Hard Drive Change SSD - Macbook Pro My Macbook was slow, and then i've want to make it faster, it is a Macbook Pro from 2011 or 2012, can't remember it. I bought a Samsung SSD 850 EVO. 

Firstly what i did, was to take out the old hard-drive, and then i placed the new SSD in it, i made a bootable thumb-drive, with Yosemite 10.10, and then i tryed to boot it from the USB, but i could't install it, because the hard drive didn't show up, because it wasn't formatted. I did that, by taking the old hard drive, inside the Macbook, and used a hard drive dockingstation, to format it, via. disk utility. The hard drive, can only be installed from, the dockingstation, without any issues. I did that, and boot up the Macbook, a Apple logo with a spinning wheel under it, and nothing happens. I tryed everything, used Carbon Copy Cloner, i tryed to make a bootable thumb drive, with diskmakerx. 

In recovery, when the SSD is in the dockingstation, i was able to install Mountain Lion, from there, i could boot up fine, no issues. After i place the SSD with a succesfull Mountain Lion, inside the computer, i wasn't able to boot up again, only a Apple logo and a spinning wheel, under it. 

I used 4 weeks to make the computer work, i searched all arround Google, Apple.com, and other sites. But i couldn't find any solution.

Please help me :(
I upgraded several Macbooks with Samsung SSDs. But they were EVO 840. Here is what I noted for myself:


SDD had to be plugged instead of the original HDD. Plugging in instead of DVD gives issues.
The connector is very hard to plug and unplug to Samsung SSDs. It is much easier with Apple HDD. So you have to press firm to plug in the SSD. To unplug, gently use a small flat screwdriver to separate the SSD from the connector. This "hard" connector could be reason why you do not see the SSD.


I doubt that installing SSD in the dock station will work if you try to put it in without that dock station. OS X knows where you plug what. You need a proper device path, which means it has to be connected properly during the installation.