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MP 1,1-5,1 Samsung M.2 970 EVO Plus firmware upgrade problem solved

MIKX

MIKX

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Dec 16, 2004
1,815
691
Japan
EDIT : If you buy a Samsung 970 EVO M.2 blade, install it but before formatting check the FIRMWARE revision in " About this Mac/ NVMe "first.
It should be 2B2QEXM7.
​
If it is 1B2QEXM7 you will have problems with the blade.

====================================================

I bought a 500gb Samsung 970 EVO on Saturday. I realised that the firmware had to be checked as the 970 EVO's firmware in the first release from Samsung ( 1B2QEXM7 ) was causing kernel panics etc.

Sure enough looking in " About this mac / Hardware / NVME the firmware was the problomatic" 1B2QEXM7 ".

So, I fired up Win 7 and ran Samsung Magician . .but .. . I got a popup message saying that it needed Microsoft .NET v 4.6.
this had never happened before. So I ran Win 8.1 and got the same message.

Microsoft ,Net message.PNG


Now I was starting to get worried. so I did two re-installations of Win 7 in both 32bit & 64 bit.

Got the same popup when I tried to run Samsung Magician.

After quite a while and many net searches I happened on the solution over at tonymacx86's haxckintosh forums.

Post #137
www.tonymacx86.com

Solved > - Do the Samsung 970 EVO Plus drives work ? New Firmware Available 2B2QEXM7

Is their a way to update the firmware w/o having to boot into windows? Hi thoronthar: I don't think you need to boot to Windows the ISO for updating will be burned to USB stick. Then you boot form the usb. It seems to come with it's own "OS / Linux. After the update you can do the normal...
www.tonymacx86.com www.tonymacx86.com
.

I then .. .

1. Downloaded "UNetbootin " https://unetbootin.github.io/

2. The latest Samsung 970 EVO Plus firmware ISO
https://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/minisite/ssd/download/tools/
scroll down to FIRMWARE then to “Samsung SSD Firmware(24).

Downloaded the " Samsung_SSD_970_EVO_2B2QEXE7.iso ".
( The latest firmware for the 970 EVO Plus is 2B2QEXM7 )

3. Inserted a brand new 8gb USB stick ( note : Don't change the original format the format of the USB stick.)

4. Started up UNetbootin by using the mouse RIGHT BUTTON & selecting OPEN. Just clicking the app won't open it.
Pointed the App to the ISO & the USB stick
Hit "OK" .. then UNetbootin formatted the USB stick bootable.

5. NOTE : At this point an EFI flashed GPU is required- I shutdown & installed my flashed XFX HD 5770.

6. Booted up holding down the OPTION key for the pre-boot selection screen ..

. . there it was ! My USB stick shown as " efi boot.

UNetBootin ready to boot.JPG


7. Started the "Efi Boot and then UNetbootin started up.

UNetBootin running.JPG


The rest was simple & easy. In about 10 seconds it found my 970 EVO Plus and asked me if I wanted to update it.
I typed in "Y".

Another 20 seconds and it was done.

I now have the latest ( 2B2QEXM7 ) firmware on my 970 EVO Plus.

DONE.png



I have since cloned Mojave 10.14.6 ( build 18G2020 ) over to the 970 EVO Plus formatted in HFS+.

Everything is running perfectly, no issues at all.

========================================

I also have a 970 EVO installed and I have noticed that the 500gb 970 EVO Plus is definitely faster and doesn't slow down as much as caches fill up.
DiskSpeedTest 970 EVO Plus.png


Of course not everyone has an EFI flashed GPU ( I have three ! ) and of course Samsung Magician probably works properly for other people but it is comforting for me to know that I could successfully upgrade my 970 EVO Plus via Mac OS .. sort of.

Hope this post is useful to anyone experiencing problems with Samsung Magician.

 
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I'm having a real nightmare with my 2TB 970 Evo Plus NVMe.

I have a 2009 4,1 upgraded to 5,1 and have Mojave running on a 2.5" SSD on a Sonnet PCIe card. I'm trying to clone the OS to the new NVMe, but the process keeps crashing the computer.

Originally I formatted the NVMe as Mac OS journaled, but now after some failures to clone to it, it only gives me the APFS options.

