Chosen Solution
Hello, I’m having a go at fixing my sister’s MacBook. Apparently, it got knocked off the couch and shut down, and now when we boot it up we get the Flashing Question Mark of Death. The things I have tried, in order, are: Booting into Recovery Mode. Result: After holding down the key for a while, I was thrown into Internet Recovery mode. When I checked Disk Utility, all it showed was the 1.3G Base System disk, and the SuperDrive. The main hard drive wasn’t showing up at all.Running the ADT. Result: It returned the code VDH002, “There may be a problem with the storage device.”Opening the case and seeing if anything was disconnected. Result: I double-checked that the drive and cables were connected properly. They still were, and nothing else seemed out of place, but the computer still couldn’t see it. Around this time, I noticed that the hard drive would click about once a second after I booted it up.Connecting the drive in an enclosure to a new computer. Result: I connected the drive and it started spinning, but my computer still couldn’t see it. After a moment, the drive started clicking again.Resetting the NVRAM. Result: No changes that I noticed, but it was worth testing.Booting the Mac from an Ubuntu CD. Result: It booted successfully, but when I checked Disks, it still only showed the CD itself. That’s about where I’m at. I think the problem seems to be with the drive itself, rather than the cable or logic board (but I could be wrong.) Is there anything I can try to get it up and running again? Or, if the drive is too damaged to be properly functional again, to at least get some data off it? I have an extra drive I could replace it with, but I’d prefer to be able to fix this one. Thanks!
Sadly, your drive is likely damaged. While it might be possible salvage your data you really don’t want to mess anymore with your drive as you could make things worse! So for now let’s take the drive out and safely store it while we first see if we can get your system working. You said you have a spare drive, lets put that in and see if you can get it formatted and get a fresh copy of macOS installed. You may find the HD SATA cable is really the problem here. These cables tend to fail and a drop would have pushed it to its limits. I would replace the drive cable MacBook Pro 13" Unibody (Mid 2012) Hard Drive Cable following this guide MacBook Pro 13" Unibody Mid 2012 Hard Drive Cable Replacement. But just slapping a new cable in is not the full answer! Your Hard Drive Cable Is A Ticking Time Bomb. So you do want to place a strip of electricians tape on the uppercase to help protect it. Then we have the next item which is also important! The cable needs to be formed to get around corners the way you do this is also very important. You need to use an old BIC ball-point pen ink straw to help you form the bends as a sharp fold will damage it. Using the straw will help you form the nice arc the cable needs to get around the corner. Once you have your system running again we can then try to recover your original drives data using this SATA to USB Adapter Cable so you can connect your drive to your system. Hopefully it will mount and then you can copy off everything you need.
