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Resolving Macbook Pro Bootup Problem With Question Mark Folder Symbol

Chad’s Blog March 2017

The Macbook Pro (MBP) unibody model otherwise known as "non-retina Macbook Pro" is probably the ones that would last longer in possession by those that own it simply because of its user serviceable design.

The Unibody models are identified by its frame: 13-inch MBP = A1278, 15-inch MBP = A1286, 17-inch MBP = A1297.

These type of Macbooks are the ones that comes with built-in DVD Reader/Writer, upgradable RAM, upgradable SATA storage and best of all - replaceable battery.

My 2011 Macbook Pro A1286 has been around for 6 years and still going. It is my main workhorse with many successful projects that has gone through its powerhouse. In other words this is my "Lucky Workstation". I took great care of it and made several upgrades in keeping it at par with the "non-touchbar" retina models in terms of resource capacity. I had just replaced the battery with a better one from NewerTech that gave me an extra 30 minutes more power than the original Apple battery. And later on, I bump-up my old Crucial 960 GB SSD to Samsung EVO 850 2TB SSD which made me glad to have such faster storage in that capacity for my Virtual Machine instances.

Then after a month of use, suddenly my loyal Macbook won't boot anymore. The dreaded Question Mark appears at boot up time. At first I thought my new SSD got toast. But when I boot at USB, there are times that it sees the SSD and I can run a volume check to see if there were corruption on the file system but everything is ok. And the weird thing about this is that sometimes the SSD could not be detected. So, I thought this could be an NVRAM issue and I went on to reset it. And that made it worse as the boot-up gave me a stop sign this time. I went on back to boot on USB but then it could no longer detect the SSD. This then led me to a conclusion that this might be an NVRAM/PRAM battery issue. Usually most motherboards has an on-board removable battery (normally a watch battery) that powers the NVRAM to retain information/settings of the components attached to the motherboard such as the startup disk selection when the computer is powered off. So, I went on to check the motherboard for this kind of battery and to my dismay I couldn't find one! I remember some motherboards of SUN Sparc Workstation had NVRAM battery built into the chip that one has to replace the NVRAM itself. I'm beginning to fear that this was the case of my Apple motherboard and the irony is that I couldn't locate the NVRAM chip since the labeling of the components on the board are proprietary and it does not indicate a part number that adheres to standards. Thus, I arrive into a conclusion that my motherboard is toast and it's time to buy a new MBP matching the resource capacity of what I got; but then that would cost me close to $4000!!!

Persistence got into me to troubleshoot further and to evaluate my conclusions which led me to believe that this could be a SATA cable issue. There's nothing much for me to lose if I spend $18 to order the part versus buying new.

Then viola! When the interface cable arrived and I had it in place, it made my old Macbook Pro back to life again. And boy what a relief to see the Apple logo and the login prompt!

The picture (left) shows the defective SATA cable with part# 821-1198-A.

I ordered at Amazon a replacement equivalent by EathTek (picture below).

The challenge on replacing the cable is on the IR sensor removal and reconnection. You need a special plastic prying tool to open the latch at the end of the connector assembly of the IR cable. Once the IR cable is free of the old SATA cable, reconnecting it back to the new cable is another challenge. I need to use a magnifying glass for me to see this tiny cable get inserted into the receiving assembly and at the same time push the latch back by a prying tool to lock it. It took me several tries in this case.

You can buy a tool kit with the plastic prying tool from OWC.

Helpful Links Related To Maintenance and Troubleshooting

Resetting NVRAM (Non-volatile RAM) Of Mac    

Resetting SMC (System Management Controller) Of Mac   

Mac OS Boot Options  

Mac Bootup Screens and symbols