SSD not found in Disk Utility

[Ken Owen]

Hello:

I have a Mac mini (late 2012 - 6,1) that I upgraded with a 1TB SSD about 6 weeks ago. Been working fine until yesterday. Had it just running iTunes which suddenly stopped, and when I looked over at it, it had rebooted and was on the (recovery?) screen. I selected Disk Utility and there are no internal devices listed. I made sure to select 'show all devices' but the SSD doesn't show up. I plugged in my USB Catalina install drive and rebooted; the mini recognizes the USB drive but I can't reinstall the OS as the SSD is still a no-show.

Various searching for clues on the web tell me that probable causes may be a bad drive cable or a problem at the mother board, and of course, perhaps the SSD has gone bad. I'm planning to open the mini back up and re-attach the original HDD and see what happens; if it is recognized I assume that will tell me the SSD has gone bad. If the HDD is not found as well, I assume I should replace the drive cable and see what I get and hope it's not a problem at the MB.

Any thoughts, suggestions, or things to consider in advance of would be appreciated, and I'll plan to post my results.

Thanks,

Ken

 

[casperes1996]

It's most likely to be the cable I would assume. If the SSD is bad since it's so new, you should be able to claim warranty and get it replaced

 

[Fishrrman]

Sometimes an SSD will just "go dark" on you.
Never to be "seen"... or revived... again.

 

[Ken Owen]

As promised, a follow-up on my SSD issue:

Bought myself a $40 hot swapable drive bay from OWC, removed the SSD to test it using my Macbook Pro; drive not found. Placed a HDD in the bay, drive shows up = SSD dead. Under warranty, replaced by OWC. Re-installed new SSD with no issues so far.

However, a somewhat interesting side-note (while publishing my lousy tech work in public): while I was replacing the fan back in the mini, I heard it 'click' and didn't do a thorough inspection of the cable to the connecter on the mother board. Buttoned it all up, re-installed from backup. That was taking a while so I went grocery shopping. Came back to the mini being so hot it was almost untouchable and running like ****. Turns out that 'click' was only for one half of the connection and the fan had, of course, no power. I was lucky I didn't fry the cpu.

Thanks for the help and suggestions,

-Ken