Broken SATA cable?

Hi,

A while ago, my HD stopped working and I had to use an external HD. Couple of days ago I ordered 240GB SSD, and 2x4GB RAM, which all arrived today. I've successfully installed RAM and the drive, but the SSD does not show up in Disk Utility when I boot MBP in online recovery mode.

About two months ago I've spilled some pepsi on my MBP, but everything's working fine. When I was installing my new SSD, I've noticed that there's a bit of dry sticky Pepsi on the HD's SATA cable.

Could this be the case for my problem and should I just get a new replacement cable?

MBP 13" Mid-2012

Thanks