I recently had a computer repair customer bring me a Macbook Pro A1278 that would NOT boot into Macintosh operating system properly. This machine would display the MAC logo with a progress indicator then show a blank screen and then restart itself into a boot loop. This could be signs of a corrupt file system or possibly hard drive.
Also, this customer showed me a screen shot of a file system repair that failed. I decided to immediately attempt to recover data off this hard drive. I will walk you through the steps required to perform a Macbook Pro hard drive replacement.
You will need a small philips or flat head screw driver. There are ten total screws you need to remove in order to remove the bottom cover. Flip this Macbook Pro upside down so the back cover faces up.
Remove those ten screws and the bottom cover should easily come off. Three of these screws are larger facing the rear of this Macbook Pro A1278. Now you should be able to see the hard drive in the corner next to the battery and optical drive.
There are two screws that you need to remove near the optical drive that are attached a small piece of plastic that holds this hard drive in place. Once these two screws are removed then pull up on that small skinny piece of plastic. Now you should be able to lift this hard drive out.
There was a ribbon cable that attached to a SATA adapter end connected to the hard drive. Remove the adapter ribbon cable and now you should be able to lift this hard drive out. This Macbook Pro A1278 had a Samsung 128 Gigabyte Serial AT Attachment Solid State Drive installed.
Now all you have to do is put in your replacement hard drive whether it is a standard SATA or SSD SATA hard drive. Reattach the ribbon cable to hard drive and tighten down both scres. Now just place bottom cover back on and tighten down those ten screws.
Remember three of those screws are longer so be sure to tighten them down in their original holes. You have just performed a Macbook Pro hard drive replacement.