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Late 2011 model, A1278 / 2.4 GHz i5 or 2.8 GHz i7 processor.

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Boot up MBP from 2nd HDD installed in Optical Drive Bay

Hello,

I have a Late 2011 MBP 13" and recently my Hard Drive stopped being recognized. So i took the cover off removed the drive installed it in an external enclosure and it worked. So i read here to install some tape above the SATA connector ribbon and i did but still didnt fix the problem. I also ordered the HD ribbon cable replacement and installed it and still no luck the laptop still doesnt recognize the HDD, i even tried ordering another cable hoping it was just a bad ribbon but still no luck.

So i bought a 2nd HDD optical drive enclosure and figured i dont use the optical drive ill just replace it with a hard drive and boot from there. I bought a new SSD HD, installed OSX El Capitan on it with my iMac using an external USB enclosure, installed the new SSD into the optical drive bay and connected/installed everything back on thr MBP and booted the laptop. When booted i get a flashing gray circle with a line through it, then it alters to the flashing question mark folder. I can press option while bootup and it recognizes the SSD but doesnt want to boot from it.

What am i doing wrong? Is it possible to bootup the OS from the optical drive bay with a SSD? The new SSD is a PNY CS1311 i also booted the SSD from an external USB enclosure and verified the drive/OS were both working.

Please help.

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Are you able to boot into an operating system?

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Yes, The only way i can boot into an OS is with my external USB hard drive. So i can startup the computer with the external HD and load the OS but not with the internal optical drive enclosed SSD HD.

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Your SSD's specs: PNY CS1311

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So the issue your having is probably a corrupt install. Try installing the OS from a usb stick and install it to the ssd in the optical drive enclosure. http://www.macworld.com/article/2981585/... That will show you the proper way to make a Bootable USB. After youve done that, use it to install EL Cap on the ODD enclousure.

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If i remove the SSD from the optical drive enclosure and plug it into a USB enclosure the SSD boots right up into the OS no problem, how could the OS be corrupt?

Just to clarify, should i leave the SSD in the optical drive enclosure/installed in the MBP and install the OS with the USB bootable device?

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yes thats corect

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Lets give this a try put the drive back into the system using the HD bay or optical drive bay. Now this time when you start your system press and hold the Option key to get to the Boot manager. From there using the arrow keys to select your SSD drive to boot your system. You should now be booting up via your SSD.

At this point you'll need to go to the Startup Disk preferences to then alter the setting so the SSD is your default boot drive.

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Hey Dan, unfortunately the HD bay is not operating as it appears something on the logic board is not functioning correctly as it doesnt identify any HD when its plugged in, i tried the tape method and even swpped 2 HD ribbon cables with no luck so I am forced to only use the optical drive bay.

I put everything back, started the computer with the SSD in the optical bay, pressed/held option key and since there is only 1 drive (and it shows it active) i selected the SSD drive and again it gave me the gray circle with a line through it so no luck. Took it apart placed it in an external USB enclosure and it worked fine.

Im so confused with what the issue is?

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Here's a reference on the Startup Screens: About the screens you see when your Mac starts up

If you are getting there Prohibitory symbol, something is not adding up here.

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I have the same issue 2009 2.53 MBP.

Can it be we forgetto unplug the battery when swapping the SSDs? It's maybe SSD compatibility? ADATA SU650 not found but is OK in a 2012 A1278..same any other brands...can be something with the EFI? I tried everything, CD bay no luck ... no option at boot for recovery or terminal...stumped. hopefully bumping this someone can shine more light and a fix

Oh, it was fine before as I had it dosdude patched to catalina... but the SSD was just 100gb and old, needed a larger SSD... I tried with a blank formatted new SSD in APFS and Journaled, and again with a regular catalina install, still the white screen or a no entry sign... EFI maybe? But how to flash that with no way to get to recovery

Also, my boot EFI is greyed out... there is power getting to the SSD or a HDD so cable is not the issue, Must be the EFI is corrupted? But how can I fresh install that when if I try to use a Snow Leopard DVD nothing happens or a USB of High Sierra the same (No entry sign).... no terminal, no recovery, no options.....

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You face two issues here! The first is this systems SATA port is SATA II based not SATA III so newer SATA III drives won’t work properly in the optical bay as there is a known bug in the Intel platform driver logic chip. You can only use SATA II drives. Within he HD bay you will need a Auto sense SATA III drive most drives todat are fixed speed! So it won’t drop down to a compatible speed.

When running DOSDUDE to shim the OS so it is able to run on the older systems the systems EFI is altered and a pointer is used to the replacement T image is a hidden partition (APFS) so you need to run from an external bootable drive to re-install the OS and DOSDUDE.

Warning! Most of the time you’ll loose the rest of your stuff on the drive so backup first!

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Yes absolutely correct, I made a fresh dosdude bootable USB and bingo the EFI auto recognised it and the installation was a breeze I didn't even have to do any configuration it was back as it was, just now on a larger SSD. The EFI must match the system otherwise its a no go zone.

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@livfe - I wish it was true it’s not, you’re hanging on a thread here as the issue is the SATA ports buffers can’t hold the data block when you cause to large a data block move.

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I did trim enable it seems to work fine, but yeah there is indeed a SATA capability difference. It's just for general use nothing heavy.

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@danj Better then to just use a regular spinning HDD over the ADATA SSD to save on any future issues correct? Or fork out for a more expensive compatible Samsung SSD...

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