macbook pro mid 2010 hard drive cable failure

Mein Problem

I opened my macbook pro from sleep one day, and it gave me the spinning colored wheel...and completely locked up. A reboot have me a blinking question mark, indicating the operating system could not be found. After doing the normal stuff, like resetting the Pram, it was..Off to Bestbuy for a new 2.5" hard drive! No dice though! The problem persisted, though every once in a while it would boot up correctly. I bought a cheepo used hard drive cable on Ebay, but it wouldn't work at all (vs mine which worked periodically). The first was actually was cracked and broken at where it connected into the harddrive, and the cable for the IR sensor was twisted and stuck together! A replacement looked fine but gave me the same problem...so I gave up on the vendor. I then went to ifixit.com since they said their used parts were tested. It was a little more $, but worth it!

Meine Reparatur

Great. Problem fixed on first try. Followed the Ifixit guide to installing your macbook pro 13" mid 2010 hard drive cable, and had no problems. I was worried the problem would be the SATA connection on the Macbook Pro's motherboard, but that wasn't the case. Whew!

Mein Rat

Some of the screws on the hard drive cable are pretty small and some are black, so you may want to work on a light colored desk or table...as they can disappear quickly! Also, while I found out backups are great, it's even better to make a bootable USB (or in my case a bootable firewire hard drive) just in case your original hard drive (or cable!) goes out! You can then boot up, and use your Macbook Pro while waiting on parts for fixing your mac.