Mac mini 2012 wont boot from new SSD

[macindian]

I have late 2012 mac mini with an i5, 4 GB of ram and the standard 500GB HDD. The system had really slowed down do I decided to upgrade to and SSD drive. I cloned the current drive using CarbonCloner. I bought a crucial 275GB SSD and cloned the HDD using CarbonCloner. I think I did everything correctly, however I just can't boot from the new SSD when it is installed in the internal drive bay.

I don't know why, the scenarios

1. I can boot from the new SSD when connected via USB
2. I can boot to the existing HDD when it is connected in the drive bay
3. I can read the SSD when I boot from the current HDD via USD
4. I just can't boot via the SSD when it is connected in the internal drive bay. - I don't get any errors. I just get the boot black boot screen with the apple logo and the B&W slider and it just does not complete booting. I have waited for 12 hours to complete this but after getting to about half the way, it will just get stuck not progress. Is there anything I am doing wrong. How do I fix this?

 

[Richard8655]

I had all kinds of problems with my 2012 Mac Mini after replacing the HD with an SSD. The suggestion then was reformat the SSD again and reinstall OSX in internet recovery mode. That failed, so took it into an Apple Store where they checked the SSD to confirm no hardware issues, ran a heavy duty disk repair utility (forgot the name), then installed Sierra from their image (free service). Running perfect since then.

 

[macindian]

Thanks @Richard8655 will try that, i have already formatted and reinstalled the OS, does not help. However trying to boot from a clone. If nothing else works will try a fresh install

I had all kinds of problems with my 2012 Mac Mini after replacing the HD with an SSD. The suggestion then was reformat the SSD again and reinstall OSX in internet recovery mode. That failed, so took it into an Apple Store where they checked the SSD to confirm no hardware issues, ran a heavy duty disk repair utility (forgot the name), then installed Sierra from their image (free service). Running perfect since then.

 

[Bart Kela]

Hi, I don't know if this will help, but I had problems installing Sierra 10.12.3 on my Mac mini 2010. Standalone upgrade installer, combo installer, App Store upgrade all failed, left my system at 10.12.2.

Finally, someone here posted a comment about a similar issue and mentioned that maybe the recovery partition was out of date. I don't remember where that post was, but it is basically the same as these instructions, you just need to download the latest Sierra installer.

Anyhow, by following these basic instructions, I was able to upgrade the recovery partition from 10.12 to 10.12.3. After doing so, my Mac mini successfully took the 10.12.3 Combo Update.

I don't know why that was the case, but it worked for me. Might be something to try before you completely reformat your SSD.

Good luck.

 

[Fishrrman]

OP:

Open system prefs, select "startup disk". Do you see "the presence" of the SSD (when mounted internally)? If it doesn't "show up", then the Mac doesn't see it as being bootable.

If nothing else works, do this:

Put the SSD into a USB3 enclosure that supports UASP.

Boot and run that way, let it serve as your "external booter", and be happy.

I've been running my late-2012 Mini for FOUR YEARS this way, and I'm still happy.