Problems Transferring SSD and HDD to MBP Mid 2012 from MBP Late 2009

[benjamin937]

I purchased a used Mid 2012 MBP on eBay and it arrived in the mail yesterday afternoon. My previous main computer was a Late 2009 MBP that I had upgraded to have a 128 GB SSD as the primary drive and placed a 500 GB HDD in the optical bay.

I asked a few friends what to do and was given an answer of "Just move the drives over and it should work"... so I moved the drives over and the bluetooth and airport both showed as not working. I was worried that I had damaged the airport/bluetooth connectors or card during the installation of the optical bay drive, so I re-checked the connectors, rebooted and the bluetooth worked but the airport shows as "No Hardware Installed".

After this I ran an Ethernet connected Apple Hardware Test and got an error of
"4SNS/1/40000001:VPOR-0.000". This seems to indicate that a sensor on the logic board is malfunctioning. All research shows that this is likely unrelated... but it's still a cause for concern. That aside, I continued.

I tried a PRAM reset, and the bluetooth began working, the OS recognised the airport but showed it as OFF. It would not turn on.

After that a friend suggested that I run a Combined System Update. I did that and the next time I booted both the bluetooth and the Wi-Fi worked without issue.

I then ran the AHT just to see if somehow this resolved the error, but it didn't... however when I restarted after the test the bluetooth was still working but the airport was not.

Just to check I reconnected the original HDD that came with the 2012 MBP and both suddenly everything works again.

Questions:

1. How do I get everything working using the installed SSD/HDD combo?
2. If that proves to be a pain, or not worth the effort, how do I migrate a SSD/HDD combo?

 

[Weaselboy]

The key piece you are not telling use is what OS X versions these machines are running. If they are both on Mavericks for example you could just swap drive and it should work. But if you have say Snow Leopard on the old machine and put that drive in the 2012 it won't have drivers to support the newer machine.

So what OS X version is on the drive you now have in the 2012?

 

[benjamin937]

Both are Mavericks 10.9.2.

 

[Weaselboy]

Both are Mavericks 10.9.2.

Hmm... a direct disk swap should work just fine in that case.

You might try a reinstall of Mavs over top of the existing install to see if that fixes it, but I suspect based on the AHT result you may have something else going on.

 

[benjamin937]

Ok... so after looking around I figured out a connection was loose and I corrected that and... TA DA... suddenly the wifi and the bluetooth work perfectly.

Here's the question: Do I keep this laptop even with the sensor error?

The seller on eBay has agreed to swap it out for an same make/model/year/spec exchange and comp the shipping/return costs; however, I feel bad because the airport card is fine and I would never have run the AHT (though i SHOULD have just to make sure everything was running properly) had the wifi not worked.

Is this sensor error an indication that there is something wrong with the logic board? If so, should I return it, or is it not something I should be worried about?

 

[Weaselboy]

Is this sensor error an indication that there is something wrong with the logic board? If so, should I return it, or is it not something I should be worried about?

I'm not seeing much when I search for that error code.

If it were me, and the seller is willing to swap it out, I would do that rather than take the chance.

 

[benjamin937]

I took the laptop to the closest apple store and according to their tests they recommended a logic board replacement. However, it turns out that the laptop is still under warranty (a big surprise to me) so they sent it off for repair. I really hope that nothing disqualifies it from free replacement. The genius bar guy opened it up and said he didn't see anything indicating liquid spill and that he believed it to be the original logic board, original HDD, and original memory... so he felt it was a really good chance everything would come back repaired.

My fingers are crossed.

If that doesn't work out I might press the seller for a replacement.