Crucial SSD not able to install on to

Question

Crucial SSD not able to install on to

All,

I have a Early2011 17" MBP and wanted to upgrade to an SSD. I
found that a Crucial 1TB (MX300 1TB SATA 2.5 Inch Internal Solid State Drive -
CT1050MX300SSD1) SSD would work. I created a macOS Sierra bootable drive
with a 16GB USB stick and it seems to work when I have my original HDD in the
laptop. I put the SSD in my laptop and made it bootable through disk
utilities, after booting from the USB drive, it shows it completed
successfully in the status. When I go to do a fresh macOS Sierra install
the Disk Utility says the USB drive is corrupt and wont work. I have left the
SSD drive in and powered up using the option key and only the USB drive shows
up even though I made the SSD drive bootable. I am wondering is there some way
to make the SSD bootable so it would show up?

For other troubleshooting, I put my original HDD in the laptop, installed
the USB drive and booted to the USB drive. Right away the HHD drive
showed as a drive to boot from but I selected the USB drive. I selected the
option install fresh copy of macOS Sierra and it was going to install it
without issues. I put the SSD drive back in and it doesn't show to be a
bootable drive, plus I get the same error as before when trying to install a
fresh copy of macOS Sierra.

Any thoughts would be helpful.

Dennis

MacBook Pro, macOS Sierra (10.12.6)

Posted on Jul 31, 2017 2:02 PM

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Answer 1

Kappy

Level 10

362,007 points

Aug 1, 2017 3:13 PM in response to dennisfromhillsboro

I don't think you prepped the Crucial SSD:

Drive Partition and Format

Open Disk Utility in the Utilities' folder.
After Disk Utility loads select the Crucial SSD (out-dented entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the side list.
Click on the Erase tab in the Disk Utility toolbar. A panel should drop down.
In the drop down panel set the partition scheme to GUID. Set the Format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.)
Click on the Apply button and click on the Done button when it is activated.
Quit Disk Utility.

You should now be able to boot from the flash drive and install OS X on the SSD.

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Answer 2

keg55

Level 6

11,755 points

Aug 1, 2017 3:14 PM in response to dennisfromhillsboro

When you said you made your SSD bootable, you may have formatted it correctly (Mac OS extended-Journaled) with the correct partition scheme (GUID) but you have to have an operating system on it for the Startup Manager (Alt/Option key) to see it. Your USB thumb drive has an OS on it which is why you're able to see it.

Your HDD showed up in the Startup Manager because it still had an OS installed on it.

If you follow Kappy's instructions after you boot from your USB thumb drive, then your SSD drive should be ready to install to. So, you would close Disk Utility and select Reinstall macOS from the 4 options. The installer should start and you should be able to select your SSD to install to.

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