It has begun!! Operation Mini Resurrection - I have it open!

[gadje]

welcome

[Jerry®]

gadje wrote:
welcome

Is this the cable to the spinner that I just unplug? It’s a little unclear in the instructions online

[Jerry®]

gadje wrote:
[quote=Jerry®]
[quote=gadje]
OWC has excellent videos on this topic, I am not sure what is unclear.

https://eshop.macsales.com/installvideos...nonserver/

That video should show you how to get to the second drive.

But I would suggest to leave the second drive in, the hard drive and use it as additional storage.

That is how I have my mini set up; 1 TB SSD and 1 TB Spinner.

The problem being I dont know which of the drives are bad - the 1TB spinner and/or the 128GB SSD. So I was going to remove both and just put the 980GB SSD in where the 128GB SSD was
Ah, OK. You can leave the1 TB HD in there but disconnected if you want to save some trouble.

So, do I have to remove the logic board to unplug the spinner drive as it shows in the OWC videos and on I iFixit or can I simply unplug it from the logic board and leave it in? If so, is this the cable that I unplug?

[gadje]

That is the power supply connector to the Logic board.

You only need to disconnect the SATA connector

https://youtu.be/rq4PGlPulUs?t=150

Figure out which one is from the top and which one is from the bottom drive (as you have it upside down). Leave the cable disconnected.

Looking at this video, it seems the connector on the LEFT is for the top (1st) drive, the SSD, which you want to connect, and the connector on the RIGHT is fir the bottom (2nd) drive, the HD, which you want to leave disconnected.

https://youtu.be/rlhMCSb21LA?t=155

Just be careful how you connect the Airport cable back, that COAX connector is small, and also how you put the grille, it's hard to slide in, I don't recall the details but I think there is a small tab that has to go under the edge and that is what took me a few minutes to get right when I did this surgery.

[gadje]

You should stream this LIVE on Youtube so we could all get some entertainment out of it and leave comments in REAL TIME

miley-laughing001:

[Jerry®]

gadje wrote:
You should stream this LIVE on Youtube so we could all get some entertainment out of it and leave comments in REAL TIME

miley-laughing001:

LOL good idea - I actually was thinking about doing that

[pdq]

I know this multiple-advice thing is confusing, but see my edit above.

The lower drive is may still be good, and he’d be essentially throwing that away if he disconnected it. If it’s the 128 SSD, no big deal, but if it’s the 1TB spinny, that’d be a lot of extra room for pix, music, video, or a backup, etc.

So I’d say don’t disconnect the lower drive now; install the new 960 in the upper drive bay, and reboot in recovery mode. See if the lower drive is seen; if it is, erase it, and you either have a second (internal) drive, or put them together into a Fusion Drive (which Disk Utility used to be able to do at least).

If the lower drive is truly dead, you can still open in back up and disconnect it, if y’all think this is necessary. He’s opened the Mini once, and now he knows how- reopening will take 5 minutes.

[Jerry®]

pdq wrote:
Dunno. Seriously, look at the ifixit page. They’re generally excellent.

Edit: or…

just put your “new” 960GB SSD drive in the bay you now have access to. Reassemble. Reboot from an external drive, or a USB installer, or one of the Mac recovery options. Then you’ll have access to Disk Utility, and you may be able to see the original drive you left in. (If it’s dead, it probably won’t appear in Disk Utility, but I think you should be able to leave the dead drive in place.) If it’s alive, and was configured as a Fusion Drive, you’ll probably have to erase it.

I presume you will want to install a fresh copy of the MacOSX on the new 960GB drive. Then you’ll have two separate drives, with a larger amount of total space (either 960+1000GB, or 960+128GB).

Alternately, you might be able to do a Fusion Drive again (a single logical volume) that appears like one, larger drive to the system and on your desktop. If so, do that before you fresh install MacOSX.

Do you have a separate backup of your original drive contents before the old setup died?

My backup is a Time Machine backup. SO, if I am understanding you correctly I can keep the 1TB spinner in and connected, connect the 980GB SSD where the 128GB SSD was, put it all back together and see if the 1TB Spinner is dead or alive. If dead I can just leave it in and use the 980GB SSD has the main drive? OR if the 1TB spinner drive IS dead, do I need to open it back up and disconnect it and leave it in? Here's a picture of what I believe are the connectors for each drive - so if the 1TB Spinner is truly dead, I would unplug it (the part I am holding in the picture) and just leave it in?

[gadje]

If the HD failed, it may or may not affect the rest of the machine. I don't think we can tell until you try it.

Did you ever try to boot from an external HD and see what Disk Utility says about the internal drives?

[Fritz]

I like the OWC vid better. Hot babes.

Whatever do you, don't leave the forceps in the patient.

And a sacrifice to Hephaestus.