New SSD will not boot internally, only from USB.

Yes. I just ordered it from powerbookmedic.com and it was the same part number and OEM Apple. It was $29 plus shipping. I will install it Friday and report back.

So here is an update on my situation...

I received the cable from PowerBook Medic.com. I replaced the cable however after calling about another issue they said the cable was incorrect for my unibody. I have an Early 09 15" MBP. They are sending me a new one. There customer service is fantastic.

Note to those attempting to do this themself. iFixIt.com does not mention that when removing the right speaker wire that it is soldered to the board! They made it seem as if it was sticking by ashesive. So now I may need to replace my logic board! 😟

I put my old HD back in, despite the wrong Sata Cable, booted fine. The Crucial SSD won't boot. Tomorrow I plan on doing another clone and dropping it in. I hope that works; this is rather frustrating!

Here is more of an update. I hope someone can help me because I am very frustrated.

1) I erased the drive and re-cloned it with no issues.

2) The drive does show when I go to boot from it. I think I booted into the drive. It was asking me for my DropBox login information. Is there any other way for me to know if I booted into the drive? I only HD was still showing on my desktop.

3) When I go to reinstall the new SDD I still have the question mark folder appearing. The SATA cable has been replaced. Could it be the drive is bad??

HELP!!!

I'm really not sure where you're at right now. Was the SSD clone created when the new SATA cable was in place?

Yes, it was.

This morning, after doing further research, I decided to swap the drives. Meaning put my old HDD in the external and install the SSD inside the machine. I held down command R and wiped the drive clean. I am now in the process of installing the OS X.

I hope this works. This was a solution that worked for many people.

Similar problem. Late 2011 MBP, Crucial M500 240Gb SSD, cloned fine with Carbon Copy over usb. After install, it could not be seen. Reinstalled HDD, SSD now cannot be seen over USB. Returning to Amazon. At least they make the return easy.

Has the drive been set to a GUID partition map prior to installing OS X? If not, that'll be the problem. Even if a drive is formatted for mac, if the partition map isn't set to GUID you won't be able to boot from it.

I didn't set the partition map, but woulnd't cloning take care of that?

I did boot from it over USB after cloning to test and it worked.

Hopefully, this will be helpful.

I had the same problem with a Crucial 500M hard drive installed in a Macbook Pro. The drive would work OK and boot when attached to a USB port but I got the file folder error when it was installed internally.

Through experimentation, I found that if I pressed the Option key while booting, I could boot from the original hard drive connected to the USB port. But I also noticed that the system recognized the SSD drive mounted internally. Furthermore, I could select it at the option screen and it would boot!

So, I opted to boot from the recovery partition on the internal SSD and re-installed Mountain Lion. After the system re-install, the system recognized the SSD mounted internally and boots and runs fine!

I'm guessing that somehow I didn't get the new hard drive formatted quite properly for internal installation and that re-installing the OS corrected this. I'm not sure what I might have done wrong, because I basically followed the steps I have used on other Macbooks with traditional hard drives. Maybe someone here can enlighten us.

Thanks. I returned the SSD, recieved a new one 2 days later, followed the same procedure and it is working beautifully.

I had a 960GB Crucial SSD installed and was working no problems until 2 weeks ago when it froze and wouldnt boot again, all I got was the no entry sign first then the folder sign and 'grey screen of death'. After going through the whole 'its working in a caddy but not internally' issue I sent the SSD back but the new one has the exactly same problem. When I hold option at boot the MBP recognises it as mounted but will neither boot from the Recovery Partition or The SSD itself.

I'm going to get a new SATA cable and try that this week. Did anyone posting here solve the same issue by replacing their SATA cable?

Yes. One of my clients had a SSD that worked just fine for about half a year (the original drive on delivery) - suddenly it stopped. When mounted in target mode or externally it was readable, but behaved 'funny' - but I was able to migrate the user account.

I couldn't format from Mac OS.

Succeded from Windows, and the drive behaved normally - but ony externally mounted....

Tried different cable - everything worked fine (as did old fashioned hard disk using the original cable!).

Bought and installed new cable (should have been fixed under guarantee - couldn't wait for crappy Apple service).

Client happy again:-)

I had the cable replaced also and it sorted the issue. I was thrown by the fact the place I bought my ssd replaced it and acknowledged a fault.

Incorrect - replacing the SATA cable did not resolve my issue. After trying and failing to find the exact SATA cable used in MBP's, I said screw it and had the apple store replace mine. $60 down the drain and they didn't even let me keep my old (perfectly functional) cable...

I'm still at square 1 with this. I'm typing this from my externally booted SSD, so I know it works fine.

This is pretty frustrating, and to exacerbate the situation Crucial banned me from the support page. Not because I used profane language or made legal threats, but because I condecendingly told them of my problem and the 5 other unanswered support threads pertaining to the identical problem, which happened to emerge in the three months prior.

I will give mad brownie points to anybody who can help me!

Usually - well, at least 99% of the time - replacing the SATA cable will 'fix' the problem that you're having: were it not so, we wouldn't recommend it straightaway. It seems that the 'cheap' cables on eBay work better than an 'official' Apple cable - and I've no idea why.

I don't know why you were 'banned' from the Crucial user forums, but did you manage to get in touch with Crucial support? I've had, now, four Crucial SSDs (two SATA, two mSATA) and never had a problem with the drives nor getting tech support the two times that I've needed it - have you contacted actual tech support other than through the user forums.

Sorry that the new cable didn't solve your problem - if you want to take a chance on a non-Apple cable, search eBay with the Apple part number. I simply don't trust the Apple cables.

Clinton