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Mac Mini 2012 Question mark folder

A

adarkenigma

macrumors member
Original poster
Sep 11, 2010
30
1
I think i have screwed up my new mac mini 2012. I installed new ssd with data doubler and now its showing question mark folder. I rested PRAM by plugging in power cords and at same time pressing power button then letting go of power button and pressing it again to restart it. I still see question mark folder. I cant boot into recovery drive either, since I formatted internal drive. I cant go to apple i voided warranty.

can someone upload mac mini os x 10.8.4 dmg some where? will that fix this?
I cant do internet recovery.

can someone suggest some repair service that fix apple mini?

any help is appreciated.
 
Are you sure you reconnected the SATA cables from the disks to the logic board? They're easy to dislodge when reassembling the computer.
 
yes i checked it again and again. I also took out PRAM battery and left it out for 15 mins reassembled everything again, still same thing. :confused:
 
Suggestion #1:
Power down completely (power light off)
Press power-on button
As soon as you hear the startup sound, hold down the option key and KEEP HOLDING IT DOWN.
What happens next?

If #1 doesn't point the way to the answer,
Suggestion #2
Disassemble the Mini once again (yes, I know it's a job)
SWAP THE LOCATION of the SSD from where it is now, to the other position.
You want it to be connected to the SATA connection that the original HDD came connected to.
Re-assemble and try to reboot.
What happens next?
 
@Fishrrman Thanks man I put original hd on bottom and ssd on top for some reason it seemed to work now. I am doing internet recovery now. will update with progress when its done downloading. I read here before that original had to be in its place to work so i didnt think of swapping it.
 
well i came back after 30 mins to see error 2003F what is this now? other thing is how hot this is suppose to get? i touched it and it was really hot. when does the fan kick in? is it suppose to start when you turn it on? cause I flipped left back cover open to see if fan turns on but it didnt. did i mess up connector?
 
Sounds like you may have broken something off the logic board.

As for the folder, you probably just were trying to start up from the unformatted ssd. This is why threads suggest back ups and formatting the ssd beforehand so as to avoid snafus that may occur if you're new to working inside the mini.
 
I did the SSD upgrade to my mini a few days ago and created a Fusion drive with the original HDD. The 2003F error is non-specific, I wouldn't let it scare you to death just yet. Here's what I did for my upgrade:

Used Carbon Copy Cloner (14 day free trial) to make a USB recovery drive. Fusion drives can't have a recovery partition on them, so this is a good fail-safe. Before the upgrade, I did a Time Machine backup.

I booted off the recovery USB drive, created the Fusion drive, then restored from the Time Machine backup. Everything went perfectly.

My advice to you is to create a USB recovery drive using Carbon Copy Cloner, boot from it and then run the Disk Utility to verify/repair your boot drive. Once that's done, either restore from backup or try internet recovery again.
 
I also took out PRAM battery and left it out for 15 mins reassembled everything again
zQyQew5
 
okay, I finally got everything sorted out. I just connected fan again it worked. for 2003f i found that internet recovery needs only one partition to work (took me 13 hrs and 23 min). I didn't want to use fusion drive. I wanted to separate drives one for storage and one for system. I deleted fusion drive installed os x on ssd and now i have sweet file sharing server.

Thanks for all your replies guys.

one down side to this set up is you cant use disk utility GUI. (I am okay with it)
 
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