Macbook pro retina ssd external usb reader

[Brucelevoski]

Hi guys,
I closed my laptop and assumed it went into sleep mode. Hours later I came back to find the fans spinning ridiculously fast. I opened the laptop turned it off and tried to turn it back on. Only to have the question mark folder appear. I researched and discovered that it is potentially a logic board or cable issue or a failed ssd drive.
I'm in a remote country so I don't really have the luxury of taking it into an apple store to be repaired so I need to do some testing and first I want to test the hard drive externally.
I can buy a USB ssd hard drive case online but I have bought two already that are not compatible with my hard drive.
I have a 2012/2013 MacBook pro retina (a1398) with a 256gb ssd hard drive. I need to find the exact USB external case that fits my drive to test the hard drive externally and hopefully retrieve some data.
Does anybody know the best fit external case for my ssd drive?

Any help is appreciated.

BRUCE

 

[Cory Cooper]

Hello and welcome.

If you enter your serial number here: Check Your Service and Support Coverage and get the exact model name of your MBP. We can then help you find a suitable enclosure. From your description, it sounds like your MBP has Apple Flash Storage, which is a card rather than an SSD drive. OWC/MacSales will probably have something that will fit.

C

 

[Brucelevoski]

Thanks I did some research and found one that suits my 15 inch early 2013 model retina. Yes it is flash storage 256gb.

Can I get some advice on if the storage is OK then what could the issue be?

Simply an i/o flex cable or maybe the logic board is damaged?

What are the possible issues when if the storage is fine?

 

[Cory Cooper]

Your particular model doesn't have a drive flex cable...it plugs directly into the logic board via a slot. The pacs that OWC sells have an external case that your current flash drive will fit into for testing. If you replace the internal flash drive with a replacement and you are still having the issues, then it may be logic board-related, or something else.

If you have any other external hard drives, you could install OS X on it, use it as a startup drive, and see if the issues persist. If the issues do, then it may be the flash drive or logic board connector. If not, then it is probably the logic board.

You could also startup from the Recovery Partition and run some tests on the current flash drive using Disk Utility. You may be able to simply reinstall OS X over the top of the current installation, which could actually fix the issue - as it could simply be a corrupted OS X install.

You should be able to run the Apple Hardware Test or Apple Diagnostics. Those will let you know if there are any hardware-related issues with the RAM, logic board, etc. They don't perform a full flash drive test however.

Let us know what the test report or if you have additional questions.

C

 

[Brucelevoski]

Thanks I have tried starting up and running tests. In disk utility it shows the hard drive but says it is offline and has 0 bytes. If I try to install an a new install there is no hard drive to choose from.
I might try to find a new external drive to install to and see if I can get that to work and see what happens.
I will try the hardware tests now and see what it comes up with.

Thank you.

 

[Brucelevoski]

I did both the short and long hardware tests with no trouble found?

So does that deduce any further what the issue might be?

 

[Cory Cooper]

If the hardware test passed, then everything else should be OK. If disk utility cannot repair or format the drive, then the issue is either a failed flash drive or the slot connector for the drive on the logic board. I am leaning towards the flash drive. If you can successfully format the drive however, it will erase all of your data, so proceed at your own risk.

Too bad you are not closer to an Apple Store, as they could run more advanced hardware testing on the logic board and flash drive. I'd hate for you to spend the money on a new flash drive, only to find out the issue is something more serious. So, if you have an external drive, you could try to install OS X on it and see if the Mac operates normally then. If it starts up normally from an external, then you may be able to get the flash drive to mount to recover some/all of the data, but probably not if it indeed failed.

Good luck,

C