I've resolved the issue. I purchased a 500GB Crucial SSD at Best Buy, but still tested the PNY SSD, and the other hard drives, which all worked fine. The issue is that somehow the macOS recovery partition because corrupted and is what caused the Apple logo to be stuck spinning forever even when I booted into Recovery Mode. I had to order a 14-macOS USB from Amazon for $50 because I don't have an original Snow Leopard disc, but it worked! I was able to install macOS Mavericks flawlessly. I hope this helps the next person!