Problem Installing SSD in new MBP

Question

Hi, I thought this was gonna be easy: installing a new Samsung 128GB SSD in the optical CD/DVD drive of my new 13" MBP. How wrong I was. I thought the H/W bit would be tough, but the S/W got me instead. What I did:
I left the original HDD (500GB) in the bay & put the Hardwrk's Adapter (& SSD) in the CD/DVD slot - tricky but no real problem.
Rebooted & installed CCC, used DU to format the SSD as a Single GUID partition with MAC OS (Journaled) format - seemed OK.
Used CCC to clone Everything on the old drive to the new one, again said OK. Checked the SSD in DU, repaired permissions, etc.
Reboot, Option key, boot from SSD - here's where things start going wrong. Takes 30s to boot, so cannot be an SSD :-(
In DU the original HDD is still root "/" mount point, so the reboot failed and it reverted back to the SSD.
Tried taking out the HDD & boot only from SSD - Mac fails to properly boot. Reset.
Considered that it might be a CCC problem, or maybe a DU error in formatting, so today:
Booted from MAC OS X ML Recovery USB stick, redid the partition step, but did not reformat the drive.
Reinstall ML fresh, was taking too long (c.90m) so I left it running, will check at lunch time...
Have checked here & on the net, and I do not seem to be doing anything wrong, this usually works for most people - any ideas?
I could try putting the SSD in the HDD bay, but it should work from the 6MB optical bay in a new MBP?
Any thoughts on what went wrong or what I could do to fix this would be most appreciated...

Answer 1

Yes, I thought of that (I was prepared). :-) So I put the new Samsung SSD in my PC to check the firmware version first (as you can't do this on a Mac), which was up-to-date, so nothing to do there. I hope this did not cause a problem with the disc (which I am beginning to suspect - ironic because I chose this disc for Mac compatability), as I set it to GUID partition on the PC ready for speed testing (which I then could not do).
Update: the OS re-install from the USB key failed, did not even look like a working drive this time (single folder red warning icon on it), and didn't come up properly on the Option Reboot list. Based on the above I went into the Recovery Partition from the HDD & did another reinstall from there. This time I changed the partition type to something else (Mac), then back to GUID single & reformatted it, Mac OS (J). It is busy doing the OS install, c.90m again, so will check tonight, but do not hold out much hope...
Only option I can see now is a H/W problem with the CD/DVD drive adapter, so will try one last time by removing this & swapping the SSD for the HDD then reinstall OS direct from USB key.
Should this fail I am all out of options, as the SSD is useless as a 2nd disk or external from the MBP. Only option would be to try to clone the OCZ Vertex III 120GB SSD in the PC onto the Samsung, use this in W7, and swap the OCZ into the Mac? Or just give up & sell it on ebay. :-(
PS: On reading other posts on (Smasung) SSD replacement for MBP HDD, I should note that I did NOT copy the Recovery partiton from the old HDD to the new drive, figuring the old disc would still be in the machine (as a data volume), so I could save a little space on the SSD itself, I was told this would not be a problem, any thoughts?