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Replaced internal SSD, formatted on Linux, still not recognized?

My SSD failed on my Macbook Pro 13" Mid-2014 about a year ago. I'm fairly tech savvy so I identified this as culprit, took it to the Genius who verified, and laughed to myself as I walked out when he said the repair cost for a 250 GB.

I bought a Samsung EVO 970 NVMe M.2 500 GB at a fraction of the cost, and when I found that (of course) the pins do not match up, I ordered a "JSER 12+16pin 2014 2015 Macbook to M.2 NGFF M-Key SSD Convert Card for A1493 A1502 A1465 A1466" off Amazon. Sure enough, it fit like a glove.

I then booted from a Ubuntu Live USB and was excited to see the drive appear in GParted. I have attempted to format the drive using a number of options based on what I've read macOS likes...

"gpt" (GUID Partition Table)

"hfs+" (Heirarchical File System) (Mac OS Extended)

However, when I attempt to install macOS through the Recovery mode (off boot menu, internet enabled option, whatever its called), when getting to step to select drive it does not show up. It also does not show up in Disk Utility (off boot menu).

I've been scouring google for few days without finding any more useful information, ideas, anything to go off of, on what could be wrong. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Side Note: I do not own another Mac, and only have a Win/Ubuntu PC to do any troubleshooting with.

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When we tested these adapter we only had problems. Once we got one that worked we needed to use a bootable USB thumb drive to prep the drive as the internet recovery won't work. Even afterwards during our testing we say a lot of CRC errors.

I think you really should return both the carrier and SSD and just get a real Apple SSD which are more available these days. Review this guide: Ultimate Guide to Apple’s Proprietary SSDs

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So I feel like I'm caught in a paradox right now. I bought the OWC drive listed in iFixit just incase this converter or drive I had gotten before was the issue. But it has not improved my situation. Everything I can find indicates I must install MacOS High Sierra first, to get the included EFI firmware update , however, I can't install High Sierra on the drive because it isn't recognized, and original SSD is (dead). I'm really dissapointed with Apple right now, how is there no way to do this...

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Did you not find the needed SSD from BeetsTech? Thats what I would have done as they are the real SSD's Apple uses.

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I must have missed BeetsTech, ended up getting the OWC one from the ifixit article. This afternoon I finally threw in the towel and visited the Genius bar, hoping they had the magic fix. They attempted to install the latest macOS 10.13, install went through, but after restart it still gave the mystery/ghost folder icon error. Next she attempted to install only EFI firmware upgrade (without the OS), but the installer errored out. Finally, she attempted to install older version of macOS to no avail.

They said at this point, seems likely to be an issue with the logic board, which after all this, I can believe. The same thing happened when I tried to install Ubuntu earlier in the week, at time I thought it was just incompatible, but it is making me reconsider. Anyway, thank you for the help Dan, very much appreciated!

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Its possible the adapter board messed you up when you installed it before going with the proper Apple drive. Sorry to here the logic board crapped out.

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David will be eternally grateful.
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