I took the 540 spin drive out of a new cheap laptop and decided to put an old SSD in.  Yes it totally makes a differnce.  However, when trying install off the USB drive, windows would not see the SSD I just installed.  After a number of trying and lots of searching, I found the answer.  So I’m posting it so some person in the future who runs into this problem too.

 

Does it show the SSD at all? I would check to see that it’s indeed being picked up by the BIOS and if not, check the cables.
Occasionally, Windows setup can chuck a fit when it discovers a drive with an invalid MBR/boot sector and won’t install to it. To fix this, you could try the following
1.Boot up Windows 7 disc.
2.When the welcome screen comes up on Windows Setup, press Shift + F10, which will display a command prompt.
3.Type “diskpart” (no quotes) and press enter.
4.Type “list disk” and press enter.
5.Hopefully you can see your SSD in the list. You should see a number identifying it. Now type “select disk X” (where X is the number identifying your SSD) and press enter.
6.Type “clean” and press enter. This will write a blank MBR, YOU WILL LOSE ANY DATA ON THE SSD if you did have anything on it.
Hopefully one of these tips helps :