Help with 2014 MacMini stuck on booting screen

[UNCMo96]

I have a late 2014 mac mini that I was using as a headless server for time machine backups, general file server, station for my scansnap to scan documents into OneDrive and plex server. I would remote into it to add files to the plex server but other wise kept it headless.

THe plex server went off line so I tried to powercycle and it was still stuck. I hooked up a monitor and keyboard and saw that it was stuck on the boot up screen with apple logo and progress bar. It stayed stuck for hours. I turned off plugged in a wired windows keyboard (only wired one i have) and the keyboard would not light up on powerup (I figured I'd hold on the shift key to go into safe mode or go to recovery or something).

I'm ok just wiping the server and starting from scratch since the files I care about are on external drives. I read theres a program called apple configurator that I can use on another computer (my primary computer is a macbook pro) to basically erase this one. ALthough not sure if it works on a computer this old? To complicate things my primary computer is with AppleCare since the memory board is faulty and it's being repaired. Any advice on how to deal with this would be appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[Fishrrman]

I'm wondering if Apple Configurator might not be able to handle a 2014 Mini (as in, "too old")?

My suggestion:
Take the 2014 Mini "offline" -- that is, DISCONNECT IT from everything except a network ethernet cable. Disconnect any external drives, etc.

Now try to boot to INTERNET recovery:
Command-OPTION-R
at boot

(If you connect via wifi, you'll need your wifi password)

The internet utilities take a while to load, be patient as the globe spins.

When done, you should see the internet utilites.

Can you get this far?

If so, open disk utility.

IMPORTANT: If there is a "view" menu, go to it and choose "show all devices".

Can you see the physical drive (should be top item in the "list on the left")?

Can you use "first aid" on it?

 

[UNCMo96]

I'm wondering if Apple Configurator might not be able to handle a 2014 Mini (as in, "too old")?

My suggestion:
Take the 2014 Mini "offline" -- that is, DISCONNECT IT from everything except a network ethernet cable. Disconnect any external drives, etc.

Now try to boot to INTERNET recovery:
Command-OPTION-R
at boot

(If you connect via wifi, you'll need your wifi password)

The internet utilities take a while to load, be patient as the globe spins.

When done, you should see the internet utilites.

Can you get this far?

If so, open disk utility.

IMPORTANT: If there is a "view" menu, go to it and choose "show all devices".

Can you see the physical drive (should be top item in the "list on the left")?

Can you use "first aid" on it?

The big problem is that the computer is not responding to keyboard input. I tried 2 different wired USB keyboards.