Mid-2012 Macbook Pro slow as molasses

[Digital Sage]

Being primarily a PC shop, this was not among my options. How does one obtain "another harddrive with existing Mac OS" for this purpose? Should I just clone the drive from my "Bench iMac" and keep it available for this purpose? Also, considering that this option would never work on a PC, it never occurred to me that it might be something to try on a Mac. I still have a hard time believing that a drive with an OS installed on different hardware would even run when connected to any random Mac that came along. Is OSX hardware-independent or something?

I've got a external small hard drive EXACTLY for this purpose. Throw it in a mac, see if it boots. It'll work on any intel based bac from 2007 onwards. Mac's sort their own hardware issues out, without any need to install anything. They're a dream to work on, in this aspect.

How to make one? Simple, just throw the external drive inside a mac, and run an installer such as snow leopard, mavericks, or yosemite. Set it up, create the user account. DONE. Now use it as a disagnosis tool for any mac's that come in. If you have an iMac, just use an external caddy with it. Mac's will boot to an external drive, just hold down the option key when you turn it on.

 

[HCHTech]

Thanks, everyone. On Saturday morning, I hooked the original drive up to the Mac externally, using a USB adapter (that was 2.0). It booted to the desktop in 1.5 minutes. It was taking about 9 minutes when mounted internally. I ordered the cable that morning.

Considering I can count on one hand the number of bad hard drive cables in a PC I've found over the course of a career, this wasn't even in my list of possible guesses out of the gate. Now that I know the cables are a known failure point (why that would be is another discussion), I'll be quicker in the future, that's for sure. I now have a Yosemite test disk in my drawer for future use as well - Thanks Digital Sage & KWest.

 

[kwest]

Thanks, everyone. On Saturday morning, I hooked the original drive up to the Mac externally, using a USB adapter (that was 2.0). It booted to the desktop in 1.5 minutes. It was taking about 9 minutes when mounted internally. I ordered the cable that morning.

Considering I can count on one hand the number of bad hard drive cables in a PC I've found over the course of a career, this wasn't even in my list of possible guesses out of the gate. Now that I know the cables are a known failure point (why that would be is another discussion), I'll be quicker in the future, that's for sure. I now have a Yosemite test disk in my drawer for future use as well - Thanks Digital Sage & KWest.

Your welcome. Got a MacBook in the shop this morning with the same issue. Thought of this thread.

 

[cyabro]

Just had another one in our workshop today.
HDD was failing (tested in another machine to confirm) so replaced it and couldn't format the new drive.
Swap in a new HDD cable and all good again.

 

[Digital Sage]

Good to hear you got it sorted.

This really stumped me when I first faced it a few years back.

The cables fail because they rub up against the unibody chassis - which is slightly abrasive against the delicate ribbon cable. Over time they wear down.

I now run electrical tape along the inside of the chassis that creates a buffer between the chassis and the cable. this can fix the problem using an old cable, as it stops it shorting out against the common ground (which is full of noise no doubt). However I recommend ordering a new cable and fitting it.

 

[HCHTech]

Got the cable in yesterday and fitted it this afternoon - the thing runs like a champ. I owe a round of beers, I think. I was positive it was the drive, but just couldn't prove it. I should probably get a couple of those cables for my stock.

So.....the little orange ribbon cable that wraps around the front mount (the one with the IR sensor). How is that thing held in place? There is an impossibly tiny flipper on the opposite side of the little square where it connects, but lifting that or clamping it down doesn't seem to impact the actual connection on that orange ribbon. It seems to just push in to the connection, but that doesn't seem quite right. I watched a few videos on the 'Tube for replacing the HD cable, two of them disconnect and connect that cable off-screen (great, thanks for the help), and the other one edited that part out. The video jumps a bit and they say "and now I have that cable mounted". In two of the cases, the orange cable looked a little manhandled when it was mounted, so I'll bet they had trouble. Why even do an instructional video if you aren't going to show the hard bit?

When I did this one, I used some fine bent tweezers to just push it into the connection, and because the white line across the cable was in the same relative distance from the connection point that the original cable was, I called it good. I don't have a way to test the IR, but it looks just like the original, so I hope I'm ok. No errors from the OS when it booted.

 

[Digital Sage]

Got the cable in yesterday and fitted it this afternoon - the thing runs like a champ. I owe a round of beers, I think. I was positive it was the drive, but just couldn't prove it. I should probably get a couple of those cables for my stock.

So.....the little orange ribbon cable that wraps around the front mount (the one with the IR sensor). How is that thing held in place? There is an impossibly tiny flipper on the opposite side of the little square where it connects, but lifting that or clamping it down doesn't seem to impact the actual connection on that orange ribbon. It seems to just push in to the connection, but that doesn't seem quite right. I watched a few videos on the 'Tube for replacing the HD cable, two of them disconnect and connect that cable off-screen (great, thanks for the help), and the other one edited that part out. The video jumps a bit and they say "and now I have that cable mounted". In two of the cases, the orange cable looked a little manhandled when it was mounted, so I'll bet they had trouble. Why even do an instructional video if you aren't going to show the hard bit?

When I did this one, I used some fine bent tweezers to just push it into the connection, and because the white line across the cable was in the same relative distance from the connection point that the original cable was, I called it good. I don't have a way to test the IR, but it looks just like the original, so I hope I'm ok. No errors from the OS when it booted.

If i understand you correctly, you're talking about the tiny ribbon cable that connects into the replacement cable / IR sensor array? It just 'pushes' in. That's it. I always just a tiny amount of force to get it in. It'll take a few tries, but once you get the knack for it, it's easy.

It connects to the sleep light if i'm not mistaken, so as long as you see that white light start to breath when it goes into sleep mode (by closing the lid) you should be good.

It's funny how often this fault happens. I had a machine yesterday where the hard drive simply wasn't visible to the system. Replaced the cable, good as new!

 

[HCHTech]

If i understand you correctly, you're talking about the tiny ribbon cable that connects into the replacement cable / IR sensor array? It just 'pushes' in. That's it. I always just a tiny amount of force to get it in. It'll take a few tries, but once you get the knack for it, it's easy.

Ok, thanks - that's good to know. It seems so flimsy of a connection - I hope I get another one in like this. so I can get some benefit from this hard-won knowledge!

 

[HFultzjr]

We have also had quite a few MacBook pros with faulty hdd cables.
That can cause the machine to do some strange things like you are describing.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ This!
I don't work on Mac's, but this one bit me recently.

Ooooops.
Didn't read down far enough before I "jumped in".
I was so glad to see something I had come across, on something out of my normal.....LOL
I thought....." I've seen this one", only to find out I was old news.
Apologies.