MacBook Pro 15″ Mid 2010 Update Firmware to read APFS hard drive

firmwarehard drivemacbook prossd

Good day everyone, I have a 15" MacBook Pro Mid 2010. It's working well with the current hard drive (El Capitan). However when we swapped in our SSD (High Sierra) and booted, it gave the blinking folder which means that it can't find an OS to boot from.

I reset the laptop and held down the alt/option key. I then saw two options, an "EFI Boot" and our SSD. I was able to boot from our SSD and everything is working well.

However, this presents an inconvenience, it would be quite the hassle to reset the laptop and remember to hold down the alt/option key to be able to make the laptop boot properly.

When I looked up updates for our MacBook Pro model, the updates I found were dated way back 2010/2012, and I don't think these are the updates I'm looking for.

One solution we're looking at is to get a blank SSD, install El Capitan or until Sierra (whichever is available), and then upgrade to High Sierra. This way, we are guaranteed that the firmware will be updated as well. However, this solution is time consuming.

So here then is my question: Is there a way to update my Firmware so that it can read APFS hard drives?

Best Answer

Installing the full "Install macOS High Sierra" app over again will re-apply the firmware update, whether or not it was done previously.
Installing 'over the top' in this manner will leave all your data intact.

As an added bonus, it will add or fix the Recovery Partition too.