Ronsit HDD Hard Drvie Cable 821-1480-A Fit MacBook Pro Unibody 13 | HDD Hard Drvie Cable Compatible with MacBook Pro Unibody 13" A1278 2012 MD101

I have a mid-2012 13" MacBook Pro, and this is the second time I've had to replace my SATA hard drive cable. While this particular model of MBP is very reliable overall, it suffers from a well-known defect in that the bottom case pushes against the cable and eventually causes it to fail. As others have recommended, replace this cable if you're going to upgrade or replace your internal drive. Also, if you think your HD or SSD may be failing, replace this cable first. The first time I had to replace the cable was when I upgraded from a 500 MB HD to a 1 TB HD, and the second time was when I upgraded to a 2 TB SSD. In both cases, I could not format or erase the new drive until I replaced the cable. Here's what to watch for: (1) You cannot erase or re-format your new HD or SSD when it is installed inside your MBP, but you can erase / reformat the drive when it is placed in an external USB enclosure. (2) A fresh install of MacOS fails with the new HD / SSD when the drive is installed internally, but not when the drive is installed in a USB enclosure. (3) You observe long boot-up times, intermittent spinning beach balls when doing simple things such as opening Safari, Microsoft Office, etc., or occasional crashes for no good reason. (4) Sleep becomes unreliable. The laptop doesn't go to sleep when you close the lid, or doesn't wake up when the lid is opened (because the sleep sensor is connected by the SATA cable). One last item to mention: the new App Translocation security feature on MacOS Sierra caused both Carbon Copy Cloner and Time Machine restore to fail when I tried to upgrade to my new Samsung 850 EVO 2 TB SSD. Sierra behaved as if the software had been transferred to a "new" computer, and prevented numerous background programs from running or starting up correctly. My ultimate solution was the following: (1) Create a bootable USB installer for MacOS Sierra using the free Disk Creator utility from MacDaddy with an 8 GB USB flash drive. (2) Remove your old HD or SSD from your laptop and place it in an external USB enclosure (very cheap, many enclosures available from Amazon), after performing a Time Machine backup. (3) Install the new SATA cable and new HD / SSD in your MBP, insert the USB installer flash drive, and install a fresh copy of MacOS. (4) When the installer asks if you want to transfer data from another source, attach the USB enclosure containing your old HD / SSD. Once it mounts, you can tell the installer to select the old drive and transfer your applications and user data.

The Ronsit HDD Hard Drive Cable is an excellent replacement for my MacBook Pro A1278 2012. It fit perfectly, and the installation was straightforward. The cable works flawlessly, connecting my hard drive without any issues. It’s a great, affordable solution for anyone needing to replace their hard drive cable. Highly recommend it if you're looking for a reliable replacement part for your MacBook Pro!

Our 2012 macbook pro was working perfectly fine and the other day I turned it on and instead of getting the apple logo on the screen I received a flashing file folder with a question mark. It said it could not find the driver. My husband is pretty techy and used an external harddrive to install the software and the computer still was not recognizing the driver. We called a local computer repair shop and they told us we should probably just bite the bullet and buy a new computer. We ordered a new computer but before opening it i told my husband I would like to try one more thing - ordering this $9 little cord that connects to the hard drive. I told him I read on a forum these things often go bad. It arrived today and I opened up the bottom of the computer and found a video on youtube explaining how to remove the old and install the new cord. After installing the new one I turned on my computer and held my breath -- it fired right up with the Apple logo and now I am sitting on my perfectly fine working computer all because I replaced this little cord. If you are having a similar issue please save yourself the hassle of diagnostics costs, a new computer, replacing a harddrive that is perfectly fine, etc, and just order this little cord and give it a try. It just saved us $800 for that new computer that we now don't need! Thank you!!!!

