant to use the one from my Tiger CDs... anyone know how to setup Open Firmware Password Protection on Leopard?

Thanks for detailing your solution Mac Campbell.
Unfortunately I can't locate the Firmware Password Protection application in the directory you listed nor any other folder for that matter. I'm not confident its been installed on my system (clean install of Leopard btw). Could you please confirm its exact location for this Terminal newbie.
Many thanks in advance.
Steve

Forgotten Firmware password protection And no OS on hard drive

I really need to know how to get it off. My hardware has been wipped and there is absolutly nothing on it. And i need to take Firmware password protection off in order to install anything onto it.

See this link for resetting an open firmware password:
http://www.macforensicslab.com/ProductsAndServices/index.php?mainpage=document_general_info&productsid=69&zenid=74f4076fb96074db45dc274f7de86bc6

Firmware Password Protection - Prompt command to check

Is there a prompt command to check if the Firmware Password Protection is enable or not?

I've never seen any, but everything should be detailed in http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1352

How much does it cost to unlock a Firmware password protected computer?

I'm just curious, so how much does it cost to repair and unlock a firmware password locked Mac?
Because they say: Only Apple retail stores or Apple Authorized Service Providers can unlock these computers protected by a firmware password.
How much does it cost?

I'd expect the price varies, and might even be free with good ID and clear ownership.
As for the price, call Apple or the local Apple Authorized Service Provider, and ask them.
Or bring your photo ID and your Mac into the shop, and ask directly.

Can't Bypass firmware password protection. Don't remember it

Hello, so i've recently installed windows 7 for bootcamp. But when i press option, it takes me to a lock symbol with a password protection. I dont remember my firmware password, and i've looked everywhere for a solution. Resetting ram doesnt work, downloading the open firmware password utility doesnt work, and pressing cmd + r doesnt work either. Im running Lion v 10.7.4. Help! I certainly do not want to reboot everytime to switch partitions!

MacBook Air: Recovering a lost EFI firmware password - http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2391 - the only way to reset OF password on MBA is service appointment with Apple.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3892243

Firmware Password Protection for Intel Macs?

PPC macs can use the Open Firmware Password utility to protect the computer from someone booting of another drive to access your data http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106482
How can this same protection be accomplished with Intel-Macs? Intel Macs use a different fireware/boot process, so OFP above doesn't work. according to the apple article above, it can be done - but it doesn't explain how:
"Intel-based Macintosh computers can be protected by firmware passwords as well. The firmware in an Intel-based computer uses Extended Firmware Interface (EFI) technology"

Install DVD1 apparently has a Universal Binary called 'Open Firmware Password' on it that works just the way it did on PPC Mac's (not tried it personally)
According to this post it was fixed in 10.4.6

Firmware Password protection, crashed disks and SuperDuper

I want to setup a firmware password on my Mac, however I have one query.
I use SuperDuper to clone my machine each night onto an external hard disk and I understand that if I want to boot from this hard disk, I would have to turn the password protection off. However, my main reason for the backup is to have a workable system if anything ever happens to my primary (internal) startup disk (as has happened before.) In this situation, I would not be able to boot into Mac OS to turn off the password protection. Does this mean my laptop would be inaccessible?

if I want to boot from this hard disk, I would have to turn the password protection off.
Correct.
However, my main reason for the backup is to have a workable system if anything ever happens to my primary (internal) startup disk (as has happened before.) In this situation, I would not be able to boot into Mac OS to turn off the password protection. Does this mean my laptop would be inaccessible?
No, you should in that circumstance be able to boot from the Mac OS X 10.5 installer disk and use the Firmware Password Utility from the Utilities menu to unlock it.
Note, though, that if you clone your system to an external hard drive, to my mind you rather defeat the purpose of setting the firmware password since a malicious user could just connect your external drive to another system to get access to your data. True, they couldn't boot your computer, but that level of data protection could be achieved just by turning off automatic login in Mac OS X and making sure you have a strong password on your user account. So I'm not sure of the benefit of setting a firmware password if you're going to have your backup hard drive just sitting there where anyone could grab it.

Booting into Single User when having Firmware password protected...?

Hi,
I have to put a number of iMacs to the laboratory so that users could log on but without administrative rights. In order to prevent them from booting the external devices and booting into single-user to gain root access, I have set the Firmware password, which does a nice job of blocking "C" and "CMD-S", etc commands during the bootup.
However, I wonder: in some occasions when we need to perform some troubleshooting, we could not boot the system into single-user mode. I know that I could press "Option" key during the startup, which will bring into the "Startup Manager". After then, the Manager shows the devices for booting. I find that even when I double-click the "Macintosh HD" and then press "CMD-S" immediately, the system does not perform single-user booting. Of course, pressing "CMD-S" when the Mac starts up does not work as well, as this command is blocked due to the Firmware password set.
I wonder if there is a way for us, the system administrators, to get into the single-user mode in this case. Of course, I do not expect an answer of getting an Installation DVD, booting the DVD, involving the Firmware Password Utility to disable the Firmware Password, in order to gain back the single-user booting ability...
Thanks.
Dominic

For Mac OS X, setting an firmware password will lock out all commands. While Single user mode is useful for troubleshooting, it can also be used wrong by the wrong people which is why it is disabled along with the rest of the 'startup commands'
So a few thoughts here:
- I'm asking in this case: does holding down the option show network drives in server situations such as yours? If so, you could have a network server (network startup disk) to start the computer from to do the trouble shooting you need and still be able to keep the firmware password in place
- I've been reading up on Unix commands lately and found a nice gem: nvram. Being a unix admin, you may already be familiar with it. It's the unix command for working with open firmware variables.
When you use the firmware utility to set the password the 'security-mode' variable is set to 'command' by default. I know there are two other options: 'none' (no password set) and 'full' (don't know what else this blocks). Is it possible that there is some way to selectively block the commands you want to stop (startup from other drive, zap pram, etc) but still allow Single User Mode?
Not sure myself, just putting something out there. Maybe it'll spark something for ya.

