Apple released its MacBook Pro EFI Firmware Update 1.7 patch on Tuesday, a 3.4 megabyte download which addresses an issue reported by a small number of customers using drives based on the SATA 3Gbps specification with the June 2009 MacBook Pro. While this update allows drives to use transfer rates greater than 1.5Gbps, Apple has […]
Tag: Drive
In spite of Apple’s introduction of the 13″ unibody MacBook Pro notebook at WWDC last week, it may have opted for a slower standard. According to Engadget, the new MacBook Pro notebooks that ship with conventional hard disks may only have a 1.5GBps SATA enabled, while SSD configs are apparently getting the full 3.0GBps SATA […]
Accessory provider Other World Computing announced the release of its new Mercury SuperDrive Internal Upgrade Kits for Apple’s 13″ MacBook and 15″ MacBook Pro notebooks. The new OWC Mercury SuperDrives offer faster burn speeds than factory – up to 8X DVD, 6X DVD-DL (Dual-Layer 8.5GB), 5X DVD-RAM, and 24X CD burn speeds with support for […]
Let’s face it, Time Machine is a spiffy and useful thing as well as one of the main bells and whistles of Mac OS X 10.5. This isn’t to say it’s without its bugs and despite Apple’s best efforts, there are times where backups appear to hang or stall out sans warning. You may be […]
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REVIEW: Micromat TechTool Protege
Like many of you, I’ve done Macintosh support for years. In fact, I used to support several newspapers in Philadelphia and was the guy that arrived on site with two bags. One bag contained a bootable SCSI hard drive with the latest version of the Mac OS installed and every conceivable recovery, repair and diagnostic tool under the sun installed. The other bag contained my PowerBook and a selection of tools.
With this setup I could diagnose and fix most Mac problems on the spot, the problem was that it was heavy and, well, SCSI. Enough said. Today, I don’t do as much field support, but still carry a bootable Firewire hard drive and the original silk-screened Mac OS DVDs that came with my machine.
There’s a new tool that I’ve been using that has the potential to save me the hassle of carrying around that external hard drive: The TechTool Protege from Micromat.