it might be worth seeing if someone else with a Mac could mount the failed SSD as an external drive and see if the file system is still present.
This of course might not be the wisest course of action (for them) if you suspect a virus could be at play.
If both SSDs (new and existing) seem to be failing then possibly it’s something on the Mac itself?
I don’t think it’s virus related. I’m beginning to suspect some issue with the Mac itself that may have bricked the Crucial Ssd and is causing issues with the new one. I’ll try mounting the disc on another Mac when I’m up in London next. Otherwise it’s off to Mac hospital…
Hi Richard,
Sorry to read of the ongoing issues with your Mac, so I’ll just quote my earlier thoughts … might help.
Anyway, 
Thanks Dave. Yes, it was your post that makes me think it may be something similar here.
I’ve had several Macs with logic board issues over the years, some of the designs I feel compromise thermal heat dissipation for form factor/weight/style.
Does your USB still work well?
May not be ideal but for a while I’ve booted an old Mac Mini from a Samsung T3 or T5 USB SSD - these drives are very compact and considerably faster than the Mini’s hard drive. It’s so snappy I sometimes doubt an internal SSD would be much faster compared to the USB attached one.
I tend to make clones of my Mac installation using Carbon Copy Cloner and while admittedly they may not be as frequent as Time Machine backups, I have more confidence in being able to restore these than Time Machine backups.
A bit of an update: I have another machine up and running and have successfully loaded the last time machine backup.
I have tried reading the SSD from the other MBP but it’s just as if there’s no drive. So I guess it’s dead.
What’s most interesting is that if I install the HDD from the 2nd machine in the original MBP, it’s still a white screen and won’t boot. However, if I put the HDD in a USB caddy and then boot from USB, it all boots up just fine. So I guess it’s either something on the logic board, or (I hope) it’s the HDD cable. I’ve ordered a new cable, so we’ll see. If that doesn’t work then it’s off to get repaired. However, the SSD remains dead as a doornail…
I thought they were almost bullet proof at their price, even was considering for my Core…interesting, hope you get it sorted.
Having done a fair bit of research, apparently they’re not quite as bulletproof as we’d been led to believe.
Well, you just have to love the old Unibody MacBook Pro. I took a chance and thought I’d at least try a replacement HDD cable before throwing in the towel and taking the MBP to the repair centre. The replacement part arrived today (£12 from amazon). I made a cup of tea at 4pm, and by 4.20 the old cable was out, the new cable in, and while the bottom was off I also decided to undo the fan assembly to clean it out. At 4.30 I had it all back together and tentatively pressed the power button. At first white screen… Nooooo! But wait… After 10 seconds or so the apple appeared and it booted up! Hooray!
So I now have my MBP back to working order again. I’ve just ordered a new replacement SSD (a 1TB Samsung for just over £80) which should arrive within the next day or two. Only issue still to resolve is the old Crucial SSD that appears to be totally dead and not recognised. I reckon I might take that in to the local computer shop and see what goodies they can throw at it to see whether they can get it to be recognised.
Bit by bit, things are starting to look up again…
Richard, good news indeed.
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