MacMini Wont boot

[SuperMiguel]

So i have a Mac Mini and having issues with it, initially it stared with unable to boot, basically it will sit at the apple logo screen with a loading bar under it and would not boot, i booted into recovery and disk utility when i clicked on repair it failed, so i wiped the drive and reloaded OSX, it finished installing and when i get to the country selection screen i get a spinning wheel and cant do anything, if im fast enough i can click next veryyyy fast, and get to the wireless network screen but then i get the spinning wheel.. I tried booting into recovery again, as soon as i click on the disk repair i get the same spinning wheel... i tried removing 1 memory at the time, and swapping them and no go, also i tried resetting the SMC (command+shift+ctrl) and the NVRAM (command+option+p+r)

Also something that just stared happening is that i turn it on and i get a completely blank grey screen, like nothing on it, resetting the NVRAM again does seem to get it out, but as soon as i reboot it i get back to that grey screen, i tried holding the D key to run diags and it hangs on grey screen..

I tried removed the hard drive and still grey screen, after like 2 minutes on the grey screen i get the folder with the ?

Think i have a bad board?

update: after many many tries i finally got the diagnostics running... im running the extended test.. ill update when thats done

 

[kingdLo]

What kind of HDD do you have, stock? Also more info on the Model you have as in year/specs?

 

[SuperMiguel]

What kind of HDD do you have, stock? Also more info on the Model you have as in year/specs?

i have SSD in it non stock, and its a 2013 i5, with 16GB upgraded ram

 

[SpinalTap]

On the one occasion a previous Mac Mini wouldn't boot (with the ? symbol) DiskWarrior was used by my local AppleStore to remedy the problem.

 

[DeltaMac]

Sounds like your drive has failed.
When you removed the drive, then your mini does not have a drive installed, and the flashing folder will be completely normal (no bootable device detected)
BTW, command-shift-control does nothing on a Mac, at least not a reset of any kind. Mac laptops use Shift-Control-Option, then press the power button. An SMC reset on your mini is just turning off, then unplugging all cables for 15 seconds. No keys to press!
Next step - test your drive in an external case, attached to some other Mac.
Or, the most likely is to simply replace the SSD.

 

[kingdLo]

Yes this sounds like the SSD has failed. Take it out and try elsewhere. Do you have a bootable USB recovery drive?

I also wonder if you have a RAM failure. Seems odd for both sticks to fail at once but you never know. Try with just one stick and then the other. Can't hurt to try. And it's easier than completely disassembling to get to the SSD.

How'd the diagnostic test turn out?

 

[SuperMiguel]

Diags passed, and yes i agree that the SSD may have failed, but why will i sometimes get a grey screen and nothing else? even when the drive is out?

 

[Fishrrman]

OP:

Do you have the OLD drive that was in the MIni before you swapped it out with the SSD?

If you put it back in can you boot that way?