Bad drive or bad SATA cable?

[Gjwilly]

My 2012 Mac Mini will no longer boot.
Disk Utility (from a Mojave USB boot disk) can see the drive but when I try to format or erase the drive the process never completes. The computer isn't frozen -- the mouse continues to work -- its just that the format or partition process never seems to go anywhere.
If I skip the erase and just go straight to a new install of Mojave, the install also sees the drive and the install seems to complete until the next reboot where the white Apple Logo and the progress bar never moves.
Does this sound like a bad drive or a bad SATA cable or could it even be a bad logic board?

 

[Fishrrman]

If you can still boot the Mini using "an external source" (it seems you have already done that), and once booted things still work ok, there's a good chance "it's the drive".

I'll offer a suggestion.
If you are booting from a USB flash drive installer, your options are limited.
You need a FULLY BOOTABLE TO THE FINDER external drive.

So... try this.
You'll need an external USB hard drive (or SSD), or a USB flash drive that is 32gb or larger.

a. boot from your Mojave installer
b. begin clicking through, but when it asks WHERE to install, click "show all drives" and pick the external drive (instead of the internal one).
c. see if you can get a copy of the OS installed onto the external drive
d. set up a basic account so you can log in and get to the finder.

NOW you can boot from the external drive, get logged into the finder, and then "look around".
The first thing -- does the internal drive "show up" at all?
Can you "get at" any of your user files on it?
If so, GET THEM COPIED somewhere while you can.

Then, you can make attempts to revive the internal drive.
It may NOT be "revivable".
In that case, you must decide whether you want to open the Mini to replace it.
You COULD just get a USB3 SSD, set that up to be your "external booter", and use that instead (leaving the old drive "dead in place").

 

[chrfr]

My 2012 Mac Mini will no longer boot.
Disk Utility (from a Mojave USB boot disk) can see the drive but when I try to format or erase the drive the process never completes. The computer isn't frozen -- the mouse continues to work -- its just that the format or partition process never seems to go anywhere.
If I skip the erase and just go straight to a new install of Mojave, the install also sees the drive and the install seems to complete until the next reboot where the white Apple Logo and the progress bar never moves.
Does this sound like a bad drive or a bad SATA cable or could it even be a bad logic board?

SATA cables on Mac Minis are not prone to failure, but an 8 year old hard drive certainly is.

 

[Gjwilly]

At this point I'm not trying to save any data. I just want a working computer again.
I got a spare drive in a USB-3 enclosure and attached it to the Mini and I tried to install Mojave onto it using the same Movave thumb drive installer. The installation hung just like it does when trying to install to the internal drives.
In fact the light on the external drive actually went out like the drive powered down from inactivity.

I took that same external drive and the same USB stick to my MacBook and I installed Mojave onto the external drive, no problem.
I was then able to attach that external drive to my Mac Mini and it booted just fine.
So I know the external drive is good. That drive came out of the MacMini BTW. The Mini had two drives -- the original mechanical hard disk and a Samsung SSD.
After the crash I removed the mechanical drive and replaced it with a spare ADATA SSD.
So the original mechanical drive is now in the external enclosure and working.
The Samsung and the ADATA SSDs are both in the MacMini.

Both SSDs show in the System Report although the Samsung shows in the SATA section only (lower bay) and the ADATA appears in the Storage section only.
Neither one shows in Finder nor Disk Utility.

Any clues?

 

[Fishrrman]

You probably did this already.
Open disk utility.
Go to the view menu and choose "show all devices".
NOW look at the drive list on the left.

Does this change anything?

 

[Gjwilly]

You probably did this already.
Open disk utility.
Go to the view menu and choose "show all devices".
NOW look at the drive list on the left.

Does this change anything?

I did do that, and I did get the ADATA SSD to appear.
I erased it and checked it for errors and then I installed Mojave onto it.
Same story. The Mojave installation hung in the exact same place. I waited hours.

All I can think to do next is to remove both drives, put them in external enclosures and see if I can install an OS and boot from them externally. If I can I guess that points to an internal problem with the Mini. Either the SATA cables or maybe the SATA controller on the logic board.
So weird that I can boot from an external drive and not receive any errors.

 

[Kaida]

I did do that, and I did get the ADATA SSD to appear.
I erased it and checked it for errors and then I installed Mojave onto it.
Same story. The Mojave installation hung in the exact same place. I waited hours.

All I can think to do next is to remove both drives, put them in external enclosures and see if I can install an OS and boot from them externally. If I can I guess that points to an internal problem with the Mini. Either the SATA cables or maybe the SATA controller on the logic board.
So weird that I can boot from an external drive and not receive any errors.

if you have both upper and lower cable, swap the drives around or do them 1 at a time at different bay, i think that will give a clearer picture of whether its the drive or the cable problem.