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

Worked perfectly in my mid 2012 MacBook Pro. Direct replacement for the old non functional cable.

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.

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.

If you have a flashing folder with a question mark when you boot a 2012ish macbook pro then this is the cable you need. Only takes about 30 minutes to fix. I would recommend upgrading your hard drive to an SSD and upgrading RAM while you're at it, its very easy and will make your computer run faster than it did new.I don't know if I just have terrible luck or if I got a bad apple or what but I've had this cable failure has happen to me the week before finals every year since I started college and I am now a senior. The time that I need it the most and then all I get is a blinking folder ? The first two years the macbook pro was under warranty and I got it fixed at the apple store (after about 5-7 business days AKA after my finals). After the warranty ran out and it happened again during my junior year right before finals and I looked on youtube and found this cable and it worked perfectly. Now it happened a few weeks ago the week before finals and I instantly ordered this cable and got it fixed quick.

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

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.

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...

Just take sometimes to install as I am not professional ptherwise the cable is perfect my mac now going good after few days headache because of question mark issue.

This was exactly what I needed to fix my old hard drive cable after my laptop crashed and was unable to start up and locate the hard drive. It was easy to install and instantly had my macbook up and running again.