Prohibitory sign on RESTART after installing Samsung 870 EVO Sata 2.5" SSD on Mini Late-2012

[kolz]

I'm trying to upgrade my late-2012 mini stock HDD with Samsung 870 EVO SATA 2.5" SSD. At first I was having issue with getting disk utility to detect the drive, i thought it was a loose connector so i redid my setup and it popped up. Then during the OS installation using bootable Catalina USB the prohibitory sign pops up during the restart and i had to manually hold the power button and cold boot the mini. After the boot it continues the installation and landed me on the first start up interface. Everything seems working ok, until I realized every time a reboot is initiated, whether it's me or via system update for example the prohibitory sign always pops up while the system tries to boot the OS. However if i powered off the device and turn it back on the system will be able to load the OS successfully.

I then replaced the SSD back with HDD and the problem disappeared, so I know 100% it's the SSD that causing this issue. Anyone experienced this before? I read from this forum that Samsung has not released new firmwares for 870 EVO. I've checked here https://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/minisite/ssd/download/tools/ and confirmed it wasn't there (one option for 870 QVO, not EVO). Appreciate your feedback and if you know how to fix this i really appreciate if you can share what you did to fix this issue, thank you.

Update 20/9: I have tried using another SSD from OWC Electra 6G, when i tested i've still getting the prohibitionary sign, and it still occurring in the middle of OS install. I thought there's an issue with the SATA cable, but when i put the original hard disk back to the mini the issue disappeared, i do not think i broke the SATA cable. My next plan is to try to use a sata-to-usb cable and install the OS in the new SSD that way, and then try to plug it to the SATA cable inside. If anyone have a better idea, please let me know, thank you.

Update 22/9: I finally got the thing to work properly. The biggest problem initially was that i thought i can just yank out the old HDD out of mini, slotted in the new SSD, and uses the USB bootable to install the OS. Apparently the right way to do, is to keep the HDD in the mini, use SATA-to-USB cable to connect the new SSD to the USB slot, then run recovery mode, and use it to 'install the Mac OSx to the SSD drive via the USB'. Then after that's done I just need to swap the HDD with SSD, and the thing runs flawlessly. So, perhaps the EVO 870 weren't the problem after all. However for this case i have already returned it and bought an OWC Electra SSD instead. So there you go, hope this helps if anyone got stuck upgrading your mini.

 

[barbu]

I would try explicitly setting the system preference for start up disk. I believe I had something similar happen when I cloned an HDD to an SSD, the Mac couldn’t “find” the SSD on reboot until I set it with the startup disk pref.

 

[Fishrrman]

Perhaps you ought to take the Samsung drive OUT of the Mini.
Put it into an external USB3 enclosure and use it that way.

Get a NON-Samsung SSD for use inside the Mini.
Perhaps Crucial or Sandisk...?

Some problems aren't worth the trouble, when "workaround solutions" are easily available.

 

[kolz]

Perhaps you ought to take the Samsung drive OUT of the Mini.
Put it into an external USB3 enclosure and use it that way.

Get a NON-Samsung SSD for use inside the Mini.
Perhaps Crucial or Sandisk...?

Some problems aren't worth the trouble, when "workaround solutions" are easily available.

i understand your point, however this change was due to the old HDD failed on me (it gives that folder with question mark icon during boot). I will check Crucial or OWC, i know they are the go-to for Macs. Thank you.

 

[Charles Butcher]

I've had great success with EVO 850 and EVO 860 2.5-in. drives in two Minis (2009 and 2011) running a variety of macOS versions up to Mojave (yes, that's a hack), plus an EVO 970 in my 2015 MacBook Pro. Of course it's possible Samsung has snarled up with the 870 firmware, but I think it's worth a bit more work before you give up.

I would combine the advice from @barbu and @Fishrrman : put it in an external enclosure, set it as your startup drive, and use it like that for a while. Once the Mac seems comfortable with the new drive, swap it back into the Mini (you'll have that down to a fine art now!). Good luck.

 

[kolz]

I've had great success with EVO 850 and EVO 860 2.5-in. drives in two Minis (2009 and 2011) running a variety of macOS versions up to Mojave (yes, that's a hack), plus an EVO 970 in my 2015 MacBook Pro. Of course it's possible Samsung has snarled up with the 870 firmware, but I think it's worth a bit more work before you give up.

I would combine the advice from @barbu and @Fishrrman : put it in an external enclosure, set it as your startup drive, and use it like that for a while. Once the Mac seems comfortable with the new drive, swap it back into the Mini (you'll have that down to a fine art now!). Good luck.

sounds like a good plan, i will try this out, thank you!

 

[JoeInMilwaukee]

kolz:

I had the same problem with the Samsung 870 EVO, as posted here.