Firmware Password Protection For Apple Mac Mini running Mac Os X Server10.6

Did any one Know How to install
Apple Firmware password to my Mac mini Server (1.83 ghz macmini)
please help

To confirm, you have booted the DVD, selected the language, then looked under the Utilities menu item up to the menu bar? (That's where it's expected to be, but I don't have a way to test that right now.)
And FWIW, when posting, it can be very helpful to post what you've looked at or what you've tried or what's confused you. With that background, you can get an answer to your question more quickly. With that, you're not going to get (for instance) me posting a pointer to something you've already tried.

Why does the firmware password is a weak protection ?

Hello
I would like to protect my mac book pro against thieves. Then I was looking on the undercover software. Undercover gives the advice to enable the firmware password. But when I went to the apple information page in order to understand how the whole firmware protection works, I could read :
Apple Open Firmware Update 4.1.7 and later provide the groundwork for password protecting computers at a low level (Open Firmware Password Protection).
Why ''Low Level''?
Thx you

First, your misunderstanding that term. In this case "low level" refers to relative to the OS and software on the computer. The firmware is, technically, software, but unlike the OS and applications that run from the hard drive, firmware is actually flashed onto volatile RAM chips on the motherboard. Firmware runs independently and does not need the OS to work - it is completely selfcontained and actually includes the initial bootloader code that literally bootstraps the hardware so the OS can even be read from the hard drive and loaded in memory.
So, password protecting the firmware is "low level" protection in that it does not reside on the boot drive and unlike software encryption and such things that only operate if the OS is loaded and running, an open firmware password is in effect before the boot drive is even initialized or any OS or software is loaded.
One thing to keep in mind though, is that if someone has physical access to the machine - can open it up and mess with the actual hardware, then even a firmware password can be bypassed. There is an old adage in IT - there is no security without physical security.
So it is not necessarily a bad thing to use a firmware password, but if, for example you had really sensitive data on your hard drive, you'd likely still want to encrypt that (for example, use disk utility to make an encrypted folder to keep such files in).

Has Anything Replaced Open Firmware Password?

Has Anything Replaced Open Firmware Password?

It's a loaded question you're using in someways. If what you mean is, "Is there an Open Firmware equivalent for Intel-based Macs?" then the answer is yes. See the following Apple KB article for full details: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1352
======
YES, that's what I meant. I have a late 2010 MacBook Pro w/ Core-i7 CPU
I read the article and I find confusing info. In one paragraph it says Intel Macs use EFI and in the following paragraph It says "Any Intel Based Mac" can use Open Firmware*
"All Intel-based Macintosh computers support firmware password protection.
The following Apple computers can use the Open Firmware Password application:
▪ iMac (Slot Loading) and later models of G3 iMac
▪ iMac (Flat Panel) and later models of G4 iMac
▪ iMac G5 and later models of G5 iMac
▪ iBook - all models, both G3- and G4-based
▪ eMac - all models
▪ PowerBook (FireWire)
▪ PowerBook G4 and later models of G4 PowerBook
▪ Power Mac G4 (AGP Graphics) and later models of G4 Power Mac
▪ Power Mac G4 Cube - all models
▪ Power Mac G5 and later models of G5 Power Mac
▪ Any Intel-based Mac*
▪ MacBook Air: see MacBook Air: Recovering a lost EFI firmware password"
So do I use Open Firmware or EFI?
"Apple make up your mind please..."

Firmware password to stop hdd switching?

I have set up a firmware password so that if somebody steals my computer and swaps the hdd it will not work, is this correct? Also if I wanted to get around the firmware password could I flash the computer or is it set in stone?
Also, with the new MacBook pros I think the hdd can b locked in the computer so it cant be removed - is that true and as I have the old white one can I still lock the hdd in, I dont think i got a key?

Hamper wrote:
Right well my plan is not to get it nicked ...
I doubt that anybody plans on having their laptop stolen, but it happens with great frequency anyway. They are highly portable, easily concealed under a coat or in a bag, quite valuable, & often used in public places & other unsecured locations. Locking cables are an effective deterrent against most forms of opportunistic theft that rely on speed to take the laptop while you are briefly distracted or away from it, for instance when thieves work in pairs, one distracting you while the other takes the laptop.
... if it ever does then the theft can be reported immediately and the GPS and wifi triangulation of the macbook when started back up is shown, a picture is taken and lots of IP info.
Before relying on this as a way to recover your laptop, ask your local police if they will follow up on such reports & if the info actually is likely to lead them to the thief. It is unusual that they will do much more than filing the report. A team of officers triangulating the location & then moving in to apprehend the thief is more often a fantasy than a reality.
I have also got a firmware password enabled to stop the exchange of a hdd ...
The firmware password does not in any way prevent someone from swapping out the hard drive. Please read Setting up firmware password protection in Mac OS X carefully to understand its purpose & capabilities. Do not rely on this or any other software method to make the laptop inoperable or to force the use of installed security software. A knowledgeable thief can defeat that strategy in a matter of minutes, given unobserved physical access to the computer.
... and a guest account enabled to get them online, but its restricted. The passwords for admin use are too good to be cracked and I am also interested in swabbing some a section of the computer with micro dots, but that's not clear yet.
What should be clear is that your strategy is at best only going to be effective for an unsophisticated thief who isn't very familiar with Macs.

Firmware Password protection = slow firewire speeds

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