Gray Screen During Boot, Dreaded Folder w/?

Hi all,

First post. Hoping you guys and girls can help me out.

I purchased a used 13" MBP for my mother (belated mother's day gift).

I bought it knowing full well it wasn't recognising the HDD, hoping it would be as easy as replacing it.

I've since replaced the WD 320GB HDD that was in the computer with a Corsair 60GB SSD. However, it only showed up in the disk utility the very first time I booted from m Leopard disc and ran Disk Utility.

Now, it doesn't seem to recognise that drive either... or my spare 250GB Toshiba HDD.

I have wondered if the logic board itself was dying, but the previous owner apparently had it booting and running without problems from an external HDD (connected via USB). This leads me to believe it's the ribbon/flex cable that runs from the logic board to the SATA drive.

I work in IT so I'm fairly confident working with this, but I'm hesitant to drop any more money into this before consulting someone with Mac-specific knowledge-- and Apple support was... less than supportive.

Thank you for even taking the time to read this.

[edit:]
Model Name: MacBook Pro
Model Identifier: unknown
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.26GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: unknown
Memory: 4GB Crucial DDR2
Bus Speed: 1067MHz
Boot ROM Version: unknown
SMC Version (system): unknown
Serial Number (system): W89381V566H

Do remember USB is not connected to the internal SATA controller. If it booted with USB, the SATA controller still could be defective. I would try the SATA flex cable though as that can't be that much $$$. If you still get nothing, I would start to suspect the SATA controller. Be sure power is getting to the drive also.

dtravis7 said:

Do remember USB is not connected to the internal SATA controller. If it booted with USB, the SATA controller still could be defective.

Click to expand...

Correct, this is the point I was making-- if the previous owned had it booting from external HDD via USB, but it won't boot from SATA connection, then it seems the SATA flex cable is bad. I have no desire to run it from an external drive, that was just information I had considered during the troubleshooting process.

dtravis7 said:

I would try the SATA flex cable though as that can't be that much $$$. If you still get nothing, I would start to suspect the SATA controller. Be sure power is getting to the drive also.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I've priced them out. Apple part # 922-9062. Usually $40+.

1) How would I check the SATA controller?
2) How can I ensure the drive is getting power? Isn't that part of the flex cable?

Thank you for replying!!