Macbook Air 2013 – Damaged SSD – “Lacking Firmware Partition” – how do I get the Excessive Sierra firmware replace for brand spanking new SSD?

I’ve a 2013 MacBook Air with a busted SSD (13″, 8GB, 25g SSD). The SSD is totally gone. Each Apple Restoration and bootable Linux restoration instruments nonetheless see the drive, however they show it as a “0”. It will probably’t be erased or formatted not to mention made bootable.

Trendy substitute SSDs require that Excessive Sierra or increased be put in on the machine due to a firmware replace that’s wanted to work with these new SSDs. The unique OS on the machine (Mountain Lion) was by no means up to date as a result of the machine was used with Home windows and Linux reasonably than Mac OS.

Subsequently, I first must replace the machine to Excessive Sierra utilizing an exterior drive to get the firmware replace for a brand new inside SSD drive.
I’ve linked an exterior SSD drive by way of USB and used Web Restoration to put in Mountain Lion on that.
This exterior SSD drive seems as “Buffalo SSD-PGU3/NL Media”, and the partition for the Mac OS known as “Restoration”.
From Mountain Lion, I’ve up to date my option to Sierra. That’s the final OS I’ve been in a position to set up. I can not set up Excessive Sierra due to a firmware error that seems after I run the installer. It says: “It’s possible you’ll not set up to this quantity as a result of the pc is lacking a firmware partition.”

What do I do right here?

Just a few different issues I’ve observed:

• Within the App Retailer, ever since putting in Mountain Lion on the exterior drive (or probably since updating to El Capitan), I’ve an entry for “MacBook Air EFI Firmware Replace 2.8 “. I’ve run this quite a few occasions, however it retains reappearing.
• In Disk Utility, by way of the Erase possibility, I get no possibility to alter the file system to APFS.
• Once I run Restoration, utilizing Disk Utility after which “First Help” on the partition “Restoration”, among the many listing of duties carried out by the utility seems a line saying “Updating boot help partitions for the amount as required. Operation profitable.” This line has reappeared each time I’ve run Restoration once more.
• I’ve tried re-installing Sierra by way of Restoration a few occasions only for the heck of it, however this has failed each time. On the finish of the replace preparation, I maintain getting an error message asking me to run the utility once more.

Your assist will probably be vastly appreciated.