One night I packed up my MacBook Pro - a Mid-2012 13-inch A1278 model - and came home from work. I took it out of my backpack and intended to burn a CD from iTunes when I found my computer stuck at a complete stop, hampered by the cursed spinning beach ball of death. I did a hard shut down and reboot to try to rectify the situation and I came upon something I'd never seen before - a folder blinking with a question mark instead of the usual startup tone and Apple symbol. Suddenly, my Mac no longer saw there was a hard drive in my computer. Fearing the worst had happened and my hard drive crashed, I took it out and put it into a USB SATA enclosure and not only could I see it on another computer, but I could boot to the drive from USB on the very Mac that could just not see this drive existed. When I perused the web for solutions, I came upon the fact that many of this era's MacBook Pros (and maybe other models) had experienced failing SATA cables, and replacing it would bring my Mac back to life. So I researched which one I needed and read up on the reviews and I arrived at this model. I ordered it on a Friday and it arrived on Sunday - for which I say "God bless Amazon and the beleaguered United States Postal Service" for not making me suffer through an entire Mac-less weekend. This part is likely not Apple OEM, but it's damn near perfectly identical. When you take the old cable out - which takes some doing because of how many twists and turns it take inside the guts of the MacBook - you realize why these cables probably fail so often. They bend at 90 degree angles and route themselves over a vibrating optical drive and under a hot and vibrating hard drive. That said, this cable arrives totally flat, leaving you to do some of the folding upon install. The cable is, like I said, pretty much identical. It features a SATA logic board connection on one end and a SATA data/power connection for the drive on the other end. It also features a little off-shoot cable for the IR blaster that adheres (with a provided sticky pad) to the front of the Mac next to the status light). I didn't shoot a video of the install process, but there are plenty of them online that walk you through the process - which is a lot easier than you think it may be. In fact, the only snag I ran into with this install is partially stripping one of the tiny screws that held the old cable in place on removal of the old cable. I managed to wrestle the old cable out and get the stripped screw out with a needle nose pliers but it didn't survive. Installing the new cable was a breeze. Once the new cable was in, my trusty MacBook Pro sprang back to life like nothing ever happened. I don't have an IR remote to test out the IR blaster on this cable to make sure that functionality works, but I assume it does. Overall I'm extremely pleased with this purpose. I can pretty much guarantee this cable will save you tons of money versus taking it to Apple or a repair shop to fix, and if you can man a tiny screwdriver, you can replace this cable.

THIS CABLE SAVED MY LIFE. Here's the whole story in case you're in a similar situation: I have a 13-inch Macbook Pro (early 2011), and I replaced the stock hard drive with a SSD about 4 months ago. Last week the computer suddenly shut off and would not reboot, but just showed a terrifying blinking folder with a question mark on it when I tried to restart it. I initially thought that my hard drive had failed and that I had lost everything, however I soon realized that it was a connection problem when the disk utility not only didn't recognize the SSD drive in the internet recovery mode, but it also wouldn't recognize the stock hard drive I reinstalled after being told by an Apple technician that I was basically screwed and had no chance of recovering my data. I then tried plugging my SSD into an external hard drive cable the connects via USB, and THANK GOD, everything was still there and the computer ran just fine as long as the USB connection stayed in. Apparently, Macbook Pro's manufactured around the time that mine was have had a lot of problems with the hard drive cable lasting longer than a few years at most, so many other people experienced this same situation and suggested either installing a data-doubler and connecting your hard drive that way, but at the expense of your optical drive, or to replace this hard drive cable itself, which was also the cheaper solution... so I went with the latter (step-by-step guides for the installation of both can be found on ifixit.com)!! I did some research and this specific cable had the best reviews. It was VERY easy to install, only taking about 20 minutes, and so far it has worked perfectly and my computer has run brilliantly since I installed it. The only reason I don't give this 5 stars is because the package of the cable during shipment was terrible. It was loose inside only a thin plastic ziplock bag, which offered it minimal protection. As a result, the cable was distorted and significantly bent in the packaging (see picture of cable in the status it arrived in below) , Fortunately, it seems to be working fine so far, regardless, though I was concerned it would be damaged. Other reviews commented on the poor packaging of the cable and some noted resulting damage to the cable that rendered it useless. The cable should be better protected during shipment, with it at least being delivered within a hard envelope if not in its own box. I had ordered another, larger item at the same time, so they were both inside the same box, but I'm not sure if the cable would have even been in a box or just a small, flimsy envelope or something otherwise... Regardless of the packaging, I cannot complain about this product, because like I said before, it was easy to install and works like a charm, literally saving me from the nightmare of thinking my hard drive had crashed or the $900+ repair that the Apple dude told me I would have to get (seriously...). Definitely recommend.

