Mid 2009 MacBook Pro SSD Upgrade

Hi,

First, you need to erase/format the EVO, so install it in an external enclosure and use Disk Utility to erase/format it as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) GUID. Then I'd use Carbon Copy Cloner, as SuperDuper! does not clone the recovery partition. Create a bootable clone from the internal HD onto the EVO, then boot from the EVO and make sure all is good. When you know everything works and your files open, etc. then install the EVO into your Mac and you should be good to go. Be careful of the HD cable as quite a few people have posted here about having to replace it after removing/installing a HD. Don't bend/pull it any further in any direction any more than you have to.

Same answer as when you said you were using CCC.

Also, try resetting the SMC: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201295.

If no luck, try booting into Safe Mode: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201262 and see if it will work there.

Open Utilities > Activity Monitor > click on CPU > click on %CPU > click on it again, if necessary, to get the highest numbers to the top of the list/column. What are the highest numbers and the Process Name? Taking a screenshot and posting it may be easier.

Try resetting the SMC: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201295.

It appears your internal HD has hardware issues.

You should immediately backup your data, most important files first, to a different external HD (not the SSD you're going to use) or the SSD if you have no other drive immediately available, as the HD could die at any time.

Once that is done, read on, as it may be possible to work around the read errors.

Per CCC:

Troubleshooting "Media errors"

Read errors are typically a result of media damage — some of the "sectors" on the hard drive have failed and macOS can no longer read data from them. Read errors can occur on the source or destination volume, and they can affect old disks as well as brand-new disks. When read errors occur, the file or files that are using the bad sector must be deleted. Bad sectors are "spared out" — permanently marked as unusable — only when the files on those sectors are deleted.

If CCC has reported dozens or hundreds of files that are unreadable due to media errors, we recommend replacing the affected hard drive because it is likely failing. Small numbers of unreadable files, however, are not necessarily an indication that a hard drive is failing. The steps below indicate how to resolve media errors.

1. Click on the affected item in the Task History window, then click on the "Reveal in Finder" button.
2. Move the affected files and/or folders to the Trash.
3. Empty the Trash.
4. If you had to delete items from your source volume, locate those items on your backup volume and copy them back to the source (if desired).
5. If CCC reported problems with more than a few files or folders, we strongly recommend that you reformat the affected disk in Disk Utility. If the affected disk is not an SSD, click the "Security Options" button in the Erase tab and drag the slider to the right to specify the option to write a single pass of zeroes. Writing zeroes to every sector will effectively detect and "spare out" any additional failing sectors that have yet to be discovered. If the affected disk is your startup disk, boot from your CCC bootable backup volume to perform this procedure (after you have allowed CCC to complete a backup).

Once you have deleted the affected files, you should be able to re-run your backup task with success.

Note: If you do not have a backup of the affected files, please scroll to the top of this document and exhaust the hardware-based troubleshooting techniques first. As indicated above, read errors are typically a result of media damage. In some rare cases, though, media errors can be errantly reported when a hardware-based problem exists (e.g. a bad port, cable, or enclosure). If deleting your only copy of a file is the suggested resolution, then it's prudent to rule out everything else as the cause of an issue before deleting that file.

Read the rest of the document for other important information: Identifying and Troubleshooting Hardware-Related Problems | Carbon Copy Cloner | Bombich Software

Cloning a drive that is working properly should take a few hours, not all day, and certainly not 24 hours.

It is possible the source drive has some additional problems not detected or repaired by Disk Utility. In that case it may be preferable to Install MacOS from scratch, to assure you get a completely valid copy, then add your Applications, then add your files.

The proper way to do this is by restoring from your Trusted Backup. ¿Don't have a Trusted Backup? consider this a wake-up call for getting a large, slow external drive and turning on Time Machine to create one.

CCC shouldn't take more than an hour or so with a 250GB drive.

Don't know why your screen turned black, but it's not because of "a lot of processing power" being used.

No need to wait any longer. Shut down the Mac, by holding down the power button for about 10 seconds if necessary, then try booting into Recovery or Internet Recovery again; if the Mac appears OK, start the clone again.

Focus on EXACTLY what you need to salvage, in three groups:

1) Your files. These are stored at /User/youruserShortName

2) Added Applications -- these can be re-Installed. It is a pain, but it is usually doable.

3) macOS, over 20GB and over 350,000 files -- can be replicated in an hour with a new Install. MacOS does not modify itself, so a new Install should be identical to a pre-existing install.

Disk Utility should properly be named Disk DIRECTORY Utility. It does not even read any Blocks outside the Directory area. There can be Bad Blocks all over the place, and Disk Utility will tell you the directory is not corrupted (and little else).

You can try erasing/zeroing the HD, but at its age, and given the circumstances, I'd never trust it for anything.

So yes, "ditch my current internal hard drive and just install the OS onto my SDD or external."

Mid 2009 MacBook does not have Internet recovery in its ROM.

Before you wipe out the old drive's Recovery partition, you need to use it to download and/or MacOS somewhere else, or make a Bootable USB-stick Installer with an 8GB USB-stick and DiskmakerX.