Corsair Force GT SSD & OSX Mountain Lion = a lot of frustration

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Corsair Force GT SSD & OSX Mountain Lion = a lot of frustration

Hi,

I have recently bought a 240GB Corsair Force GT SSD disk that I wanted to install as the primary disk in my 15 inch late 2008 MacBook Pro unibody laptop.

(Instead of the 250GB stock HDD)

My problem is that the SSD is either faulty or extremely slow - here is what I have tried so far:

Clone the old HDD to the SSD using a SATA to USB adapter and Carbon Copy Cloner
Clone the old HDD to the SSD using SATA to USB adapter and SuperDuper!
Clone the old HDD to the SSD using SATA to USB adapter and Apples own Disk Utility
Backup the old HDD to my external time machine disk and then restore after installing the (blank) SSD in the MBP (this has yet to succeed - nothing happens)
Install the new (blank) SSD in the MBP and do a fresh install using a USB thumb drive and Lion DiskMaker 2.0.1 (this BTW took over 14 hours)

As far as my Google searches has led me - it IS possible to install a 240GB Force GT disk in this model of MBP but no matter which of the 5 solutions above, nothing works.

When I have installed OSX (fresh) or cloned the old HDD to the SSD and installed it in the MBP nothing happens when I boot the MBP.

The white/light-gray screen with the Apple logo appears and it stays there while the "loading icon" keeps moving.

Does anyone have an idea to how I get the SSD up and running?

Thank you all in advance for your input

Best regards

A rather annoyed systems developer

MacBook Pro, OS X Mountain Lion

Posted on Aug 14, 2012 3:56 AM

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Answer 1

wjosten

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Aug 14, 2012 4:25 AM in response to JFlindt

Did you format the drive to Extended Journaled with GUID partion BEFORE you cloned?

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Answer 2

JFlindt Author

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Aug 14, 2012 4:42 AM in response to wjosten

Yes I did using the Disk Utility from OSX.

But eventhough it is formatted and blank, Time Machine, Carbon Copy Cloner, the OSX installation program and SuperDuper all format the disk a second time.

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Answer 3

wjosten

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Aug 14, 2012 4:51 AM in response to JFlindt

Try putting the drive in a powered external enclosure, format it, install just OS X...see if it will boot.

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Answer 4

JFlindt Author

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Aug 14, 2012 4:58 AM in response to wjosten

Tried that already - see #5 on the list in my original post.

I formated the disk in an external enclosure. Swapped the old HDD with the SSD afterwards and installed using a usb drive - took 14 hours an still did not work.

Shouldn't take 14 hours to install to SSD

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Answer 5

wjosten

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Aug 14, 2012 5:28 AM in response to JFlindt

I understood your first post, that's not what I suggested...I wanted to know if the drive would boot, while installed in a powered external enclosure. It should.

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Answer 6

JFlindt Author

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Aug 14, 2012 6:18 AM in response to wjosten

Ohh I see... Sorry

Tried your suggestion and it installed to the SSD in about 3 minutes.

Hopefully that did the trick

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Answer 7

JFlindt Author

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Aug 14, 2012 6:55 AM in response to wjosten

So far so good...

Done installing and setting up OSX on the SSD disk.

But as soon as I remove the old HDD from my MBP and install the SSD nothing happens when I boot (other than the white/gray Apple screen with the "loading ring")

Tried resetting the PRAM(?) by holding CMD + Option + P + R but still the same result.

Any ideas?

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Answer 8

wjosten

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Aug 14, 2012 7:09 AM in response to JFlindt

So, the SSD boots fine & all works properly in an external enclosure, but will not boot when installed in the computer, correct? This computer originally shipped with Leopard, correct? You would have had to upgrade to Snow Leopard & from there to Mountain Lion, correct?

When you installed OS X on this drive, I'm assuming you're installing Mountain Lion, correct? Did you verify that this drive has a recovery partition...try booting while holding down Command + R...what happens?

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Answer 9

JFlindt Author

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Aug 14, 2012 11:39 AM in response to wjosten

Correct - the computer was "born" with Leopard and I then upgraded to Snow Leopard -> Lion -> Mountain Lion.

And correct I installed Mountain Lion on the new disk.

When holding CMD + R on boot nothing happens... It outputs (white on black) that no MacOS was found.

If I boot while holding the Option (Alt) button a disk called Recovery 10.8 is shown on screen (and nothing else) and when I move the cursor to click it, then the disk disappears (small cloud/puff icon - like when removing icon from the dock) and I am left with nothing to do...

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Answer 10

wjosten

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Aug 14, 2012 11:43 AM in response to JFlindt

I suspect your problem is there is no recovery partition on this disk. The paid version of Carbon Copy Cloner will copy the recovery partition, as well as Disk Utility.

Or, you could try installing SL on the disk, get that to boot in the computer, then from there redownload ML.

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