10.6.3 clean install fails every time. Help!!

Yes. Could be a faulty cable between the drive and the motherboard. Try replacing it. Also, check your connection to the drive itself. Here is the whole procedure as I do it:

Snow Leopard Erase and Install

1. Insert Snow Leopard DVD into the optical drive and restart the computer.
2. Immediately upon hearing the chime hold down the C key.
3. Release the key when the Apple logo appears and wait for the loading to finish.
4. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities' menu. After Disk Utility loads select the out-dented disk entry from the side list (mfgr.'s ID and drive size.) Click on the Partition tab in the Disk Utility’s right window. Set the number of partitions to one (1) from the drop down menu. Click on the Options button and select GUID, click OK button, set the format type to MacOS Extended, Journaled. Finally, click on the Apply button.
5. After formatting has finished quit Disk Utility. Continue with the OS X installation and follow the directions.
6. When the installation has finished the computer will restart into the Setup Assistant. After you complete the Setup Assistant you will be running a fresh installation of Snow Leopard. Open Software Update and install the recommended updates.
7. Download and install Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1. if needed. It is not needed if you are selling or giving away the computer.

Please don't post any logs until someone asks for them. Please provide a full description of what you did when trying to install Snow Leopard. From where did you obtain the Snow Leopard installer? Have you tried installing on another computer or on an external drive? Did you partition and format the new SSD before trying to install Snow Leopard?

Can you install on an external drive?

This would isolate the SSD and SSD cable as the proble vs the DVD and its drive.

If you can install on an external AND boot from the external, then you can try cloning the external to the SSD. SuperDuper, Carbon Copy Cloner, or Disk Utility -> Restore can do the cloning. Does that work?

Also, is this a Mac that requires 10.6.4 or newer Snow Leopard? There were a few models of Macs that have that requirement.

Snow Leopard 10.6.4 was released on June 15, 2010. Unless Everymac has got it wrong, there was only one mid-2010 Mac (17in, Core i7, 2.8Ghz) released in October 2010 that would be a candidate for shipping with 10.6.4. All other mid-2010 models appear to have been introduced/released in Spring 2010.

There were two Snow Leopard DVD releases. One 10.6 in Aug. 2009, and the other 10.6.3 in Apr 2010. If mid-2009 machines were introduced and shipped in June 2009, it would be with a 10.5.8 DVD. If in fact, they didn't ship until Sept 2009, then the boot DVD would be 10.6, not 10.6.3.

The packaging for the 10.6 and 10.6.3 DVD were nearly identical other than the small print OS X version.

WorkmanDalton wrote:

I checked the connection and that didn't work. I'm going to create a bootable drive and go from there. could ram possibly be an issue?? The ram is not the factory ram

If installing Snow Leopard on an external drive, and then booting from it works, then it is unlikely the RAM is at fault.

If booting from an external drive also has problems, then you could suspect things besides the SSD, such as the RAM. But generally failing RAM will result in panics. If you are not reporting Panics, then I'm not going to suspect RAM just yet.

The drive has failed based on what you report.