why wouldnt a new SSD work in a 2012 macbook?

[madeirabhoy]

of course the obvious one might be that its broken but apart from that.

colleague bought an internal 120mb SSD for his 2012 MacBook. I was going to fit it for him in the office but we fell at the first hurdle when the screwdrivers we had wouldn't fit.

so he took it back home, got a better screwdriver, followed the guides, and it all fitted. but the mac couldn't see the SSD at all. he started up from a usb drive and disk utility couldn't see the drive. nothing was wrong with the mac as he unplugged the SSD put the hard drive back in and it works fine.

 

[slam5]

what brand and model is the ssd? some of the newer ssd won't work that well.

 

[ApolloBoy]

It's possible the HDD cable failed, it's a common problem with the pre-Retina 13" MBPs.

 

[Gav2k]

Did he format the drive? It won’t be seen by the installer till it’s formatted correctly

 

[slam5]

It's possible the HDD cable failed, it's a common problem with the pre-Retina 13" MBPs.

But it works with his hard drive.

 

[madeirabhoy]

Did he format the drive? It won’t be seen by the installer till it’s formatted correctly

he didn't even get that far. disk utility couldn't see it to format it.

 

[chrfr]

But it works with his hard drive.

I’d still say it’s likely to be the cable. Different drives perform differently, and there may just be something about the SSD that won’t work with that cable.

 

[iPhonagain]

I have a 2008 black MacBook and had trouble with installing the OS to the drive when it was installed internally but it worked okay when hooked up to USB port. However it would crash once every in a while after I put the drive back internally again, later I read that some newer SSD drives just are not compatible with older controllers in older macs. Went back to a spinning hard drive and it ran just fine again. So you may have to find an older or slower version SSD for it to work. OWC sells a fast and a slower model of drives and can probably help recommend the right one for it.

 

[MSastre]

I've installed several different Crucial SSDs in several of my Macs, the oldest one being a 2009 17" MBP. No reason they would not have one for a 2012 MacBook. Also have one in my wife's 2009 MB.

 

[iPhonagain]

Yes, I agree, Crucial makes some excellent SSDs !

 

[Audit13]

But it works with his hard drive.

I have found that a defective hard drive cable will work with a mechanical drive but not consistently or at all with an SSD. It may be because the SSD can run at or near the max transfer speeds supported by the drive cable.

 

[johannnn]

What brand and model is it?
(I have Samsung Evo 850 in mine)