Folder with Question Mark !

Mijn probleem

This is my brother's laptop, which contained all of his data .... First thing first, the laptop HDD was encrypted so over time his data got corrupted and ended up with the legendary Folder with Question mark while trying to boot - I was not able to recover his data unfortunately :( and the Apple store here was charging something like $1,000 just to fix it (Equaling another laptop !). So here I decided to help my brother out by doing some diagnostics and figuring out that the HDD Cable was bad. How ? See below

Mijn oplossing

I took another HDD in a USB 3.0 External Case and Installed MAC OSX onto it and made sure that worked and booted the laptop just fine, I then put the Known Working HDD into the Mac and found that it still gave the Folder with Question Mark and sometimes it would boot. Yup Faulty Cable ! Immediately looked around for a replacement and realised that iFixit.com carried components ! As i'm already an iFixit fan I ordered the cable right away! The fix took around 15 minutes ? It was relatively easy, as with all of these ribbon cables you have to take your time ! I'm glad to say that this was repaired using the iFixit HDD Cable sent in the mail and will be looking for more components on here again if ever I have a problem. Ofcourse I used the iFixit tool kit for this job which is why i was so easy !

Mijn advies

Test, test, test ! Although I got a video on how to replace the cable, it wasn't an ifixit video and I almost damaged the bracket cable with the IR Blaster - ALMOST! But it was smoothly as I took my time.

Advice with small components is to take your time, if things aren't giving then look around to where it might be snagging on something, oh and order the iFixit Tool kits, hands down the best kit you will ever use !!