I've done a bit of reading and I can see that:
• My Boot ROM version is: 144.0.0.0.0
• Mojave is build 18G3020
• The NVMe revision is 2B2QEXM7

So it would appear I have all the right specs, but it just fails to clone.

In my PCIe slots
• Top slot (slot 4?): An eSATA card as I have a HDD caddy to quickly insert drives like Time Machine.
• Slot 3: Sonnet Tempo Card with two 1TB Samsung 2.5" SSDs on it
• Slot 2: I/O CREST SI-PEX40129
• Slot 1: Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 580 8G GDDR5

I really need to use all these slots and it is my work computer.

This NVMe problem is holding up my photography work and I am at my wits end after jumping through numerous hoops yesterday trying to upgrade from El Capitan and all sorts of obstacles presenting themselves to me. I'm hoping this is the final hurdle, but I don't know how to solve this issue.

I would be so appreciative if someone were able to help me figure this problem out. I really need to use the computer for work in the next 24hrs so this is pretty urgent to me.
 
I live in a city in mid-Japan. Bought it here from a popular PC supply shop, the box was sealed and was sold as new. This week I told one of the senior staff ( in Japanese 日本語 ) about the old firmware which was also problematic with WIN PCs too . . he just shrugged.
 
Yikes, one of my four blades in my RAID0 is 1B2QEXM7.

Any idea how to upgrade the firmware if I don't have windows installed?
 
H. Flower said:
Yikes, one of my four blades in my RAID0 is 1B2QEXM7.

Any idea how to upgrade the firmware if I don't have windows installed?
Click to expand...
H.Flower

You will have to format it to MS.DOS FAT in High Sierra or Mojave 's Disk utility first then you ( MAYBE ) can do the firmware upgrade via Mac OS . . . . .

forums.macrumors.com

Samsung M.2 970 EVO Plus firmware upgrade problem solved

EDIT : If you buy a Samsung 970 EVO M.2 blade, install it but before formatting check the FIRMWARE revision in " About this Mac/ NVMe "first. It should be 2B2QEXM7. If it is 1B2QEXM7 you will have problems with the blade. ==================================================== I bought a 500gb...
forums.macrumors.com forums.macrumors.com

I did the firmware upgrade via Mojave & a USB thumb drive but I DO have Windows 10 on a separate spinner HDD so I could easily format it to NTFS.

( NOTE :I suppose that you could download ( not sure ) a 30 day trial of Win 7 / Win 10 & install it to a spare SSD/HDD ) - can anyone verify this ?)

If you have the Paragon software ( Google " Paragon NTFS Mac OS" ) that will allow you to format the blade to NTFS then the technique in the link above should work. No guarantees though - read the link instructions carefully.




=======================================================

You could also install your PCIe M.2 adapter card with the blade formatted to MS DOS FAT in mac OS - in a friend's Win PC then a popup will allow you to format the blade to NTFS. Then you can use Samsung Magician to upgrade the firmware to 2B2QEXM7.

Whatever, that 1B2QEXM7 firmware is definitely problematic in both PCs & CMPs.

====================

I always check the firmware of newly purchased Samsung blades in "About this Mac / System Report NVME Express/ "
prior to formatting in Mac OS.
 
One thing to remember about buying SSDs sight unseen, even if a box is seemingly 'sealed' all it takes for an enterprising person to convert a used part into a seemingly new in box part is to warm up their shrinkwrap / heat seal machine and make sure the original packaging has been carefully handled so as not to put wrinkles or creases in it that suggest it had been opened.

Generally the best way to tell if something is truly new is to check to see that the part has one of those hologrammed / embossed stickers over the opening slits for the packaging. If it's missing or seems altered then it's probably not NIB.
 
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MIKX said:
EDIT : If you buy a Samsung 970 EVO M.2 blade, install it but before formatting check the FIRMWARE revision in " About this Mac/ NVMe "first.
It should be 2B2QEXM7.
​
If it is 1B2QEXM7 you will have problems with the blade.

====================================================

I bought a 500gb Samsung 970 EVO on Saturday. I realised that the firmware had to be checked as the 970 EVO's firmware in the first release from Samsung ( 1B2QEXM7 ) was causing kernel panics etc.

