Macbook Pro installing High Sierra disk utility shows incorrect disk size

I just realised that what I am seeing in the disk utility is not the SSD because I booted from the USB installer without the SSD plugged into the SATA and I still see the 2GB disk under disk images. If I plug the SSD in via a USB cable I can see the SSD and it does in fact show as 253GB and if I attempt to install HS to the SSD it says the computer is missing a firmware partition.

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I have 2 Macs but both have no OS at the moment so I am having to use Windows 11 to format the drives.

I have formatted for Mac OS before using Windows and it worked just fine but this time for some strange reason it will not work.

Under Windows 11 I am using Macdrive software and the SSDs show as full size GPT HFS.

Does the SSD need some sort of special partitioning? and I believe it should be GPT not MBR?

Could it need to be formatted as HFS+ ? When I format using Paragon the only option is format for Apple it doesn't mention if HFS or HFS+

Thanks

Yes im using the disk utility from the High Sierra installation USB , It was definitely formatted as HFS before when I had it working because I used Transmac software which only has HFS option to format the disk.

In the Mac disk utility all disks show as 2.01GB and the options to delete a partition or resize a partition are greyed out.

The disks show full size GPS HFS formatted when viewed in WIndows Macdrive.

Is there some setting in the Mac bios which I need to change?

If so I cannot even get into the bios.

Holding down the “Command,” “Option,” “0” and “F” keys simultaneously does nothing.

Thanks

I plugged the SSD into another Macbook and formatted it, its shown as 253GB but when I plug the SSD into the Macbook Pro SATA and boot from the USB install disk the SSD is always shown as 2GB and the options to erase , restore, unmount are greyed out.

I tried 2 other SSDs to be sure it wasn't a fault with the 253GB SSD. All SSDs show as 2GB size from the disk utility.

I formatted the SSD as APFS and now it is working fine. I know yesterday you mentioned that it may need to be APFS but I just assumed it should be formatted as HFS. Perhaps last time I installed High Sierra I used a different method of disk utility from Windows so it must have formatted it as APFS without me realising. I was confused this time by using Paragon partition manager which only has the option of formatting as Apple HFS and doesn't give any options for different Apple partition types. Anyway I have learnt quite a bit. Thanks for all your help.

yes show all is checked

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It was working fine with either HDD or SSD.

Thanks