13" MacBook Pro not finding partition in disk utility.

Early/mid February, my ~5 month old MacBook Pro froze on me. I forced it into a shut down and tried to re start it. Instead of going through the normal boot processes, it sat idle for several minutes before displaying a flashing folder with a question mark on it. I shut it back down, cleared the PRam, and nothing. I opened into recovery utility and had to wait about an hour for it to load internet recovery, as it wasn't finding the recovery partition. After an hour long talk with support and having no answer, I took it to a genius. He confirmed that it was finding the hard drive, but not finding any partitions on it, and he then ran a diagnostic on it and it ran fine immediately after. I was able to make a backup on my 1TB drive and we then repartitioned it and restored from my backup and we placed an order for a new hard drive as well as a cable.. I took my MacBook home satisfied, but as soon as I got home, it again could not find the partition. I went back a couple days later and we replaced the HD and the cable. Everything has been absolutely peachy until today. After an hour car ride in the opposite direction of my closest Apple store to my girlfriend's house for the weekend, I booted it up tonight and it is repeating what it did 2 months ago. Again, I have ran through everything we did before to no avail. My computer sees my hard drive, but no partition.
I guess I'm just wondering what the **** is going on here. I have never heard of such a problem with any Apple products and am wondering why this has happened to me twice on the same laptop (that was bought in August, 2012).
This is more than an inconvenience for me, as I already live 2 hours away from my Apple store and have a large paper to write over the weekend. This also means at least one more trip to spend the day having someone else confirm what I already know and then probably another to replace my hard drive again, with no guarantee that this will happen again. I know that the easiest fix would be to make the switch to SSD, but that is not really in my price range right now and I'm hoping over the summer I'll be able to sell this and get a Retina. Anyways, what is going on here and is there any thing I can do to fix this and/or prevent this from happening in the future?

I was able to submit this question through recovery mode. I had to wait 30 minutes to load up internet recovery, as it isn't finding a recovery partition. As I said in OP, it just couldn't find a partition. Well, after closing out of disk utility to open up Safari through recovery, it is no longer finding not only any partitions, but no hard drive whatsoever. Just got off the phone with support, nothing I didn't know already. Taking it to a specialist within the next few days.

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BobRz suggested in another thread that I should change the channel that my router is using. It was possble that someone else's more powerful router on the same channel was drowning mine - even though my laptop was only 2 metres from the router.
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After waking my Macbook Pro from sleep, it was incredibly sluggish to get going. Decided to restart it. Upon reboot, I get the image of a folder with a question mark on it. Convinced myself that I had corrupted my SSD, I stuck in my old Snow leopard boot disk and ran disk utility. Couldn't find it so took it out and stuck it in my external enclosure. Mac picked it up straight away and I was able to boot into it from my external enclosure.
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can you confirm if this is ok to buy:
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/New-HDD-Hard-Drvie-Cable-for-13-MacBook-Pro-A1278-MD101-M D102-821-1480-A-2012-/181269577616?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2a34823f90&_u h b=1
or
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or this one..??
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.. Im posting on here asking for a bit of help & im sure some of you guys will be able to point me in the right direction ..
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It's unsafe, and may be unlawful, to use a computer with software installed by a previous owner.
1a. If you don't own another Mac
If the machine shipped with OS X 10.4 or 10.5, you need a boxed and shrink-wrapped retail Snow Leopard (OS X 10.6) installation disc from the Apple Store or a reputable reseller—not from eBay or anything of the kind. If the machine is very old and has less than 1 GB of memory, you'll need to add more in order to install 10.6. Preferably, install as much memory as it can take, according to the technical specifications.
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To start up from an optical disc or a flash drive, insert it, then restart the computer and hold down the C key at the startup chime. Release the key when you see the gray Apple logo on the screen.
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If you already own another Mac that was upgraded in the App Store to the version of OS X that you want to install, and if the new Mac is compatible with it, then you can install it. Use Recovery Disk Assistant to prepare a USB device, then start up the new Mac from it by holding down the C key at the startup chime. Alternatively, if you have a Time Machine backup of OS X 10.7.3 or later on an external hard drive (not a Time Capsule or other network device), you can start from that by holding down the option key and selecting it from the row of icons that appears. Note that if your other Mac was never upgraded in the App Store, you can't use this method.
2. Partition and install OS X
If you see a lock screen when trying to start up from installation media or in Recovery mode, then a firmware password was set by the previous owner, or the machine was remotely locked via iCloud. You'll either have to contact the owner or take the machine to an Apple Store or another service provider to be unlocked. You may be asked for proof of ownership.
Launch Disk Utility and select the icon of the internal drive—not any of the volume icons nested beneath it. In the Partition tab, select the default options: a GUID partition table with one data volume in Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format. This operation will permanently remove all existing data on the drive.
After partitioning, quit Disk Utility and run the OS X Installer. If you're installing a version of OS X acquired from the App Store, you will need the Apple ID and password that you used. When the installation is done, the system will automatically restart into the Setup Assistant, which will prompt you to transfer the data from another Mac, its backups, or from a Windows computer. If you have any data to transfer, this is usually the best time to do it.
Then run Software Update and install all available system updates from Apple. To upgrade to a major version of OS X newer than 10.6, get it from the Mac App Store. Note that you can't keep an upgraded version that was installed by the original owner. He or she can't legally transfer it to you, and without the Apple ID you won't be able to update it in Software Update or reinstall, if that becomes necessary. The same goes for any App Store products that the previous owner installed—you have to repurchase them.
3. Other issues
If the original owner "accepted" the bundled iLife applications (iPhoto, iMovie, and Garage Band) in the App Store so that he or she could update them, then they're irrevocably linked to that Apple ID and you won't be able to download them without buying them. Reportedly, Mac App Store Customer Service has sometimes issued redemption codes for these apps to second owners who asked.
If the previous owner didn't deauthorize the computer in the iTunes Store under his Apple ID, you wont be able to authorize it immediately under your ID. In that case, you'll either have to wait up to 90 days or contact iTunes Support.
When trying to create a new iCloud account, you might get a failure message: "Account limit reached." Apple imposes a lifetime limit of three iCloud account setups per device. Erasing the device does not reset the limit. You can still use an iCloud account that was created on another device, but you won't be able to create a new one. Contact iCloud Support for more information. The setup limit doesn't apply to Apple ID accounts used for other services, such as the iTunes and Mac App Stores, or iMessage. You can create as many of those accounts as you like.

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Sounds like I'm out of luck, if BootCamp can't be installed on a SATA drive not connected to one of the original 4 bays.
Also, I'm concerned about taking the RAID drives out (I'd have to take all 4 out or it corrupts the RAID setup when I stick the one back in) then putting them back in and having everything return to an All Good status.
Message was edited by: chadcole26

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