MBP displays a flashing folder when booting up

[FlashingFolderOhGod]

Hi MacRumors,

I've struggled with my MacBook Pro Primo 2011 (Yes, I should upgrade..) for the past month or so. It started out by occasionally displaying the flashing folder when booting up, but I could get past that by rebooting a couple of times. Now I've reached the point where I'm not able to enter my Mac anymore which is quite frustrating.

It should be noted that I upgraded to a Samsung SSD 1,5 years ago after the original HDD failed.

I have replaced the original SATA cable as well, which made the MBP work fine for a week or so, but eventually started showing the flashing folder more and more.

Any suggestions to what I can do?

Thanks in advance and merry christmas!

 

[Audit13]

Where did you get the replacement sata cable? Perhaps it has failed?

Put the SSD into an external USB enclosure and try to boot the MBP from the enclosure. If it works, replace the sata cable.

 

[FlashingFolderOhGod]

Where did you get the replacement sata cable? Perhaps it has failed?

Put the SSD into an external USB enclosure and try to boot the MBP from the enclosure. If it works, replace the sata cable.

I'm pretty sure it was this model: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Drive-Cabl...coding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=YQ9HSPS133CK0WQNFG1R

Something I forgot to mention in the original post is that I see the SSD when rebooting in internet recovery mode. I managed to get a backup of my stuff before I couldn't reenter MacOS, so I've been playing around with formatting and partitioning it. But it seems that the partition I create becomes unusable/changed every time I try to install MacOS from the installation CD.

You might be right about trying it out in an external USB enclosure. I do, however, have another computer I can test the SSD with. Could that do instead?

 

[Audit13]

Testing the drive in another computer would be good so you can confirm that the issue doesn't lie with the SSD.

If you have a spare laptop drive, put that into the MBP and see if you can install an OS.

What OS is currently on the SSD? What OS is being installed from Internet recovery?

 

[DeltaMac]

Is your boot drive selected properly in the Startup Disk pref pane?

Have you booted to either your recovery system, or internet recovery, then run Disk Utility, and then First Aid to test the SSD?

 

[FlashingFolderOhGod]

Testing the drive in another computer would be good so you can confirm that the issue doesn't lie with the SSD.

If you have a spare laptop drive, put that into the MBP and see if you can install an OS.

What OS is currently on the SSD? What OS is being installed from Internet recovery?

I can free up an SSD by reinstalling the OS on my desktop PC. I have tried installing the SSD from the MBP in the desktop and it seemed to work. I was able to reformat it as well as store documents on it, but I'm not sure if there's a better way of testing it?

There is no OS on the SSD from the MBP currently. I tried partitioning it after having it installed in my desktop which wiped the drive. When I rebooted from the installation CD (which has OS X Lion), the drive didn't show up when being asked to select installation drive.

EDIT: Installing directly from Internet Recovery is bugged for some reason. I'm offered Snow Leopard, but comes up with an error after agreeing to Terms of Use.
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Is your boot drive selected properly in the Startup Disk pref pane?

Have you booted to either your recovery system, or internet recovery, then run Disk Utility, and then First Aid to test the SSD?

Right now it doesn't even show up in the Startup Disk pref panel. Previously it has been more random - sometimes it showed up, somtimes didn't.

I've tried First Aid from Internet Recovery and there shouldn't be any problems with the disk according to that.

 

[FlashingFolderOhGod]

UPDATE: Tried re-partitioning the SSD once again. That made it show up when booting from the installation CD, but 3/4 of the way in it said that it was done and asked me to reboot. When I did so, it booted from the installation CD once again and this time the drive didn't show up. It also didn't show the partition I made an hour ago.

Trying with a different SSD in the MBP now...

 

[FlashingFolderOhGod]

UPDATE #2: Formatted and partitioned the alternate SSD (the one that wasn't in my MBP) and the same thing happened. The disk shows up in Disk Utility and I can format it to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) without any problems. The disk also shows up when I boot with the Mac OS installation CD. The installation completes and I launch right back into the installation guide.

When then opening Disk Utility, it shows the SSD in the top, but its partition is greyed out and is renamed from the name I gave it to "disk0s1". This disk is passive and cannot be activated.

I'm guessing that nothing is wrong with the SSD's, since I've tried both on my other computer without problems. The SATA cable might be broken but the weird part is that I can always see that the SSD is connected, it's just that the partition always does what i described above.

Any suggestions?

 

[mj_]

Replace the SATA cable again. To me, this sounds exactly like the SATA cable issue this generation is suffering from.

 

[FlashingFolderOhGod]

Replace the SATA cable again. To me, this sounds exactly like the SATA cable issue this generation is suffering from.

Yeah I guess I've managed to narrowed down the problem to that. Just seems weird now that I just had a new one, especially since it seemed to work alright for a week or so when I replaced it.

I'll order another one and report back on the result. Thanks!

 

[Fishrrman]

A suggestion, if you haven't already tried it.

Get something like this:
https://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-2-5-...478&sr=1-2-spell&keywords=sabremt+usb3+to+ssd
I have one of these, very handy to have around.

Now you can connect an SSD externally via USB, and boot that way.

IF it's the internal ribbon cable, but nothing else is wrong, the Macbook should boot right up via a (bootable) SSD connected via USB.

It will make things MUCH easier if you have a reliable boot source (other than internet recovery) to "work from".