Booting a new ssd

[Mjfreeds]

hi, just need a bit of help and a few pointers , i have a 13" macbook pro (mid2009) , in need of a new hard drive , ive tried to repair it in recovery mode but it seems to be pretty busted ! , ive made the decision to go for a new ssd drive ,and I'm going to up the ram a bit while the backs off too
I think I've worked out the process i need to follow but can anyone put me right if they see a problem
First im going to fit the new ssd and ram in my mac
Second I'm going to plug in my old hd to a usb port
Then start the mac up wile holding command +r
That should then bring up disk utility option?
I should then be able to see my new ssd where i need to erase it do i ? And put a partition on it ,
Question. How big does this partition need to be ?
When I've done this i should then be able to go back to the utility list and install new os onto the new ssd?
Question.At the moment the list says reinstall osx , will this change to install ?, because i want the new os on my new ssd
Question. How do i then make my MacBook start from the new ssd? Rather than still looking for my corrupt hd
Any help would be much appreciated

 

[snaky69]

You do not need to partition the drive, simply format it to HFS + (Mac OS Extended, Journaled). The recovery partition will create itself during the install with no intervention on your part.

You hold alt (option) at boot and choose the drive you want to boot from. Once you're booted, simply look for "Startup disk" in system preferences, select the SSD and you're done. By default if nothing else is plugged in it'll boot from the SSD regardless, so you shouldn't even have to change that.

 

[Mjfreeds]

Ok right , ive put my new ram and ssd in
Ive got my old hd mounted external
Ive started in recovery mode ,formatted new ssd
I'm now trying to reinstall os x on my new ssd via disk utility and it keeps coming up with an error occurred while preparing the installation try running this application again ! Any ideas

 

[treekram]

What's the brand and model of your SSD?