Hard drive not recognized - cable?

Sorry for the typo. ¨the can be metal fatigue¨ should be ¨there can be metal fatigue¨

Well the issue of the HD cable continues. I have a mid 2012 MBP and got the blinking folder and unrecognized HD. Took it to Apple who fixed it for $60. The funny thing is as my Genius was diagnosing my HD cable issue, there was another guy whose genius diagnosed the exact same issue with his MBP right next to me at the same time. What are the odds and how widespread is this issue?

The Genius did the diagnostics but really it was just a formality as soon as I said blinking folder and one second everything was fine and the next a gray screen he knew exactly what it was. At least they must have an assembly line going in the back to fix these cables because I had it back in two hours. Maybe someday Apple will be forced to come clean on this issue and I'll get a $60 check in the mail. Pipe dream.

Yay I have got the same problem 😀 Mac was working fine and all of a sudden after a restart the question mark folder appeared. I went to the Apple Service Center and the "Smart People" there told me that it was a hard drive issue. So I purchased a new HDD and the same screen pops up. Disk utility won't let me format my brand new hard drive and my old one seems to be in perfect shape as I am able to boot it from USB.

I guess welcome to Apple where you pay 1000$ for a MBP and by the end of its lifetime end up paying almost the same again and then eventually buying a new one and repeating the process all over.🙂

Details of Mac : Mid 2012 13" MBP

2009 macbook pro died on me

took it to apple store, they said the hard drive is gone for good

bought new hard drive off amazon, hard drive came and then replaced it

problem didn't go away. i wiggled, bend, and straight the hard drive cable out, it work for a second.

then decided to put back my old hard drive to see if it work. the problem came back. putted in new hard drive problem came back

question is

WHERE THE **** DO YOU BUY THE HARD DRIVE CAME FROM??? SH*T TOO EXPENSIVE EVEN ON EBAY.. ESPECIALLY JUST FOR A STRIP OF METAL...

Google will help you find it, no matter how and what you type.

I know I'm the 129th or so respondent in here but I'm delighted to report that because of all of you posting, I bought a $30 drive cable via Amazon and my friend's 2012 MacBook Pro is good as new. And I made her keep the SSD I bought her thinking that was the problem and she's happy her machine is lickety split fast now!

I love the Internet, I really truly do. Thanks everyone!

I am having the cable problem too. This is the 3rd failure of my drive cable already, really frustrating >.<

Anyway, going to get a new cable soon.

I had the same issue with my 10.9.2 Macbook Pro and it ended up being a broken hard drive cable, which coincidentally occurred just after my 1 year warranty expired!!

We had a similar issue with an Oct'12 13" MBP bought and used in the UK without Apple Care - eventually got it repaired by our Apple Store FOC under EU and UK sales legislation without any quibbling.

• with original HD it started beach-balling and giving random respose to trackpad and keyboard.
• assumed it was just a failing HD, so took opportunity of falling prices to replace it with an SSD direct from amazon.co.uk
• managed to install an SSD instead and fortunately migrate all data, settings and programs from the original HD in a USB caddy - this was our first lucky break
• the SSD worked for a few days, long enough to do a full TimeMachine backup to an external USB drive
• the SSD then failed (or more likely was trashed) completely and was not even recognisable as an external drive nor with the SanDisk Dashboard when connected to a PC
• the SSD has been replaced by amazon.co.uk - good job it was purchased direct from them
• the original HD was low level formatted using HD Low Level Format Tool on a PC (they do come in usfeul sometimes!)
• after finding this thread, and guessing the cable was the cause of our problems, we connected the HD to the MBP in a USB caddy, and disconnected the internal drive cable from the motherboard - making sure it didn't make contact by slipping a business card between it and the connector on the motherboard
• installed clean Mavericks onto the HD by booting from an installer on a USB memory stick
• decided not to re-install the SSD, in case it got trashed, but installed the HD into the MBP with its probably dodgy cable - it sort of worked but we had the feeling it would soon get worse so -
• we booked a genius bar session at the Apple Store where the MBP was originally purchased - this turned out to be an important move
• when we took the MBP (with its original HD in it) to the Genius Bar (a week later) it was diagnosed using a net boot of the MRI diagnostics as having a potential HD failure
• after hearing a full description of the above history and seing the MBP's serial number credentials as being purchased from the Store 2 yrs 3 mths ago, the guy said the HD and cable would be replaced free of charge under the Eu/UK regs which, he said, they take seriously. Good job too, as I was ready to argue our case, I'd expect an HD and/or its cable to last longer than 2+ years, say 6 years as per the UK Sale of Goods Act.
• the repair was done the same day
• we've restored from TimeMachine and it's working OK, so far.
• decided to run with it as repaired, with the replacement HD and cable. The SSD can wait for another day ...
• we've bought a spare complete HD cable, while still easily available from MacYard, just in case this rears its head in the future

The moral of the story is: make sure you've got a TimeMachine backup and take your Mac back to the original Store, wait a week for a genius bar appointment and, especially if you're in the UK or maybe the EU, you might be pleasantly surprised.

