2011 MacBook Pro 15inch, only boots to folder with question mark or recovery mode but wont boot into OS

I’ve got a late 2011 MacBook Pro 15 inch that will boot to a white screen with a folder and a question mark. I can enter internet recovery but nothing else. It allows me to reinstall Mac OS but it won’t boot into Mac Os. It has a brand new hard drive cable and I have tested the hard drive in a working Mac and it does work. I’m puzzled at this point and hoping it’s not the famous gpu problem with these.