Q: Hard drive not recognized - cable?

I guess I'm late to the party on this problem, but it's good to see that others are having this problem. I support a school environment, and have, in the past 2 months, seen a total of 5 internal HDD cables "go bad" in 13" MacBook Pros. This is a cable, that just sits there, and it's going bad, routinely. I expect the problem is related to poor materials used during construction. Hopefully Apple will begin replacing these free of charge as I'm tired of tracking down cables. What a pain.

I join the club too!

Mine is Mid-2010 13" MBP.  When I first seeing the colorful beach ball spining for ages, force to restart, most of the time still works.  But been a perfect machine until this problem happens.

Going through all the hassle before visiting this discussion group, I decided to get the latest MBP15" retina. Hoping with the SSD on board will not see the cable issue again.

I did suspect the failure caused by the cable but didn't go thru all the research to get the cable as seems to me more the material selection issue.  Not sure which one is good to used and safe to used.  Might as well save that cost and now use the MBP13" 2010 as desktop machine where boot from external drive (much slower thou as its USB2.0).  Not using the Firewire 800 as I found couple of bad Firewire cables from those known brands products!  Suspecting speeds play a major part of the life time of the products.  (To be fair, those bad firewire cables been used over 3 years!  Way pass the warranty.

It looks like there could be a problem with the hard drive cable on MacBook Pro 13" 2012 models too.

http://www.dannydullin.com/macbook-pro-mid-2012-hard-drive-cable-issue/

I just ordered a new one from Amazon (part 821-1480-A) for $20. I hope it's not the logic board failure and a new cable will fix it.

One day, my computer froze and therefore I manually shut down my computer. After rebooting I also received the infamous "folder with a question mark".  After researching and reading this thread, I figured for it to be the hard drive cable, but I decided to test a couple things before coming to that conclusion.  I wanted to test to see if it was my HDD or the cable, so I took my HDD and put it into another mac book pro and it booted up perfectly.  So then I took the HDD from the other Mac book pro and placed it inside my Mac Book pro and it worked perfectly as well.  I was puzzled and didn't know what to do then.  So I decided to go the experts at the Apple Store, in which they told me that it was weird how my computer was doing that but they believed it was still the cable.  We came to the conclusion that although it was reading another HDD fine that it must be the cable since my HDD was working fine on the other Mac Book Pro.  I left my computer to be repaired for the hard drive cable at the Apple store, which was $60 USD, and picked it up 2 days later.  Now it works perfectly, in which I am using to type my response on here now.  Hope this helps someone out who ran into this similar issue.  And by the way, if you have the same issue with the cable, I recommend getting it fixed by the Apple store since they use genuine apple parts and there's about a $30 difference in buying it online on ebay or amazon.

Mac Book Pro 13" (mid 2012)

Well, seems like this is big issue on MacBook Pro's. Mine was bought around March 2013 and since then I needed to replace this cable twice; luckily it was within the one year warranty so I didn't have to spend any money on it. But now, once again this god **** cable gives me headache and the warranty will not cover the cost, of course.

Just wonder how many times will need to replace this part and what Apple is doing to solve this issue!!

Really disappointing!

MacBook Pro 13" 2.5 Ghz mid 2012

third time here.

is there anything to do?

mail to apple customer service?

i can't find their email.

third time for hard drive cable failure is too much

Second replacement in 2.5 years, both out of warranty.

Paid $57 for the first one. Apple wanted the same for the second one, but after demanding to see a manager, replaced it for free.

I'm sure they are aware of the problem, but do not want to acknowledge it. Does anyone know a high-level QC contact at Apple?

I am the technician at a school and have seen this issue on more than one MBPro.  I am more interested in the underlying cause of it.  I have swapped cables out, but I would rather fix the problem once and be done with it.  I suspect it is either the logic board, or the design of the laptop (or the design of the cable, itself.)  We know that the cable fails sometimes, and at differing lengths of time from never to only weeks.  We know it does not matter if the hard drive is an SSD or not.  We also know that replacing the cable fixes the issue (at least temporarily) but for many it does not fix the root cause.  For that reason, I suspect it is more than just a bad batch of cables.  I am making an assumption that it is possibly NOT the logic board, since it is affecting multiple versions of MBPro, so it is not like a bad batch of logic boards are frying the cables.  I would be interested in finding out it anyone has attempted to replace the logic board (either themselves or through a service provider) and if that permanently fixed the issue or not.  If not, I wonder if it could be caused by the heat of the laptop affecting such a thin cable, or perhaps the bends in the cable put too much stress on it in some cases.

cpstech wrote:

 

I am the technician at a school and have seen this issue on more than one MBPro.  I am more interested in the underlying cause of it.

It looks like the hard drive cable gets damaged by the bottom cover.

The hard drive cable runs above the optical drive. When you carry the laptop, the bottom cover flexes and applies pressure on the cable (at the point where it touches the optical drive). Eventually, the cable gets damaged.

You can prevent that by installing a rubber spacer on the hard drive bracket as shown on the last picture here.

This spacer will prevent the bottom cover from touching the cable.

cpstech wrote:

 

I would be interested in finding out it anyone has attempted to replace the logic board (either themselves or through a service provider) and if that permanently fixed the issue or not.

I don't think replacing the logic boar will fix this issue.

That was one of my theories as well.  I noticed a slight wearing on the top of the cable at that point and thought that squeezing the laptop or resting your hands while you type might have caused some wear on the cable.  I did not look at my old cables, but I have 1 more to replace so I will try this.  Thanks.

I'm really get mad to this! It seems that it's a default fault for 2009/2010/2011 series and unfortunatelly mine is early 2011.

So, why I'm going to mad? Because I just replace this flex cable just 5 months ago and it did it again! Thank you Apple!!

Here is the questionary: What is the type of the 13.3¨ and Early 2011 MBP? Is it A1278 or A1226

Btw my first one was this and it doesn't fit well. That's why this time I just buy a fitable one.

The cable on your picture has part number 821-0814-A  and it's designed for MacBook Pro13" 2009/2010.

For a MacBook Pro 13" Early 2011/Late 2011 you need this cable: Apple Part #: 922-9771 or 821-1226-A.

MBP 13" Early 2011 is A1278 (EMC 2419).

So, what if I buy a newer/newest one? Or is this one can fit to mine 2011 or not? Especially xxx-2048 is newer than all I think

Hi would like to ask how much did u change the cable for?

Btw, I installed the 2009-2010's cable to my early 2011. And it works well. It just only a little bit long. But I did not screw down the 2 screews that at the middle of the cable that after these screws cable goes under the harddrive. Because the can be a metal fatige with every up-down position. So I suggest to not screw the screws.

On the other hand you can buy it from ebay for about 16-25$. Don't worry. It works.