Same problem here.

Lola described the problem I had a few sites back just fine:

Lady Lola wrote:

I've just had this problem with my mid-2012 Macbook Pro. Applications kept freezing and the rainbow loading thinging kept going. Eventually had to shut down. Turned on again - flashing question mark folder on grey screen. Shut down, turned on again using the Option key but no hard drive showed up. Did internet recovery. Once it saw the disk hardware but Macintosh HD was greyed out, another time it wasn't there at all. So couldn't restore in either case. 4 months out of warranty, just my luck.

Before you format your hard drive and think it causes the problems, check if it works on another machine. This was how I discovered, that the actual drive was fine, but the cable is the culprit. You can check that easily with a SATA to USB adapter, which you can buy at every electronics store. Now I'm going to buy a hard drive cable on eBay and replace the old one with it. Hopefully this resolves the issue.

Hard drive cable for MacBook Pro 13“ Unibody Mid 2012 (A1278):

Product code: IF163-041-1

Apple Part #: 923-0104, 923-0741, 821-1480-A

Where to buy: iFixit or on eBay

Replacement Guide: iFixit

What I think is that Apple designed the cables actually like that, so they stop working shortly after the warranty is over. So many people described the same problem since 2009. Apple had enough time to fix this, if they wanted - but they don't want the issue to be fixed. The benefit: get the customer to buy whole new computer. This method is actually called: planned obsolescence. It's a pity that even Apple needs to behave like that...

FromtheOrange wrote:

What I think is that Apple designed the cables actually like that, so they stop working shortly after the warranty is over.

😁😝😁

Thanks for that.

Oh that's just silliness FromtheOrange. If Apple had a bad cable in every model you could maybe say that they're doing it on purpose but I've been working with Macs since 1984 and I've never seen this problem before. I did have it on a friend's 2012 MBP but it was definitely the first time. It was a $35 cable replacement that took me all of 20 minutes to replace. Apple builds great hardware, shows that they are committed to quality in so many other ways, but their hardware is not perfect, no hardware ever is. Assigning emotion to a simple bad piece of hardware is silly.

I support over 700 Macs in a public K12 environment. 1.5 years ago we purchased 400 MacBook Pros for students in grades 7-12. To date, I've replaced 50 hard drive cables and experienced symptoms mentioned above. I'm also seeing a high rate of drive failure. I'll pull drives and try to repair them with Disk Utility, with no success. Delete partitions, and recreate, and won't image. I believe Apple makes great products, but just missed the boat with this somewhere. Cable manufacturer, drive manufacturer, ? I tried contacting our account executive and got no where on them standing behind this. Of course, we didn't pay the $170 per device for Apple Care. In the grand scheme of things I guess my time and a $40 cable isn't much compared to Apple Care on 400 devices. Considering alternatives when we refresh our next 400 devices in 1.5 years...Good Luck!

So, a few weeks have gone, since I replaced the hard drive cable with a new one I purchase for 30€ on eBay. Everything is working fine now. My assumption about the week cable has been confirmed for me.

To all people who say "Oh Apple makes so good products, you are just hating...": No guys. I have myself products from apple (as you may guessed) and I like them too. What they make with MacBook and iPhone is very good. The build quality is high, they look good, and work seamlessly. What I criticize are in fact those parts, that are just little things, but essential for the product to work - like cables. The processor, display and stuff are all very well, but if one little cable stops working, your computer is functionless. So if you spend just 30 cents instead of 40 cents in one cable, it results in a weaker cable. And what is the good side for the manifacturer (beside the 10 cents he saves with every product)? Yes, many people will think, their product is completely broken. Not everyone is actually skilled enough to find the problem and replace the needed parts on his own. And because of that, the manufacturer sells more products, because people were actually happy with the product, because it is well build, but they think, it is now broken after ～2 years.

I also have had this issue. Bought a new SSD before reading this forum. I can't believe that Apple haven't recognised this by now. Also, at the top of this page it says "Branched to a new discussion", but I get an access denied error if I click the link. Any ideas?