Chosen Solution
I erased my last HDD using Find My iPhone but I’ve replaced my SATA cable and HDD(The HDD has the OS installed on it) but it still just boots to show me the question mark file icon. What is wrong with this Macbook?
Restart your system and this time press the Option key that will allow you to access the Startup manager your drive with the OS on it should not be visible. Select it and you should be able to startup. Reference: Mac startup key combinations If that fails they you maybe running the wrong OS for your system, the A1342 MacBooks The tightest you can bo to is macOS High Sierra 10.13.x. Frankly I recommend sticking with macOS Sierra 10.12.x as High Sierra has some issues running on SATA based systems. Update (10/11/2019) At this point you’ve got a different issue! Either the keyboard connection to the logic board is not making contact or your logic board its self has an issue. Plug in a USB keyboard (ideally an Apple one) Try using it to gain access to the Startup keys (Option key is what I would start with) If that fails you’ve got a deeper issue.
