Chosen Solution
Working on a MacBook Pro mid-2013, 13” A1278. Just ordered a logic board replacement and installed. Upgraded RAM to 16 GB. Worked fine momentarily except DC-in board was causing dim light, no battery charge. Fine. Replace DC-in board. Dim light fixed, holding charge. Good. Start up, fan starts accelerating like it’s going to blow. Turn off. Check various logic board connections. Start up. Question mark folder shows. Boot to utility and no HDD visible. Swap out SATA cable from same model MBP (original) I’m migrating some parts from. Same reaction. No HDD. Since there was previously no indication the SATA in the original was dead, I immediately assumed logic board failure. But I understand SATAs on these models are notoriously fail-prone. GET TO THE POINT: Should I use the warranty on the tested logic board or should I buy a new SATA after testing two already with no cigar? Thanks!
More likely the SATA cable is bad that’s the more common failure! Your Hard Drive Cable Is A Ticking Time Bomb. Use some electricians tape on the upper case, one strip is all thats needed. If you installed a SSD that also tells me the cable/s are likely the original version which was only SATA II (3.0 Gb/s) spec’ed. The cable was improved a few times and also reengineered to support SATA III (6.0 Gb/s) drives. Here’s the needed cable: MacBook Pro 13" Unibody (Mid 2012) Hard Drive Cable The last thing is I often see people killing the new cable, folding it with hard creases! This damages the foil wires inside the ribbon cable. I use an old BIC pen ink straw as a forming brake. making sure the cable does not exceed the diameter of the straw where it needs to bend around a corner.
