Board:apple/macbook21

Status

Tested on MacBook2,1 (Mid 2007) 2.0GHz, Model No: A1181 (EMC 2139). Might work as well, but not tested on MacBook2,1 (Late 2006) and MacBook1,1 possibly with small code modifications. Issues:

• OS X and Windows dont work yet.
• More Issues

Tested:

• Works with GNU/Linux and GNU/Linux-libre

Not tested:

Flashing

Flashing is easy with the vendor BIOS version MB21.00A5.B07 (EFI 1.1) installed. Maybe see also this page for a more recent verion: EFI and SMC firmware updates for Intel-based Macs.

Identify the flash chip

Make sure flashrom can identify the flash chip:

# flashrom --verbose --programmer internal:laptop=force_I_want_a_brick >flashrom_info.log

The output should involve:

...
DMI string system-manufacturer: "Apple Inc."
DMI string system-product-name: "MacBook2,1"
DMI string system-version: "1.0"
DMI string baseboard-manufacturer: "Apple Inc."
DMI string baseboard-product-name: "Mac-F4208CAA"
DMI string baseboard-version: "PVT"
DMI string chassis-type: "Notebook"
Laptop detected via DMI.
Found chipset "Intel ICH7M" with PCI ID 8086:27b9. Enabling flash write... 
...
Probing for SST SST25VF016B, 2048 kB: probe_spi_rdid_generic: id1 0xbf, id2 0x2541
Found SST flash chip "SST25VF016B" (2048 kB, SPI) at physical address 0xffe00000.
Chip status register is 0x1c.
Chip status register: Block Protect Write Disable (BPL) is not set
Chip status register: Auto Address Increment Programming (AAI) is not set
Chip status register: Block Protect 3 (BP3) is not set
Chip status register: Block Protect 2 (BP2) is set
Chip status register: Block Protect 1 (BP1) is set
Chip status register: Block Protect 0 (BP0) is set
Chip status register: Write Enable Latch (WEL) is not set
Chip status register: Write In Progress (WIP/BUSY) is not set
Resulting block protection : all
...
Found SST flash chip "SST25VF016B" (2048 kB, SPI).
No operations were specified.
...

If it does not find this very same chip but rather finds a different chip or none at all: stop here and think twice.

Read the vendor BIOS

Read the vendor BIOS and store it in a safe place (possibly at two different places outside the MacBook).

# flashrom --verbose --programmer internal:laptop=force_I_want_a_brick --chip SST25VF016B \
  --read rom.bin >flashrom_read.log 2>&1

The output should involve:

...
Found SST flash chip "SST25VF016B" (2048 kB, SPI) at physical address 0xffe00000.
...
Resulting block protection : none
Reading flash... done.
...

Write coreboot

# flashrom --verbose --programmer internal:laptop=force_I_want_a_brick --chip SST25VF016B \
  --write coreboot.rom >flashrom_write.log 2>&1

The output should involve:

...
Found SST flash chip "SST25VF016B" (2048 kB, SPI) at physical address 0xffe00000.
...
Resulting block protection : none
coreboot last image size (not ROM size) is 2097152 bytes.
Manufacturer: Apple
Mainboard ID: MacBook2,1
Reading old flash chip contents... done.
Erasing and writing flash chip... Trying erase function 0... 0x000000-0x000fff:ETransaction error!
Running OPCODE 0x20 failed at address 0x000000 (payload length was 0).
spi_block_erase_20 failed during command execution at address 0x0
Reading current flash chip contents... done. Looking for another erase function.
Trying erase function 1... 0x000000-0x007fff:ETransaction error!
Running OPCODE 0x52 failed at address 0x000000 (payload length was 0).
spi_block_erase_52 failed during command execution at address 0x0
Reading current flash chip contents... done. Looking for another erase function.
Trying erase function 2... 0x000000-0x00ffff:ETransaction error!
Running OPCODE 0xd8 failed at address 0x000000 (payload length was 0).
spi_block_erase_d8 failed during command execution at address 0x0
Reading current flash chip contents... done. Looking for another erase function.
Trying erase function 3... 0x000000-0x1fffff:EW
Erase/write done.
Verifying flash... VERIFIED.
...

Update coreboot

Once coreboot is installed, flashing an update coreboot version or reverting back to the vendor BIOS works with and without the laptop=force_I_want_a_brick switch.