New SSD in Mac Mini not found

[Haole Boy]

Working on a Mac Mini Late 2014. Customer wanted spinning HD replaced with SSD. Bought a Samsung Evo 860 500 GB.

Following instructions on ifixit I installed the SSD. Power up the machine and hit command+r to bring up recovery options. Look in Disk Utility, the SSD is not found.

Boot from external hard drive, bring up Disk Utility, no SSD

Remove SSD from mini, connect to a different Mac via USB docking station drive is found and I can format it

Put it back in the mini, drive still not found

Googling finds a gazillion hits saying to use Disk Utility to fix the drive. :-(

I've made sure the SATA cable connector was fully seated in the socket on the main board. All other connections were seated correctly. Also reset NVRAM which did not help.

Any suggestions?

The most obvious part I might have mucked up is the SATA cable, but I was cautious with it. I hate to just buy parts and see if they fix the problem, but I have no idea how I could troubleshoot this other than parts replacement.

Also, any recommendation on where to buy the SATA cable if that seems to be the way to go. Found them for under $10 on Amazon, around $20 on ifixit, $25 on eBay

Mahalo,

Harry Z

 

[timeshifter]

Don't have a complete, surefire answer, but I seem to recall running in to similar situations on some iMacs. Recall that I solved by formatting drive in another Mac first.

 

[overburnz]

@Haole Boy does the SSD boot from external usb connection on the Mac mini? Is the SSD on APFS ou extended journaling?
If you put the HDD back on the Mac mini does it boot?

 

[Haole Boy]

Don't have a complete, surefire answer, but I seem to recall running in to similar situations on some iMacs. Recall that I solved by formatting drive in another Mac first.

I formatted the drive when I had it in the external USB dock (hooked up to a different Mac), but I think I used APFS. Maybe this machine is old enough that it doesn't recognize APFS?? Or maybe I need to actually install macOS on it while it's in the dock?? Just SWAG'ing it here...

@Haole Boy does the SSD boot from external usb connection on the Mac mini? Is the SSD on APFS ou extended journaling?
If you put the HDD back on the Mac mini does it boot?

Since you have to totally disembowel the mini to remove / replace the hard drive, I'm trying to minimize how many times I'm doing this. (Although it was much faster the 2nd time!). So I have not tried using the original drive again. But, I may end up doing that just to prove if it's the drive or perhaps the SATA cable, or hopefully not something more expensive.

Thanx for the replies!

Harry Z

 

[overburnz]

I formatted the drive when I had it in the external USB dock (hooked up to a different Mac), but I think I used APFS. Maybe this machine is old enough that it doesn't recognize APFS?? Or maybe I need to actually install macOS on it while it's in the dock?? Just SWAG'ing it here...



Since you have to totally disembowel the mini to remove / replace the hard drive, I'm trying to minimize how many times I'm doing this. (Although it was much faster the 2nd time!). So I have not tried using the original drive again. But, I may end up doing that just to prove if it's the drive or perhaps the SATA cable, or hopefully not something more expensive.

Thanx for the replies!

Harry Z

if the installed system is older than APFS it could be the reason but it should recognise the SSD all the same in the disk utility

 

[Markverhyden]

Does it have super thin, flat SATA cable? They are notoriously prone to problems when the unit get's opened. Every Macmini HD warranty repair I came in touch with Apple always replaced that cable as well as the HD.

 

[timeshifter]

You might try the old drive just to confirm all that still works.

 

[Haole Boy]

Somewhere around 2:00 am I woke up and remembered how I probably mucked up the cable. New one on order... Thanks for the responses.

 

[Haole Boy]

New cable arrived, installed and SSD is working. Again, thanx for the help