How do I reset the firmware password on my MacBook Pro?

"Have you tried this? Feedback from the comments in the article says it works:

Add or remove a stick of RAM. Obviously if you have one stick in, add one and if you have two in remove one.

Power on the Mac and immediately press and hold command-option-P-R.

The system will restart with the ‘bong' noise; allow it to do this 3 times. On the third ‘bong’ you can let go of the keys.

The machine will now boot with a cleared password and reset PRAM/NVRAM.

You can then shut down the machine and reconfigure the RAM configuration as you want it."

"I am a hardware engineer and former employee of a large computer company with that said i can give you a basic understanding that you can hack or reverse any efi password with the proper tools. all you have to do is reprogram the bios chip with a clean firmware that does not have a password on it. for this you will need a couple of things. first you have to identify the bios chip (microcontroller), then you have to get a .bin file that does not have a password on it and it has to be for your specific machine 2011will not work on 2014 and so on.(that maybe hard to get since manufacturers own this info and do not give it out. thirdly you need the proper tools to do it. eprom programmer once the chip is removed from the board. this is just a basic description. I have seen it done and here is someone that can answer more in depth questions

ok so here is a picture of the bios chip on the bottom right. It is the chip with 8 legs. it is the MXIC6406e CHIP and it is used in many computers not only macbooks but hp and many others. remember that most components are just that components and every company uses them. just the data onboard the chips are different.

thats the best I can do in a basic explanation. this work is on a engineering level that goes beyond the knowledge of technicians and is fully understood by those that can build a computer from its most basic components and make it work. In other words it not easy but it can be done with some education and skill."

"One thing to note:

90% of the people who do BIOS level fixes &&^& up the ME region, meaning, your laptop will run slow, and suck in graphics applications when running on Intel video. If yours experiences this after having someone mess with your BIOS on a core i platform, they messed up the ME region.

The ME region of the BIOS speaks to the PCH. They do a handshake upon first boot."

"On pre-2011 systems, you can do this with a Snow Leopard DVD or changing the RAM configuration. Apple sells this for $20 but I think they only continue to sell it for Mac OS X upgrades since you need to have 10.6 installed as a bare minimum to upgrade the OS through the App Store. While 10.6 has been EOL for years and application/hardware support hasn’t been there for years, it does come in handy - legacy hardware and situations like this are why it still makes sense to keep around.

In order to boot from the DVD, put it in the drive and press Option and select the DVD or press C. Both of these will work, so it's a matter of which one works for you. Expect to sit for ~15-20+ minutes or more to err on the side of caution - the DVD drive takes it’s sweet time unlike a flash drive.

Once the system is up, go under Utilities and find Password Reset utility. This will allow you to clear it out.

If you have a HDP (Hard Disk Password), the drive is typically discarded because it’s so difficult to recover from that. It can be done but the use of encryption in the firmware to hide it makes it high risk and usually impractical. You can try and crack it, but you may damage the firmware on the drive and permanently mess it up. Don’t try unless you don’t care about the data and you know EXACTLY what you are doing!

For 2011-present systems, you need a clean EFI with an intact ME region - Apple has a procedure, but they require a proof of purchase."