SSD Installation Problems

[thisisdallas]

I recently recommended one of my friends to upgrade his old HDD to an SSD. He went with the Crucial MX100 256gb on Amazon and it arrived yesterday.

I had him install it and everything went smoothly. Instead of creating any sort of bootable thumb drive or pre-formatting the new SSD, I lead him to do it the way that I did my SSD install a year ago: via internet recovery.

Basically, my plan was for him to install the new SSD, boot into internet recovery, go into disk utility and format the disc to the proper format, and then install OS X via internet recovery. Everything was going smoothly and as planned until he went to format the disc in disk utility. The disk isn't showing up! I've had him check the ribbon cable about a hundred times, and all seems to be well. He did mange to skip the step with placing the 4 screws into the side of the new hard drive, which I just had him do. Everything should be installed properly now, and the ribbon cable is definitely plugged in.

He's loading into internet recovery mode now to see if any of the troubleshooting on the hardware side has fixed the issue, but if not, are there any suggestions? I linked a video I sent him to help him with the whole process, if it helps anyone.

Thanks in advance!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0K82njigCTA&feature=youtu.be

 

[thisisdallas]

Anyone at all? I assure you i've googled it quite a bit.

 

[T5BRICK]

Does it work when he reinstalls the old HDD?

 

[Weaselboy]

Anyone at all? I assure you i've googled it quite a bit.

If he can't even see it in DU from recovery, he has either a bad disk or bad cable. Try like T5 mentioned swapping the old drive back in to make sure the cable is still good.

Does he have and external enclosure he can pop the SSD in to try and see it that way?

 

[ValSalva]

What year MBP is it? 2011 MBP's had a lot of SATA-III issues. Depending on the SATA controller, SSD's would not show up or intermittently 'disappear' leaving a question mark on the display when booting was attempted.

I experienced this first-hand and it was very frustrating. I finally gave up and stuck a SATA-II SSD in my 2011 MBP but that was a almost three years ago. It was my understanding this had been fixed. Make sure all your firmware is up to date.

 

[thisisdallas]

He took it to the Apple store and they ended up finding out it was a faulty ribbon cable. It was just odd to me because the old HDD worked (poorly, but still).

Thanks for the assistance guys! I apologize for the lack of/late replies. I've been really busy at work and school started back up and everything is just craaaazy

Have a great rest of the week!