My "solution" was to go back to using the Samsung 860 EVO that I had been using; I sent the 870 EVO back to Amazon for a refund.

 

[kolz]

kolz:

I had the same problem with the Samsung 870 EVO, as posted here.

My "solution" was to go back to using the Samsung 860 EVO that I had been using; I sent the 870 EVO back to Amazon for a refund.

Thanks for the reply, i'll check your post thanks.

 

[kolz]

I've updated my situation now that it has been resolved, hope my experience would help anyone stuck in upgrading their mini with SSD. Thanks for y'all for your help and input. Cheers.

 

[Kaida]

i thought i can just yank out the old HDD out of mini, slotted in the new SSD, and uses the USB bootable to install the OS.

You can and that's what I did, just need to do a cmd-option-p-r first, then boot from USB and set the date in terminal to current date, assuming you USB is freshly downloaded from Apple.

When you first power on the mini, hold option key, boot menu will come out. Then hold on ctrl key and enter on the drive you want the mini to boot up the next time.

 

[for this]

When I replaced the HDD with an 860 EVO SSD, I noticed the SATA connector was very loose when connecting it to the SSD compared to the HDD. The Samsung SSD's SATA connector might be a little thinner than the HDD's. I was quite worried but it turned out fine. I'm still feeling a bit paranoid about it, though.

 

[kolz]

You can and that's what I did, just need to do a cmd-option-p-r first, then boot from USB and set the date in terminal to current date, assuming you USB is freshly downloaded from Apple.

When you first power on the mini, hold option key, boot menu will come out. Then hold on ctrl key and enter on the drive you want the mini to boot up the next time.

Yeah i tried this, it didn't work on late 2012 mini at least on mine. Not sure if this is also OS related or not (was on Catalina at that time). What happened on mine was that it can install, but what happened was everytime i booted from that SSD it's fine but when you want to restart it will stuck on prohibitionary sign during restart bootup, which will go away when you cold boot the mini.

 

[opeter]

I am using an WD Green 250 GB SATA SSD in my Mac mini 2014 and didn't have such problems as you wrothe in your first post. The OS, I am using is macOS 10.14.6 Mojave.

 

[Kaida]

Yeah i tried this, it didn't work on late 2012 mini at least on mine. Not sure if this is also OS related or not (was on Catalina at that time). What happened on mine was that it can install, but what happened was everytime i booted from that SSD it's fine but when you want to restart it will stuck on prohibitionary sign during restart bootup, which will go away when you cold boot the mini.

Were you on a older macOS? I do know 2014 mini has problem with nvme if you don't upgrade o High Sierra first.
Either that or you did upgrade to newer macOS but due to some reasons, the bootrom is stuck on an older one.

 

[kolz]

Were you on a older macOS? I do know 2014 mini has problem with nvme if you don't upgrade o High Sierra first.
Either that or you did upgrade to newer macOS but due to some reasons, the bootrom is stuck on an older one.

could be, ive upgraded it to the latest os before swapping the drive.

 

[LaLone]

I've updated my situation now that it has been resolved, hope my experience would help anyone stuck in upgrading their mini with SSD. Thanks for y'all for your help and input. Cheers.

Hi: How did you end up resolving this issue?..I am having a very similar problem

 

[Pandemic33]

I had exactly the same issue, frustrated every warm boot was a prohibitive symbol. Cold boots were fine. I have an old MacMini 4.1 2010, updated the memory to 16gig and new Eco 870 SSD 500gig. lots of trouble installing High Sierra from USB's, eventually got it installed after figuring out every warm boot needed to be interrupted by a cold restart to progress. Updated firmware, mucked around with settings in the Mac. Then this morning I thought I'd run a verbose mode to see where it was stalling, but just before this I thought I'd run the Mac Diagnostic mode, hold down D while booting. First time I did this the Mac started with white screen only. This went on for about 10 minutes, nothing happening, I forced a reboot. Now my problem is fixed, no more restart stalling !!! No idea what happened, but the apple gods are looking after me today !! Anyway just another thought for those in the same predicament.

 

[churek]

Hi I had the same problem with 870EVO with latest firmware. In my Mac PRO 5,1 could start boot works perfectly but the restart ends up with STOP sign. I'm also having the same problem with Mac mini. Cold start works, reboot - stop sign. After change to sandisk drive it works flawlessly.

 

[MarkC426]

Hi I had the same problem with 870EVO with latest firmware. In my Mac PRO 5,1 could start boot works perfectly but the restart ends up with STOP sign. I'm also having the same problem with Mac mini. Cold start works, reboot - stop sign. After change to sandisk drive it works flawlessly.

870 Evo are NOT fully compatible with cMP.
There are known issues with them when used as a boot drive.