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Announced on October 16, 2014, identifiable by the model number A1347 and EMC 2840.

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Second internal SSD not recognized on mac mini

I was running out of space on my Mac Mini (late 2014) so I ordered the Mac mini Unibody SSD Upgrade Kit

I used the external SATA USB adapter to erase the drive and format it to Mac OS journaled, extended. I didn’t install an OS or anything because my plan is to use it as a second, non-bootable drive.

When I opened up my Mac Mini, I found there was no SATA drive, only the blade-style PCIe (250GB). So alas, I went back to ifixit and ordered the Mac mini A1347 (Mid 2011-Late 2014) Upper SATA Cable

I installed the new SATA 1TB SSD and booted up (so now internally I have the old 250GB PCIe as boot drive with Mac OS Catalina, + the new SATA 1TB Crucial SSD).

Disk Utility does not recognize the drive at all. I also tried booting into recovery mode and using terminal to run ‘diskutil list’ and it does not show up. I also tried resetting NVRAM and still nothing.

Is it possible my Mac won’t recognize the SATA drive for some reason, since I have a PCIe drive as my primary bootable drive?

crwdns2886500:0Replace a malfunctioning or torn SATA hard drive cable for a Mac mini. In a 2011 or 2012 model Mac mini configured as a dual hard drive server this cable fits the second or upper hard drive. In a 2014 model Mac mini this cable fits the single hard drive.crwdne2886500:0

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Mac mini A1347 (Mid 2011-Late 2014) Upper SATA Cable

$19.99

crwdns2886500:0Upgrade the storage and improve boot time and read/write speed in your Mac mini Unibody with this SSD upgrade kit.crwdne2886500:0

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Mac mini Unibody SSD Upgrade Kit

$49.99

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No, your SATA SSD should be visible.

Let’s try this take the drive out with the cable and unfold any creases as well as put the system back together you should have room enough to plug the cable in before mounting the fan unit. I use a few books to hold the case with the drive dangling under it.

See if the drive starts up that way. If you have an old HDD you could give that a try as well, placing your finger on the drive you should feel a bit movement when the system starts as the motor starts up. If not you may have a bad cable.

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Thank you for the reply. I took your advice and took it out, plugged it in with the SATA cable totally flat, no creases. Still not being detected by OS. Unfortunately I don't have a spinning drive that I can try so I guess the next step is to order another new SATA cable?

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Thats what I would do. This time let's use an old BIC pen ink straw as a brake form to help in bending the corners. It offers the perfect radius to form the arcs the cable needs for the turns. Creasing the cable tend to damage it.

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Got a new SATA cable, plugged it in (hanging out of my eviscerated Mac, still disassembled) and powered up--voila! It works. Showed up in disk utility as an internal drive.

Presumably when I folded the first SATA cable against the drive I damaged it. Guess those things are pretty delicate. Thank you again!!!!

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Happy it all worked out!

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Sean Dickson crwdns2934231:0crwdne2934231:0
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