MacBook Pro won’t boot from internal HD

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Level 1

15 points

MacBook Pro won’t boot from internal HD

Hi,

1) I experienced a problem where my MacBook Pro became unresponsive. When I tried to reboot, it wouldn’t finish the sequence. I thought it was a hard drive failure.

2) Before swapping hard drives (I have clones), I successfully booted from an external hard drive (launching the Mac with the “option” key in order to select the external hard drive).

3) The Mac was able to boot without a problem from the external hard drive. But when I swap the drive (putting it in the machine) the Mac cannot boot from it, do not recognize it at all. Even If I try to boot with the option key, the internal won’t show at all.

4) If I connect an external hard drive, the Mac can boot on it without a problem. But Disk Utility cannot see the internal hard drive at all.

5) I don’t know if it’s related, but my bootable drive has two partitions: one is the OS (from which it boots), the other is just a partition with videos on it. Now, the MacBook even if it can boot on the external drive, cannot seems to mount the partition.

That’s about all I know. I’m starting to think there’s a problem with the internal SATA cable? Help will be greatly appreciated!

Thank you,

P.

MacBook Pro, OS X El Capitan (10.11.1)

Posted on Nov 16, 2015 9:04 AM

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Answer 1

Parneix Author

Level 1

15 points

Nov 24, 2015 2:13 PM in response to Parneix

[UPDATE] Jump to the very last point to see the questions that remains (C).

I can update on this problem with the following information.

1) I ordered and receive a replacement cable for the internal hard drive (SATA cable, original piece).

2) I also ordered and received a kit to swap my DVD reader with another internal HD, just in case (cheap, available online).

3) I replaced the SATA cable and installed the SSD in the original location for the laptop’s HD. I also installed another standard HD in the location where the DVD player used to be, using the adapter kit.

4) Upon booting, I pressed “alt” key to see which HD were recognized. At first, the SSD was displayed as well as the standard HD, but after a moment, before I had a chance to decide from which want I wanted to boot, the SSD disappeared (with the little cloud animation, like it unmounted by itself). Impossible to complete a booting sequence from the SSD using the original HD location and the replacement cable. However, the standard HD in the DVD location is recognized and I can boot from it without a problem.

5) For the sake of troubleshooting, I swapped both disk: I put the SSD drive in the position where the old DVD player was (using the same adapter kit), and I installed the standard HD in the position of the original HD location in the Mac, still using the same replacement SATA cable. I tried to boot. Impossible to boot from the disk in the original location, but I can boot without a problem from the SSD installed in the adapter kit (replacing the old DVD player).

6) Also worth noting: never had any problem booting from the SSD in external mode, using a SATA adapter and a USB connexion. My laptop ran all week in this configuration, with its brain hanging out.

For the moment, three conclusions:

A) The SSD and standard HD I’m using are not at fault. I ran diagnostic test on them as well. Both are working fine.

B) I doubt that the problem come from the internal HD connexion cable (the cable with the SATA connexion).

C) If it’s neither the cable, nor the HD, it means that the problem is deeper in the motherboard? Is the original location for the laptop HD definitely unusable, or is there something else I can do?

Will report if I find more relevant answers.

Thanks again.

P.

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