Hard drive failure, or so I thought

Mijn probleem

I'm a diy kind of guy so when my boyfriend's Macbook Pro started acting up I figured it was something I could fix myself. My own MBP had a hd failure so I thought that was the problem. I purchased an SSD, but the MBP wouldn't recognize it. I installed the SSD into my desktop and was shown to be working fine, so the next logical step was to see if the hd sata cable needed replacing. Did some research and found that it was a common problem for the specific model of the MBP I was working on. Ordered the part I needed and went to work. Definitely beats bringing it to a "genius" at the store (it was out of warranty anyway so a lot cheaper too).

Mijn oplossing

The process was ridiculously easy. It helps if you already have the right tools too. Took me about 10 minutes from start to finish to place the old hard drive in with the new sata cable. Computer started up like normal and was able to do another backup before replacing it with the SSD.

Mijn advies

Like others mentioned in the actual ifixit instructions for replacing anything in a MacBook pro, I found that a #0 Phillips head screwdriver worked better than a #00 for taking out all the screws on the bottom case. Also, there are some ridiculously tiny screws that keep the sata cable in place (where it folds down from the optical drive) - I found that the easiest way to secure them was to put them into the designated holes on the cable first to hold them in place, then carefully lay the cable down and then screw them in.