MacOS – Upgraded the HDD to SDD. Can boot successfully via USB but will not boot when in MBP

macbook promacosssd

I have a late 2011 macbook pro. I decided to upgrade to SSD. Here are the steps I took:

  1. Connected SSD via USB
  2. Formatted using MAC OS Extended Journaled (using disk utility)
  3. Cloned HDD to SSD using Carbon Copy Cloner (during this clone, I was prompted to create a recover partition which I did)

I then rebooted (holding CMD + R) to select my new SSD as the boot up drive. This worked fine. To test this fully I created some files on the desktop and restarted several times switching between SSD and HDD to verify that I was actually booting up into SSD.

I can boot up via SSD with the HDD in the MBP and SSD connected via USB. But when I remove the replace the HDD with my SSD and power it on, all I see is the apple logo and the spinning wheel forever. For some reason, I cannot boot up when it has been fitted inside.

Any ideas why this may be?

Edit:

Further on from this, I can't boot into the recovery partition and I have also cloned the them switched around (SSD internal, HDD on USB). This cloned fine but still presented me with the same problems. Attached is the CMD+V output from booting up with SSD inside.

cmd_v output

Best Answer

Thank you for all the responses. I believe I have tried everything and have lost count of how many time I have switched the drives, formatted and reinstalled the Lion.

I figured out the problem, in the end, it turned out to be a problem with the firmware. The firmware on the drive was not compatible with late 2011 MBP and needed to be downgraded. After downgrading the firmware to 0309 it worked like a treat!

Thank you for all the responses, most appreciated. I hope this helps some people out.

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