TL;DR: So it works and solved my issue of the HD not being detected. Needs better packaging and instructions. So, my mid-2012 MBP decided one day to stop detecting the HD. Tried it in another machine and it's detected. Tried another drive in the MBP, no dice. Either bad sata ribbon or bad logic board. Took a risk on $10. It came packaged in a padded envelope (the manilla with bubble wrap kind), not an anti-static bag or anything stiff to keep it from accidental bending. Didn't affect mine but still. Also, no instructions included, but there are a ton of instructions and videos online. Basically, you have to fold it in certain places so that it properly wraps around the edges inside. The other tricky part is the removal of the old one where it connects to the IR sensor and the notification LED. Seriously, watch a video or two beforehand. But the product itself is awesome and saved me from spending $300+ on a new board or $800+ on a new laptop.

This repair worked like a charm. As soon as I found out it was my hard drive cable, I went on Amazon to find the cable for $30-- figured it would get here quicker shipping from CA (I live in MI). Arrived in 3 days after clicking the buy button. I just replaced the hard drive myself about a month ago, and now it's the hard drive cable itself that went bad. I unfortunately did not buy AppleCare when I bought my this from Best Buy as an open box (bad idea, won't do it again, just better to spend the extra couple hundred bucks because now I'm scared of what will happen next) in February of 2013. Of course, crap starts going wrong with the laptop 2 months after it's out of the year warranty guaranteed from Apple. Anyway, if you're in my boat and want to avoid costly repairs with either Apple or 3rd party, just go on ifixit.com or Youtube it (of course after you go to them to figure out what the issue exactly is). This model is very simple to repair on your own and you don't have to be a tech geek to just do it yourself. Took me about an hour to fix the issue. Good luck!

Purchased because my mid 2012 macbook pro suddenly wouldn't boot up one day (I kept getting the grey screen with something like a gear symbol rather than bringing up the user profiles). After some online reading, I read that the original hard drive cables used during that time were faulty and frequently needed replaced. After ordering a replacement here and swapping it out, the macbook pro fired right up and has worked ever since (6 months and counting)!! Plus it only costed a fraction of what the mac store would've charged and the repair was super simple and took only five minutes (excluding time spent researching)!! Overall, I am completely satisfied with this purchase and would recommend it to anyone! The only reason I didn't give it the full five stars is because when the part arrived, it was pretty beaten-up and bent. It looked like it was torn from an older computer without care, or found in the garbage or something. I was hesitant to even attempt installing it and almost tried to return it. However, the need for having a working computer prevailed and I went for it. Aside from that, it was the correct part, it arrived on time, and it worked just fine and is still working today (6 months later)! Thanks!

El producto llegó roto, y llevo un mes sin que llegue la "guía" prepagada para devolver el producto y puedan, hasta entonces, valorar si me reenviar uno nuevo... muy mal servicio del proveedor...

Its a superb product. My macbook came back to life the moment i changed the old cable with this cable. Although a bit longer, it works well. I dont know for how long will it work, but is sure works great now.

Very well packaged. Arrived in perfect condition and worked right away.

Quick delivery. Product very easy to install. Worked flawlessly. Excellent!

I thought I was in for a new mac book when it wouldn’t turn on, after some research the HDD cable failing is a common issue, this replacement cable matches the Original on perfectly, some screws and 2 clips later my mac is back.