Sure enough looking in " About this mac / Hardware / NVME the firmware was the problomatic" 1B2QEXM7 ".

So, I fired up Win 7 and ran Samsung Magician . .but .. . I got a popup message saying that it needed Microsoft .NET v 4.6.
this had never happened before. So I ran Win 8.1 and got the same message.

View attachment 889016

Now I was starting to get worried. so I did two re-installations of Win 7 in both 32bit & 64 bit.

Got the same popup when I tried to run Samsung Magician.

After quite a while and many net searches I happened on the solution over at tonymacx86's haxckintosh forums.

Post #137
www.tonymacx86.com

Solved > - Do the Samsung 970 EVO Plus drives work ? New Firmware Available 2B2QEXM7

Is their a way to update the firmware w/o having to boot into windows? Hi thoronthar: I don't think you need to boot to Windows the ISO for updating will be burned to USB stick. Then you boot form the usb. It seems to come with it's own "OS / Linux. After the update you can do the normal...
www.tonymacx86.com www.tonymacx86.com
.

I then .. .

1. Downloaded "UNetbootin " https://unetbootin.github.io/

2. The latest Samsung 970 EVO Plus firmware ISO
https://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/minisite/ssd/download/tools/
scroll down to FIRMWARE then to “Samsung SSD Firmware(24).

Downloaded the " Samsung_SSD_970_EVO_2B2QEXE7.iso ".
( The latest firmware for the 970 EVO Plus is 2B2QEXM7 )

3. Inserted a brand new 8gb USB stick ( note : Don't change the original format the format of the USB stick.)

4. Started up UNetbootin by using the mouse RIGHT BUTTON & selecting OPEN. Just clicking the app won't open it.
Pointed the App to the ISO & the USB stick
Hit "OK" .. then UNetbootin formatted the USB stick bootable.

5. NOTE : At this point an EFI flashed GPU is required- I shutdown & installed my flashed XFX HD 5770.

6. Booted up holding down the OPTION key for the pre-boot selection screen ..

. . there it was ! My USB stick shown as " efi boot.
Click to expand...

Hi,

1 out of my 4 blades is 1B2QEXM7. I'm not having problems with it on the nMP, however I still want to get it upgraded.

I followed all these steps, and everything worked until 6 - I tried booting from the USB stick, and get this message : " Unable to verify startup disk. Try again or select another startup disk."

Tried it several, times and I get the same thing.

Any ideas?
 
Look at Step 3.

Either format your USB stick to factory defaults or get a new one. They are so cheap now.
 
I bought a new USB stick, installed again via UNebootin, and still got :
"Unable to verify startup disk."
 
H.Flower

I assume that you did not format the new USB stick in Mac OS ?
In any case a good ideas to read post #1 again, write down all the steps as you complete them, especially the UNebotin ones, it's easy to make a mistake. I do all the time.
 
Last edited:
H.Flower

Did UNebootin format the USB stick properly? "Feels" like that might be the problem.

============================================

PS : You ought to go to your Macrumors member profile/SIGNATURE and enter all relevant info regarding your cMP . .

Which Mac OS & version, which cMP, what GPU, which bootrom, how much RAM. etc.

That 'signature ' will be included in your posts to threads & help us diagnose any problems

My my Macrumors 'signature ' is at the end of this post.
 
Last edited:
MIKX said:
EDIT : If you buy a Samsung 970 EVO M.2 blade, install it but before formatting check the FIRMWARE revision in " About this Mac/ NVMe "first.
It should be 2B2QEXM7.
​
If it is 1B2QEXM7 you will have problems with the blade.

====================================================

I bought a 500gb Samsung 970 EVO on Saturday. I realised that the firmware had to be checked as the 970 EVO's firmware in the first release from Samsung ( 1B2QEXM7 ) was causing kernel panics etc.

Sure enough looking in " About this mac / Hardware / NVME the firmware was the problomatic" 1B2QEXM7 ".

So, I fired up Win 7 and ran Samsung Magician . .but .. . I got a popup message saying that it needed Microsoft .NET v 4.6.
this had never happened before. So I ran Win 8.1 and got the same message.

View attachment 889016

Now I was starting to get worried. so I did two re-installations of Win 7 in both 32bit & 64 bit.

