Hi there,
I just registered to this forum having bought a MacBook Pro 17" on Friday. The aim was to upgrade the stock 5400 rpm drive with 120 GB SSD SATA 3 drive. This was easier said than done. I installed a brand-new Corsair Force Series 3 and that drive was not even recognised by the disk utilities. So I gave up on that one. I then tried an OCZ Vertex 3 and that was recognised immediately. I managed to install Snow Leopard no problems. The problem came when I tried to install Windows 7 using Boot Camp. 12 hours later I still hadn't managed after numerous attempts. The various problems included Windows 7 unable to format the drive. Also when I did manage to install Windows 7 it never quite completed the install or would freeze on the starting Windows screen. I managed to get into the Windows 7 installation a couple of times but then the whole shebang would freeze when I tried to install the Boot Camp drivers. Upon rebooting I would not be able to boot back into the Windows partition again. I was rapidly losing the will to live. So I gave up on the OCZ SSD drive as well.
This morning as a last resort I installed an older Corsair Force Series 2 SSD 60 GB drive as an experiment. It was recognised immediately by the disk utilities unlike the Series 3 version and I managed to install Snow Leopard and Windows 7 via Boot Camp with zero problems. So it all up and running. Obviously the hard drive is much smaller than I wanted. But it proves one thing and that is that support of SSD SATA 3 drives in the MacBook Pro 17" version is flaky to say the least and on the tests I did using two of these drives it was impossible to install Windows 7 using Boot Camp.
If anyone else has experienced similar problems I'll be interested to hear.
Regards
Kraznet
I just registered to this forum having bought a MacBook Pro 17" on Friday. The aim was to upgrade the stock 5400 rpm drive with 120 GB SSD SATA 3 drive. This was easier said than done. I installed a brand-new Corsair Force Series 3 and that drive was not even recognised by the disk utilities. So I gave up on that one. I then tried an OCZ Vertex 3 and that was recognised immediately. I managed to install Snow Leopard no problems. The problem came when I tried to install Windows 7 using Boot Camp. 12 hours later I still hadn't managed after numerous attempts. The various problems included Windows 7 unable to format the drive. Also when I did manage to install Windows 7 it never quite completed the install or would freeze on the starting Windows screen. I managed to get into the Windows 7 installation a couple of times but then the whole shebang would freeze when I tried to install the Boot Camp drivers. Upon rebooting I would not be able to boot back into the Windows partition again. I was rapidly losing the will to live. So I gave up on the OCZ SSD drive as well.
This morning as a last resort I installed an older Corsair Force Series 2 SSD 60 GB drive as an experiment. It was recognised immediately by the disk utilities unlike the Series 3 version and I managed to install Snow Leopard and Windows 7 via Boot Camp with zero problems. So it all up and running. Obviously the hard drive is much smaller than I wanted. But it proves one thing and that is that support of SSD SATA 3 drives in the MacBook Pro 17" version is flaky to say the least and on the tests I did using two of these drives it was impossible to install Windows 7 using Boot Camp.
If anyone else has experienced similar problems I'll be interested to hear.
Regards
Kraznet
