Chosen Solution
So I have an early 2011 macbook pro that does not see any hard drives at all in disk utility. It worked fine up until recently, and I have tried several different drives both internally and in external docking stations. All drives and docking stations work fine on other machines. The computer DOES see SD cards however, making the problem all the more confusing. Does anyone have any ideas on what could be causing this? I suspect a faulty motherboard, but would like any other ideas if anyone has encountered this before.
You’ll need to run diagnostic to see whats happening. Holding the D key when you startup Reference: Mac startup key combinations You could have a bad HD SATA cable and your drive became corrupted so when you attempted to plug it in externally the drive also failed (this is a common issue). You could have a blown USB port as well and you could have a bad PCH or liquid damage.