Got the same popup when I tried to run Samsung Magician.

After quite a while and many net searches I happened on the solution over at tonymacx86's haxckintosh forums.

Post #137
www.tonymacx86.com

Solved > - Do the Samsung 970 EVO Plus drives work ? New Firmware Available 2B2QEXM7

Is their a way to update the firmware w/o having to boot into windows? Hi thoronthar: I don't think you need to boot to Windows the ISO for updating will be burned to USB stick. Then you boot form the usb. It seems to come with it's own "OS / Linux. After the update you can do the normal...
www.tonymacx86.com www.tonymacx86.com
.

I then .. .

1. Downloaded "UNetbootin " https://unetbootin.github.io/

2. The latest Samsung 970 EVO Plus firmware ISO
https://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/minisite/ssd/download/tools/
scroll down to FIRMWARE then to “Samsung SSD Firmware(24).

Downloaded the " Samsung_SSD_970_EVO_2B2QEXE7.iso ".
( The latest firmware for the 970 EVO Plus is 2B2QEXM7 )

3. Inserted a brand new 8gb USB stick ( note : Don't change the original format the format of the USB stick.)

4. Started up UNetbootin by using the mouse RIGHT BUTTON & selecting OPEN. Just clicking the app won't open it.
Pointed the App to the ISO & the USB stick
Hit "OK" .. then UNetbootin formatted the USB stick bootable.

5. NOTE : At this point an EFI flashed GPU is required- I shutdown & installed my flashed XFX HD 5770.

6. Booted up holding down the OPTION key for the pre-boot selection screen ..

. . there it was ! My USB stick shown as " efi boot.

View attachment 889028

7. Started the "Efi Boot and then UNetbootin started up.

View attachment 889029

The rest was simple & easy. In about 10 seconds it found my 970 EVO Plus and asked me if I wanted to update it.
I typed in "Y".

Another 20 seconds and it was done.

I now have the latest ( 2B2QEXM7 ) firmware on my 970 EVO Plus.

View attachment 889031


I have since cloned Mojave 10.14.6 ( build 18G2020 ) over to the 970 EVO Plus formatted in HFS+.

Everything is running perfectly, no issues at all.

========================================

I also have a 970 EVO installed and I have noticed that the 500gb 970 EVO Plus is definitely faster and doesn't slow down as much as caches fill up.
View attachment 889032

Of course not everyone has an EFI flashed GPU ( I have three ! ) and of course Samsung Magician probably works properly for other people but it is comforting for me to know that I could successfully upgrade my 970 EVO Plus via Mac OS .. sort of.

Hope this post is useful to anyone experiencing problems with Samsung Magician.
Click to expand...

Hi @MIKX,

Did you need an external enclosure to perform the firmware update for the Samsung Evo 970 Plus SSD? I'm preparing to buy one for my iMac 2019 and people are saying that they needed an enclosure to update the firmware before installing it into the iMac 2019. Getting to the NVMe slot on the iMac is a huge pain (I literally have to take apart the entire machine), so any information will help dramatically.
 
I am not at all familiar with iMac requirements but if you can boot into Windows and ( IMPORTANT ) have not yet formatted the 970 EVO Plus in Mac OS then you can upgrade the firmware using Samsung Magician.
 
Earl Urley said:
One thing to remember about buying SSDs sight unseen, even if a box is seemingly 'sealed' all it takes for an enterprising person to convert a used part into a seemingly new in box part is to warm up their shrinkwrap / heat seal machine and make sure the original packaging has been carefully handled so as not to put wrinkles or creases in it that suggest it had been opened.
Click to expand...

All the more reason for me to buy directly from Samsung.
 
MIKX said:
EDIT : If you buy a Samsung 970 EVO M.2 blade, install it but before formatting check the FIRMWARE revision in " About this Mac/ NVMe "first.
It should be 2B2QEXM7.
​
If it is 1B2QEXM7 you will have problems with the blade.

-

5. NOTE : At this point an EFI flashed GPU is required- I shutdown & installed my flashed XFX HD 5770.
Click to expand...

