Is there a default EFI password by the JSS? A policy locked my firmware accidentally.

[cgordy]

Here's my issue -
I upgraded from 8.71 to 9.01.
There is no longer the cute left-to-right wizard-style of making new Policies as 9.01 sorta has it all right there in your face now. ;-)
So, I merely cloned one of my imaging policies as I was testing some new stuff.
In the past, whenever I would copy a policy, I only had to change my scope or package..or whatever it was I was doing that caused me to copy it in the first place.
Having that said, I did not go in and check all the individual settings of the policy and I ran it.

Whoops.
When my firmware.pkg ran during the imaging phase, there was apparently no password set....my password did not copy over from the cloned policy.
I only discovered this when I tried to netboot the test machine again, only to find my passwords did not work on the firmware.

I inspected the policy, and crud - the password fields are blank. Typically, there are at least a dozen stars or dots indicating there is a password...but my fields are blank.

I tried a blank password to regain access to my firmware, but that did not work either.
My Apple engineer suggests I may have to send the device off to a service center to have the EFI password erased.

Thoughts?

[Josh_S]

It depends on the year/model of the machine to determine what the procedure is. But, in general, any Apple Authorized Service Provider or any of the Apple Retail Stores should be able to do this. Might be easier than actually sending it in. Also, many companies are Apple Authorized Service Service Providers for their own machines so, if your shop is setup to do this, you might have someone onsite that can remove the firmware password.

[cgordy]

thanks Josh, we are too far from the closest service provider, so we'll probably have to send it off.
We are looking into getting either myself, or someone else in our department, certified to repair Apple product...the environment is only growing (2000 iOS and 200 MacOS) and we are gearing up for a High School 1:1 deployment of MBA.

[gregp]

Which model is it?

Up until the summer of 2011 (IIRC), you can clear it out from nvram as admin. If its a newer machine, then as Josh says, need to have Apple clear it out.

[cgordy]

It is a Mid 2012 Macbook Pro.

[gregp]

That one will need to go to Apple.

[jyauch]

While testing I made this mistake as well.

If you are a certified Apple tech and have an agreement and can get directly to an Apple TSPS, submit them with the hash code and they can provide you with the necessary authorization process. We have a vendor that provides our high level support and they were able to do this for me. It took all of about 10 minutes. I attempted to do this via the Apple Genius Bar and wasted 4 hours for them not to fix it and tell me that I would have to pay $700 for a new logic board.

Refer to this link for more info. http://www.ernieflores.net/2013/03/26/recovering-a-lost-firmware-password/