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MBP won't recognize SSD?

P

Purely Elf

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 16, 2012
29
0
I recently had a problem with my MBP, and the consensus seemed to be that there was an issue with my HDD. So I bought a new Intel 320 SSD, and installed it. Startup took forever and I'm eventually brought to the install thing (snow leopard OS install disk in optical drive), but the optical drive is the only drive the computer recognizes. It asks me to select a disk to install the OS on, but the area to select a drive is blank.

What can I try to solve this?

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original thread:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1324973/
 
It will need to be formatted before you can install the OS. If you're using Lion, quit the Installer and from the screen it takes you back to, choose Disk Utility, then erase the drive from there. If you're using Snow Leopard or earlier, Disk Utility will be in the Utilities menu at the top of the screen.

jW
 
Does it show in disk utility? (it's in one of the menubar options at the top)

It may need to be changed from MBR to GUID and formatted.
 
Do you have any kind of external mount (sata->USB) to see a) if the original drive is viable, and b) if the SSD is viable? Given that you've had a HDD problem, and a new drive in the same SATA also doesn't display, it's increasingly likely that the problem is with your logic board and/or SATA connection.
 
jackiecanev2 said:
Do you have any kind of external mount (sata->USB) to see a) if the original drive is viable, and b) if the SSD is viable? Given that you've had a HDD problem, and a new drive in the same SATA also doesn't display, it's increasingly likely that the problem is with your logic board and/or SATA connection.
Click to expand...

No, I don't. Kind of disappointing, too, I thought the SATA to USB cable was included with the SSD. Guess I'll have to go out and purchase one now just to try this :s
 
When I install the original HDD back into the computer, disk utility recognizes it. I'm afraid to go ahead with trying to install osx onto it, because before when I did it froze and I had to do a hard shut down.

But because it can recognize this drive, does that mean that the issue is with the SSD?
 
Well, I've decided to try installing osx on the maybe bad HDD, just because I feel like I should be doing something, lol. The installation says it's going to take 50 minutes :O

I've been doing some looking around, and some people are saying that their macbook pros have not wanted to recognize their SSDs when installed internally. The solution seems to be to install osx onto the SSD when it's an external drive, and then to install it in the computer.

https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/11774591/

Maybe this is my issue?
 
My M4 installation the other day went fine. But I made a bootable clone (using Carbon Copy Cloner) of my HD on an external, and booted from that (with the SSD installed internally). I then formatted the SSD, and cloned my HD to the SSD. Easy. If you have an external drive available, Id' recommend this method.

Sorry for your troubles!!
 
I just installed a Crucial M4 this afternoon. I used CCC to clone my HD to the SSD external then put swapped out the drives. It worked with little hiccups. I did have to install Lion OSX from my bootable USB in order to be able to use FV2. I don't think CCC got my recovery just right.
 
Thank you for your posts. This is pretty difficult for me to wrap my mind around, though :/

I do have an external drive, but it was not recognized without osx installed. Assuming my internal HDD is bad and unusable (it's seeming this way, the install is taking forever and it seems to be threatening to freeze again), and I have my external HDD and SSD.. how would I make this work? Do I need to purchase the SATA to usb cable for my SSD, or can I somehow use my external drive to avoid this?
 
My 8GB flash drive is just barely too small, but out of nowhere it started to recognize my external HDD. I really hope this works lol :p
 
Okay! I have installed osx on my external drive and was able to boot into that just fine. Problem is, disk utility still will not recognize the existence of the SSD :p

So I suppose now I need to purchase that cable?
 
Mal said:
It will need to be formatted before you can install the OS. If you're using Lion, quit the Installer and from the screen it takes you back to, choose Disk Utility, then erase the drive from there. If you're using Snow Leopard or earlier, Disk Utility will be in the Utilities menu at the top of the screen.

jW
Click to expand...
[doublepost=1483923721][/doublepost]How would I format with Disk Utility if Disk Utility won't recognize the unformatted disk in the first place?
 
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