Defective SATA data cable in Macbook Pro

This is an interesting case you hold and I would like to see how many other people have this issue.

I have run a Samsung SSD for over a year in my mac and never had an issue. The thing throwing me off is that the cable died so soon... This sounds like (I could be wrong) there is to much power running through the cable which is damaging these cables. Could be the SSD drive which is making them faulty, they might be trying to push the cables to hard, use to much power or push to much network down the cable for it to handle. I think it might be an idea to try an older HDD to see if what they say is correct and if it still works with older drives. They have been around to long to be only be able to last a year before breaking which is why it seams odd. There has to be an underlying issue with your system in my eyes.

I do apologies, I did not see you had put your original HDD back into your system which is the older HDD I was talking about..

The power is just a theory but still is worth asking your technician about the controller as you have mentioned.

Hi Brian,

I will love to know more about these, something similar hapens to me recently and I'm still looking for a solution. I have a mid2012 macbookpro, the original HD start to work bad and very slow. I decide to change it and bouthg an ssd PNY 480GB. I installed in the SATA port and works perfect, I was so happy with my computer so fast doing all my work faster etc.. After 4 days working perfect I fligth to another city, I just close my Mac as always. When I opened it at the airport, a gray screen and nothing I can do so I did a hard shut down. When I turned it on, my new (4 days old) ssd disappear, The system doesn't find it. I got an externall enclosure put my ssd and connect it through USB port, works perfect, so the ssd is working fine. I've been reading a lot of the issue and a lot of solutions (from charging the ssd, update the firmware, change the SATA cable). From my point of view the solution is case dependent and I still don't have a solution for my case.

The ssd works one time in between all my tries but I turned the macbook off and ssd disappear again. Please I do need help.

Best

Hi all,

Just adding my misery to the fray here.

- for the past 4 weeks, I seemed to have issues with constant rainbow wheel .... (death wheel!!).

- the hard disk wouldn't repair through Disk utility

- got a new SSD, which wouldn't format/erase either

- got two new SSDs and external enclosure. Formatted two drives and restored from time capsule while on USB.

- these SSDs as internal drive would not boot up. They both got stuck at Apple logo and progress bar to 100%

- the macbook would however boot up with these SSDs from USB

- now thinking that the problem is with the SATA cable. So I have ordered one and waiting.

- put back the original non-SSD hard disk and the computer boots up albeit extremely slow as before.

My conclusion: very interesting point about SATA cable being unable to handle the fast data transfer. At least, this has not been a problem with my wife's SSD for about 1.5 years.

On these occasions I am always nostalgic about the days when I bought my Powerbook when DELL and Microsoft were changing the world ;-)

Cheers.

I Have the same MBP with a Samsung Evo 850-series 500gb. SSD and have had no problems.

Upgrade went fine.

Did you do an SMC, NVRAM, PVRAM reset ?

@alex7375: Actually not. I'll try that now.

@Brian: That is a good news, but would they still honor the warranty if I have opened the hood?

Just an update for Alex: I performed the SMC, NVRAM, PVRAM reset.

Unfortunately it didn't make any difference. The restored SSD is inside. The sequence is: Apple logo, progress bar to full, and then power down.

Just an update ....

It was the SATA cable. I replaced it with a new one, and everything is working wonders, also the HDD that was not any slower than usual 🙂

Now fingers crossed that the cable works for LONG.