MacBook Pro doesn't recognize any hard drive

[andromedaan]

My 2010 MacBook Pro 2.4ghz 13" doesn't recognize any hard disk . All of a sudden, everything began to crash (mac froze, didn't respond).. when I tried to reboot it didn't recognize my hard drive. I've already tried resetting PRAM and all the other things you can reset. I thought maybe my hard disk died, so I replaced it for test purposes with 3 (yes, three!) other hard disks, none of them worked out .

Now I've installed OS X on a 16GB USB stick, and I'm able to boot from it and browse the web but it's very slow.

What can I do ? Is is just the hard disk connector that needs to be replaced or did the motherboard die (don't think so, since booting from USB works good)?

 

[dusk007]

Does the super drive work? Maybe the sata controller died some horrible violent death.
If that is the case you could try attaching the hdd to the sata port the super drive uses.

 

[andromedaan]

Yes the super drive works. I've looked at the superdrive bay and it looked kinda hard to remove it and replace it with my HD. Any other thoughts ? Meanwhile I'm looking up a tutorial to check this out.

 

[simsaladimbamba]

Since your MacBook Pro has a Firewire 800 port, you can either get a 2.5" Firewire800 enclosure for your internal HDD or buy a FW800 HDD.
Or you could get a 2.5" USB enclosure, they cost 10+ €.

And while the optical disk drive (ODD) uses S-ATA as interface, you need an adapter for this. They range from 30 to 120 USD.

I guess, you don't have warranty anymore?

And have you looked at iFixIt for guides/help?

 

[andromedaan]

Indeed, my warranty expired like 4 months ago.

If I understand you correctly you're suggesting that I connect it to an external hard drive via Firewire?

 

[simsaladimbamba]

Indeed, my warranty expired like 4 months ago.

If I understand you correctly you're suggesting that I connect it to an external hard drive via Firewire?

A Firewire 800 enclosure would give the fastest speed, but an USB enclosure will do fine and you can boot from there. It will not be pretty, but it will be loads faster than a USB flash memory thumb drive.