Chosen Solution
After I put the new HD in and partitioned the drive, the install took forever, multiple hours. Once it finally finished the computer was crawling. I mean slow… every click the wheel would come up and spin. It’s a brand new HD. My previous HD failed… hardware test came back with 4HDD/11/40000004:SATA(0,0) So I am starting from scratch with no back up
You’re hitting a known issue here! You’ll need to replace the SATA cable. I bet if you put the old drive into a case or use a SATA to USB adapter you can still gain access to the files. Here’s the IFIXIT guide you’ll need to follow: MacBook Pro 13" Unibody Mid 2012 Hard Drive Cable Replacement and here’s the part you’ll need: MacBook Pro 13" Unibody (Mid 2012) Hard Drive Cable - Apple P/N 923-0104. Once you replace the cable you should reformat the SSD and re-install the OS.
