For future readers:
A lot of mac users with 830s have gone through hell unnecessarily because too many people parrot the idea you must update the firmware
on a Windows machine before installing Lion. The posts parroting that idea far outnumber the genuinely useful posts for most of us.
First, as I learned over the past few days, I couldn't upgrade 830 firmware from a USB-to-SATA cable or enclosure using a PC. Reading other users' complaints on numerous sites, I soon learned I wasn't alone. One post among several hundred has explained why -- and it's actually on this thread -- but no one else seems to have affirmed or even pointed out what it says. Here is the crucial quote.
It's important that people read this:
Usually you can't update an SSD's firmware via a USB adapter because the firmware utility then detects the USB controller, not the SSD itself. You have to connect it to the SATA port 
This is absolutely true in my case. Whenever I tried to use a cable or enclosure -- and I tried this with five different types -- the manufacturer of my drive (in the few utilities that could recognize it) was listed as that
of the cable or enclosure manufacturer, not the manufacturer of the 830. Only CrystalDiskInfo was able to detect that information.
Furthermore,
I was unable to get Windows even to recognize my 830 when I attempted to connect it via internal SATA in a Windows tower. This is
reason two that insisting people install the firmware on a Windows machine has been frustrating advice for so many users. Insisting on these steps has probably resulted in the return of legions of perfectly good 830s.
I was about to return my own 830 to Amazon when I read this:
archangel37 said:
If you're talking about updating BEFORE you install Lion, you're probably without options. I think you should be able to update the firmware in boot camp through a Windows partition, but only after you install Lion. That's my goal.
Fact: Disk Utility was able to format the 830 even after nothing on a PC but CrystalDiskInfo could even recognize it. The firmware could then be updated on the Windows partition even after the drive was formatted in Lion.
Why did I end up taking so many unnecessary steps?
Because so many people said I had to upgrade the firmware on a PC before installing Lion. Those people were wrong about the inflexible order of those steps -- especially for those of us whose attempted FW upgrades on non-virtual Windows machines haven't worked.
Here's the success story of someone updating the 830's firmware
after installing Lion, and it's by the same person who posted the method originally:
I was able to get the 830's firmware updated with Samsung's Magician SSD software under boot camp/Windows 7. Once I installed the software, it reported a new firmware. I downloaded it, found it using Magician, and then updated. A restart later, and I can confirm it is the same firmware as reported by the Samsung downloads website. In contrast to OWC's firmware update software(s), this one worked like a charm.
A lot of people who couldn't get PCs to recognize their 830s have given up because they didn't know it was possible to update the firmware
after Lion. Report after report -- here, on product review pages and on Apple Discussions -- confirms the prevalence of that frustration, and it's time we confronted the myth that firmware must precede formatting the drive for a Mac. That advice is false -- in my case -- as long as you create a small partition for Windows on the drive when you boot into recovery mode (Command-R) and install Lion (and, at least in my case, upgrade the firmware in Boot Camp under Windows 7 after installing the drive in your machine).
If others want to explain and specify the steps better than I have, then please do. But it's important that people not be told they
must use steps and hardware that could result in the process seeming impossible.
