3 times of replacement of Hard drive Cable within 2 years

Question

Dear All,
I have been an iFan and loved Apple's products. I have been an owner of 4 iPods, 1 iPhone, 1 iPad and 1 Macbook Pro 13'' (bought at Jan 2010 from US online Apple store).
Unfortunately, it's incredible to say my Macbook Pro Hard Drive Cable required 3 times of replacements within 2 years. The first time of mal-function happen in the warranty period, so Authorized Apple Office replaced it. 6 months later, the bad "symptom" happen again with question mark folder on boot up screen and recovered after replacement of used hard drive cable. Six months later, question mark folder boot screen happen again and disappear after install a good HDD cable from another Macbook Pro.
You may imagine my disappointed to see "periodic" and costly repairs of my Macbook. It's unbeliveable for quality of an Apple product, which should have been better. One time of repair could be explained as "unlucky" or mistake on production line. 3 times within 2 years can not say as sporadic or random mistake. Obviously, there is an systemic problem with Apple HDD cables and  I can not sure it would be the last time I have spent money and time to replace a new cable. I worked in Vietnam, where it's not always easy to buy a new spare parts of Apple products.
Honestly, I never seen any of my PC laptops get any wrong on their HDD cable like my poor Macbook.
My case would be a very bad experience for an Macbook user.
Anyone can tell me how to prevent HDD cable from bad situation again?
Thank you very much in advance
Regards

Answer 1

Dad of Noel wrote:
Anyone can tell me how to prevent HDD cable from bad situation again?
I doubt it. However, you should submit a complaint to Apple (this is not the right place for it).
One time of repair could be explained as "unlucky" or mistake on production line. 3 times within 2 years can not say as sporadic or random mistake. Obviously, there is an systemic problem with Apple HDD cables
Actually, that's not obvious at all.
First, SATA cable issues are not specific to Apple. You can find, for instance, plenty of complaints on Toshiba forums. (Off-hand, it does seem to me that we didn't use to have so many problems with the old, parallel, ATA cables, but I can't be sure.)
Second, you could, for instance, have a small random manufacturing defect in a component which touches the cable. When the component warms up, that defect might damage the cable. This would explain the short life of the cables in your machine w/o the necessity of postulating a systemic issue. Of course, this is pure speculation, but it demonstrates the defect in your logic.
Third, the fact is that we, the consumers, demand ever more powerful products, in ever smaller sizes and comparatively lower prices. Apple, which is no different from any other major corp, is reacting by, among other measures, cutting corners on quality (as well as finding cheaper labour elsewhere). This is the reality which all of us have helped to bring about.
I know full well that this is cold comfort to you. But I'm afraid there is nothing else. For most of us, life is hard, bitter, and unfair.
If I were you, I'd make sure to keep all the documentation about the SATA cable problems, and, if it happened again, I'd complain once more to Apple, this time escalating it as far up the corporate food chain as I could.