Use internal hard drive as external hard drive

You're welcome!

It is possible that the drive was somehow corrupted by a bad SATA connector or the PC after removal from the Mac Mini. Which is why it is always a good idea to have a Time Machine backup or a clone on an external drive to fall back on and restore from.

You are most welcome. Let us know how it works out.

astein Said:

"I hooked the old hard drive up to a USB adapter and when I plug it into the mac mini I get an error message that the drive is unreadable"

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View Your Partitions:

Plug this drive in using USB, then boot into Recovery Mode (hold down "command + r" upon boot). What partitions are seen? Also, what happens when you plug this into a Windows PC? Is it accessible and seen?

I would try using a different USB to SATA adapter or an empty USB 3.0 drive enclosure.

For example, I have 4 of these > Sabrent EC UST25 Drive Enclosure USB 2.0 Host Interface External Black 1 x 2.5 Bay - Office Depot and 2 have OEM Mac Mini drives in them.

I have Three Thoughts Based on the Above: the Original Post and Reply 2

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astein Said:

• A." I just replaced my mac mini 2012 internal hard drive with a faster SSD."

This Reads: "Solid state: no" ---> So, no. This is not a SSD (Soilid State Drive).

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astein Said:

• B. "If I try to boot from the drive (hold option while booting) it shows that there is a windows boot available (presumably from the bootcamp partition) but it apparently can't see the OS X partition."

This Reads: "Disk number: three" ---> So, Yes. It is seen by the Mac, but not upon boot in anyway whatsoever. So, mount the drive using Disk Utilities

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astein Said:

• C. "It may be that the drive was configured with file vault but I have configured the new OS X install with my apple ID and attaching it to the same hardware so I would think it should be able to read it."

This Reads: "Is encrypted: no" ---> So, no. Encryption is not getting in the way, meaning File Vault is not being used.

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In conclusion, if this were me and if den.thed's above reply is unsuccessful, then to you might want to get drive operable through maintenance by your nearest Apple Authorized Service Provider (AASP), and see what can be done from there. Proceed from there as nessesary.

---Good Luck - The Littles

[Edited by Moderator]