Try reseating the Hard Drive Cable on the Logic Board.
Try an SMC Reset & a PRAM reset.
Can you Erase it by selecting MBR & FAT32 instead of the normal Apple options?
Maybe try using your original install DVD or create a bootable USB installer instead of using Recovery Mode which is booting into Internet Recovery Mode since you have no bootable OS on your system. Maybe the Internet Recovery version of OSX being used has a bug.
What version of OSX are you booting from? You may not be aware of the different methods of booting into Internet Recovery Mode (seems they keep changing it without any notice). I would suggest trying Shift+Cmd+Option+R to boot the oldest version of OSX it will allow, so you can try manually partitioning the SSD by selecting "Partition" and changing the drop down option to "1 partition" (not sure if this is still available in OSX 10.12 or not). If you still have your original install DVD, then try using it to partition/erase the SSD. The newer versions of Disk Utility have been stripped down and may be causing a problem.
You can also try writing zeroes to the beginning of the drive by launching the Terminal (may be on the Tools or Utilities menu). You need to identify the identifier associated with the SSD. You may be able to do so using Apple System Profiler or Disk Utility (select Info), or you can use the following command from the Terminal (you may need to scroll back/up to find it):
diskutil list
Most likely the SSD will be identified as "disk0". Make sure to substitute the correct identifier in place of "diskX" in the following command which will erase the beginning of the drive. If you have any other devices connected, then this might erase them if you choose the incorrect drive identifier. BE CAREFUL!
sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/diskX bs=100m count=5
After writing zeroes to the beginning of the drive, try partitioning/erasing the drive with Disk Utility again.
FYI, unless you modify the OSX installer, OSX 10.13 or newer will automatically reformat your SSD with APFS regardless if you manually use HFS+ beforehand.
Crucial sells a USB to SATA Adapter.
Using an USB adapter/dock/enclosure is the easiest way to determine what is going on with your laptop. With it you can try booting your original hard drive and maybe even recover your data if necessary. Plus it can allow you to format & install OSX to the SSD. If everything works with the USB adapter, then you know you need to replace the Hard Drive Cable.
You can check the health of the original Hard Drive by checking its SMART Attributes. If the RAW value column of the following attributes "Reallocated Sectors", "Reallocated Events", "Current Pending Sectors" and "Uncorrectable Errors" are non-zero, then the drive is failing. If the "Value", "Current", or "Worst" column for the "Load Cycle Count" attribute is "001", then the drive may be failing or is at least on borrowed time. To check these SMART Attributes, you will need access to a regular Windows PC where you can use a program such as GSmartControl. You can also check it on your MBPro if you are able to create a bootable USB Knoppix Linux drive which includes GSmartControl (Start menu --> System Tools).
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