issue with replacing hard drive Macbook Pro mid 2012

Did you use the new SSD to create the macOS USB installer? You should be using a USB stick for the USB installer. You then boot the macOS USB installer stick on the 2012 laptop so you can then use Disk Utility to properly erase the new SSD before selecting the "Reinstall macOS" from the installer. You will want to select the whole physical SSD and erase the new SSD as GUID partition and MacOS Extended (Journaled). However, you may need to click "View" within Disk Utility and select "Show All Devices" so that the physical drive appears on the left pane of Disk Utility (the physical drive is usually shown with the Make & mode). To boot the macOS USB installer stick you will need to Option Boot the laptop by holding the Option key immediately after the startup chime so you can select the orange icon of the macOS USB installer option.

CJLukez wrote:

Thanks. It helped a lot. I followed your procedure and I could almost reach the end but got the following error:

“An Error Occurred While Preparing the Installation”

Another thing I changed was format the ssd disk to APFS instead of MacOs Extended (Journaled) because if I choose the latter, there will be an error about converting to APFS.

I also tried to a clean installation of Ubuntu and Kubuntu but both failed at the restart. That's a separate story though. Just FYI.

These two things may be related. The hard drive SATA Cable tends to have a high rate of failure when using an SSD especially on the 13" model. You can test this theory by using a USB to SATA Adapter, drive dock, or enclosure to connect the new SSD externally to see if the OS installs & boots properly. It also can indicate an issue with the installer or some other hardware issue with the laptop or even the new SSD.

Sometimes a Linux installation will not boot after being fully installed due to the computer's UEFI firmware requiring a generically named bootloader folder & file (boot/boot_x64.efi) instead of the customized names usually provided (ubuntu/grub_x64.efi).

The installer log showed a bunch of errors that I don't understand.

Usually you have to try to locate the first error that triggered the installer to abort. I usually start at the end of the log and work my way back, but you can have a lot of entries (and errors) between the first failure and the end of the log. It is also not unusual to see "errors" all through an install log, but some of them are not important as they may just due to the different models of Mac which don't all share the same components. It is hard to say whether that first error will actually provide the information you are looking for anyway.

Resetting NVRAM as well as SMC could solve the issue.

Reset NVRAM or PRAM on your Mac - Apple Support

How to reset the SMC of your Mac - Apple Support

If they don't help, start up your MacBook Pro in recovery mode, then reinstall macOS on your new SSD.

Use macOS Recovery on an Intel-based Mac - Apple Support

It is most likely a bad SATA Cable, but it could also be a compatibility issue between the laptop and the SSD.

https://eshop.macsales.com/search/?q=hard%20drive%20cable&filter.catidpath=3406/3410

The Crucial BX500 SSD is compatible.

Unfortunately it is a terrible SSD which can be as slow as a hard drive when a lot of data is written to it like when installing macOS, downloading a game of multiple GBs, plus the SSD tends to overheat easily. Our organization used them for upgrades during the pandemic and a lot of them have already failed (complete failure). This is Crucial's low end budget economy model. Unfortunately most consumer SSDs today are low end budget economy models.

The Crucial MX500 series is actually a good compromise on price & performance. At least it was several years ago, and may still be Ok if Crucial has not secretly changed the internal components of the SSD. Unfortunately SSD manufacturers today secretly change out internal components without changing the model numbers and this can greatly affect performance & compatibility. It is now impossible to trust any online reviews for an SSD because of this new trend. Crucial used to have exact details on their SSDs, but today Crucial no longer offers those specific component details in their product information or even their product data sheets. We just recently purchased some new MX500 SSDs, but I have not checked them out or tested them to compare if they are still the same quality from several years ago.

Yes. Macs can move the drive between internal & external with no problems.

CJLukez wrote:

Thanks again. I'll try those suggestions out.

Regarding the Linux boot, do you know how to change bootloader folder and file names to get it work?

You just need to mount the hidden EFI/ESP partition (usually the first partition on the drive) and change the name of the Linux bootloader folder & bootloader to "boot/boot_x64.efi". Usually Ubuntu will have "ubuntu/grub_x64.efi". When you mount the hidden EFI/ESP partition, I believe there will be an "EFI" folder which will contain the "ubuntu" folder I mentioned.

Keep in mind by changing the names, anytime Linux updates these files, that your "boot/boot_x64.efi" will not automatically be updated (it will probably create another "ubuntu/grub_x64.efi" setup). To have Linux use "boot/boot_x64.efi" as the default after updates would require modifying your Linux installation configuration files. I'm not sure how or where to do this, perhaps with the GRUB2 configuration files. Unless you are modifying things after the installation, I doubt it will really matter since I don't believe the bootloader files are updated very much. Just something to keep in mind though.

Some Macs seem to work fine with these distribution custom names, while other Macs seem to require the more generic "boot/boot_x64.efi" option. Thank Microsoft and the Logic Boards' UEFI firmware developers for being so cheap & short sighted. Apple relies on "blessing" the bootloader to indicate which file to use, but as far as I can tell "blessing" only works on an Apple file system (HFS+ or APFS), not on FAT which is what the hidden EFI/ESP partition uses.

Thanks for the follow up. Glad it was a simple fix.