My twelve year old fixed it!

Mijn probleem

mid 2009 MBP - dead in the water. A couple years ago this particular machine one day just stopped. Heard the bong, got to grey apple logo and that was it. PANIC! As I had a gigantic job deadline I literally ran out the door to the nearest Apple store and bought another one, sent my time machine backup to it and was back in business in a couple hours. Years pass. The kid has been begging me for an entree into the walled garden of Apple and I finally remember the dead machine.

Mijn oplossing

Couple of google-minutes later I surmise "it's the HDD dummy — &/or the Logic board too, but mostly maybe the HDD.

Ordered up a Crucial 256GB SSD known to work in that machine and these tools. When all had arrived, I placed iPad with the iFixit manual, machine and tools in front of him and said if you want it, fixit. And so he did. Every step was logical and clear. My 12 yr old had no difficulty executing them.

Mijn advies

The battery connection was the one place where he got too nervous and required help, as it was an extremely tight fit and required much patience to release. Everything else was very straight forward and he had a working laptop with an SSD (which I'd earlier cloned from another machine running Mt.Lion). All the iFixit tools performed perfectly.