Hard drive or SATA connector fault?

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Level 1

4 points

Hard drive or SATA connector fault?

A few days ago I received the dreaded stop sign on boot screen, fearing my hard drive has finally failed I quickly purchased a compatible one. The next day my original hard drive was 'working' again, slowly but steadily it came back to life. As my new hard drive had arrived I decided it was time for an upgrade anyway. I created a bootable usb and with my new hard drive (seagate 1tb sshb) connected internally I was ready to breath new life into my old mac. As I was formatting the seagate to OSX journaled and GUID I kept getting mounting errors and disk errors. After several attempts I decided to give up. I then connected the seagate through a SATA to usb cable (externally) and voila! it was able to format to OS X journaled with a GUID map (does this mean the drive is fine?). So i connected the seagate internally and ran the boot drive again. Everything was successful up until the very last moment 😟, where i received the dreaded

"OSX could not be installed on your computer file system verify or repair failed. quit the installer or restart your computer and try again"

So I tried it again and the results were the same.

Whats going on? Is there a problem with the seagate or is there an internal problem with the connections?

Both are pretty easy to fix as parts are readily available, or could it be something else?

Ask if you need more details, I feel this is a pretty general problem.

Forgot to take photos of any error screens as well

Thanks

MacBook Pro, OS X El Capitan (10.11.3)

Posted on Mar 19, 2016 4:47 AM

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Answer 1

Mar 19, 2016 5:28 AM in response to yangw29

Hi Yangw29:

You said your new drive worked ok connected to your computer via SATA to USB cable.

Try it will your old hard drive.

Remove it from computer and connect it up via SATA to USB cable.

To test whether the problem is your hard drive or SATA cable:

You can remove your hard drive from Mac and install in an external enclosure OWC external case or using a USB to SATA adapter USB to SATA adapter and connect it to your MBP via USB. And then try to boot from it using Startup Manager. This will help to identify if your hard drive or SATA cable are at fault. If it boots the MBP, most likely the problem will be the drive SATA cable needs to be replaced.

Boot from the disk using Startup Manager: How to choose a startup disk on your Mac

What year / model is your computer?

MacBook Pro 13" Mid 2012 Hard Drive Cable Symptoms: Symptoms

MacBook Pro hard drive SATA cable issue. MacBook Pro Hard Drive Cable Failure-Free fix and preventative maintenance

Kim

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Answer 2

yangw29 Author

Level 1

4 points

Mar 19, 2016 5:28 AM in response to KimUserName

Thanks for the reply Kim.

Thats a great idea, I will definitely try that out.

Watching the cable youtube video atm, very knowledgeable thanks.

Ive purchased a replacement SATA cable as well, can test that bit out in the next few days.

Ive got the 13" Mid 2012 model, the guides are perfect.

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Answer 3

Lexiepex

Level 6

14,108 points

Mar 28, 2016 10:22 PM in response to yangw29

When you have more bootable disks (for example one inside and one or more outside) the easiest way to choose the startup disk is by holding the Alt(option) key while starting up. You then get the choice in the boot menu.

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Answer 4

yangw29 Author

Level 1

4 points

Mar 28, 2016 10:25 PM in response to yangw29

SOLVED! Was indeed the SATA cable at fault. Mac feels too good to be true with the brand new hard drive as well!

Thanks for the help. Can't imagine how many people would throw away their macs (or send it to the genius bar hehe) because of this problem.

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