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I have done a little work on my MBP and it hrlped for awhile but now, 2 years later I am having new issues. The new issues are that apps are crashing and the hard drive is now inconsistently identified, at times the machine does not recognize a hard drive at all. 2 years ago I had some issues that began with the battery failing. I can use the machine plugged in but the battery wont charge. That and other issues led me to replace the harddrive, the darddrive cable, the sleep sensor & cable, the DC-in, the battery, the keyboard, upgrade the ram to 16, and I cleaned the old flux off the heat sink and applied a fresh coat. For awhile I could tell a major difference in how well it functioned but it started slagging again. I tried upgrading the OS but it didnt help. Tried another hard drive, which was also not recognized. What are your thoughts and advice? Please??? Am I better off buying a new logic board or just replacing the few parts that need replacing. I see no water damage, btw, though havent had it checked w/ a UV light. This laptop is on its way to becoming my “experimental” laptop but I would like some help to aim me in the right direction. Ty! Deborah
That hard drive cable gets damaged as it climbs over the last step onto the optical drive. I usually replace this cable using the one from the 2012 machine and put pads on either side of the cable to protect it. Also it gets damaged on this model by the rough surface where the hard drive still. On this I used a wide electrical tape to prevent that from occurring. MacBook Pro 13" Unibody (Mid 2012) Hard Drive Cable MacBook Pro 13" Unibody Mid 2012 Hard Drive Cable Replacement
Sounds like the classic HD SATA cable issue! You’ll need to replace it following this IFIXIT guide: MacBook Pro 13" Unibody Late 2011 Hard Drive Cable Replacement You’ll want the newer version of the cable which you’ll find here: MacBook Pro 13" Unibody (Mid 2012) Hard Drive Cable - Apple P/N 923-0104. In addition you’ll want to place some electrical tape down on the uppercase where the cable rests as the machined aluminum tends to wear the cable. Once you have replaced the cable make a fresh backup of your drive using TimeMachine on an external drive. Then you’ll want to create a USB OS installer drive following this guide: How to create a bootable macOS Sierra installer drive as you’ll need to reformat and install a fresh copy of your OS. When we have a a bad cable it tends to create drive corruption which need to be fixed before using the drive again otherwise the drive tends to fail.