I am trying to use Windows to install the firmware update, but eventually, I will be installing Catalina MacOS (Hackintosh)

Thank you for being specific in stating it needs 2B2QEXM7 update. This is the only place I've found on the internet where someone mentions it. I've been asking in forums and it seems like everyone is running the firmware update without any issues. I called Samsung, and worse case scenario, I can send them the drive to update for me. But I already have it installed in my motherboard, and they said that there's a chance that when I take off the sticky thermal material from the installation, it could void the warranty if it rips the label.

I'm unable to get the update to work. I actually installed Windows in order to use Samsung Magician, but the 'latest update' Magician offers is the 1B2QEXM7 (Magician said my hard drive was already up to date with 1B2QEXM7 and wouldn't let me update to 2B2QEXM7.

I did try to write the .ISO file to UNETBOOTIN, but when I try to boot from the USB, I just get a blank screen. Do you have any suggestions? Thank you so much for your time; I don't know what to do at this point

In case you need my specs:
Processor: i9 9900k; MB: Gigabyte Z390 designare; RAM: Crucial Ballistix 16 GBx2; HD: Samsung Evo+ 970; Graphics: Sapphire Radeon RX 580
 
BrysonPriceMusic

All I can say is that I was able to update my Samsung 970 EVO Plus as outlined in my first post in this thread.

If I were you I would buy a new, untouched, good brand USB stick and then PRINT OUT the 7 steps in Post #1

Assuming you have at least Mojave 10.14.6 installed . . . shut down, do a cold boot up.

Now Slowly, carefully go through all the steps in Post #1

Bear in mind that you will be preparing a non-Mac OS CD which will do the actual upgrade.

How is the Samsung blade connected ? PCI M.2 card ?

Ideally, my procedure should be done on a real Mojave 10.14.6 Mac Pro with Bootrom 144.0.0.0.0

If you can successfully burn teh CD then you could boot from that in a Win PC.

Sorry. Ican't offer more.
 
MIKX said:
BrysonPriceMusic

All I can say is that I was able to update my Samsung 970 EVO Plus as outlined in my first post in this thread.

If I were you I would buy a new, untouched, good brand USB stick and then PRINT OUT the 7 steps in Post #1

Assuming you have at least Mojave 10.14.6 installed . . . shut down, do a cold boot up.

Now Slowly, carefully go through all the steps in Post #1

Bear in mind that you will be preparing a non-Mac OS CD which will do the actual upgrade.

How is the Samsung blade connected ? PCI M.2 card ?

Ideally, my procedure should be done on a real Mojave 10.14.6 Mac Pro with Bootrom 144.0.0.0.0

If you can successfully burn teh CD then you could boot from that in a Win PC.

Sorry. Ican't offer more.
Click to expand...

No worries! Thanks for your insight so far! As of right now, I have a Mac laptop with high sierra OS and a fresh custom desktop build that I will be trying to install Catalina on (Hackintosh). The Samsung blade is installed directly to my motherboard (custom build) in the NVME slot. I do have another Samsung 970. NVME arriving tomorrow (just regular EVO, not the + version)
 

quick update, I was able to get a hold of Gigabyte tech support after 1 hour on hold 😅 they told me there wasn’t anything I could do. After I kept begging them and asking them if there was anything else, I said “is there some kind of BIOS setting?” They said no. But finally after asking multiple times, they mentioned CSM. I enabled CSM and then I was able to boot from the USB I made. Now the firmware has the correct update 2B2QEXM7 🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼
 
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BrysonPriceMusic

Patience + Persistence usually pays off. Congratulations !

A valuable lesson.
 
I have bought recently a SSD Evo Plus from eBay. In Windows I opened Samsung Magicians to check the firmware, plugged the SSD inside an enclosure with USB 3.0 and got the following results:

Drive: Samsung SSD 970
Serial Numbner: 00000000000000000
Firmware: EXM7
Status: N/A
Temperature: N/A

Theres no option to upgrade the Firmware...

And theres no place where it says EVO Plus apart from the SSD sticker... this make me think that perhaps I have been mislead by a false eBay seller advert that was selling EVO Plus and it seems that is not Plus...

Does this firmware relates to Evo Plus SSD?
 
Last edited:
Perhaps you could have mentioned that your 970 EVO Plus installed in your iMac.

My firmware-updated 970 EVO Plus firmware is 2B2QEXM7. 8 digits.
 
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