stuck hard drive

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Level 2

262 points

stuck hard drive

I cannot remove this hard drive. The computer is late-2012 Mac Mini, Model A1347. i have removed the antenna cage, the fan, and the heat shield. Here is how far I got:

All the instructions I find online say that at this point the hard drive should pop right out. But something is holding the hard drive in place. It seems to be screwed down, but I cannot figure out what is holding it rigidly in place. Does anyone know what it might be? TIA

(In case you are curious, this hard drive is the old mechanical hard drive that came with the Mac. This hard drive died. I would like to replace it with an SSD.)

Mac mini, macOS 12.2

Posted on Mar 21, 2022 6:11 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

den.thed

Level 10

91,732 points

Mar 29, 2022 10:53 AM in response to R_55a

Yes because all of the standard Late 2012 Mac Min's that I've worked on, had the easy to remove drive in the lower bay and only used the left logic board drive connector.

The Server model used both, the left connection for the lower bay drive and the right connection for the upper bay drive like your's shows.

In order to get that drive out, you must remove the logic board, remove the power supply and then unscrew the upper tray that the upper drive is mounted in.

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Answer 2

samtenor

Level 4

2,074 points

Mar 21, 2022 6:49 AM in response to R_55a

Your HDD located on the "upper bay" when Mini is in its position.

Do some research, you should find "dual hard drives" Mac Mini tear down, in order to remove the HDD.

It will involve "removing the power supply" and "logic board" .. etc. 2014 Mac Mini's HDD also is located in that spot.

You can also take a look of 2014 Mac Mini HDD tear down to get the idea.

Good luck.

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Answer 3

den.thed

Level 10

91,732 points

Mar 21, 2022 7:00 AM in response to R_55a

You have to pull everything out (logic board and power supply) to get the upper bay tray and drive out.

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Answer 4

R_55a Author

Level 2

262 points

Mar 21, 2022 7:38 PM in response to den.thed

The upper bay sounds intriguing. Yesterday one of the videos I was reported that the different between a regular Mini and a server was the number of drives. Before then I had not realized that a Mini might have had space for a second hard drive. Not that I would ever need such capacity, but it is does sound interesting.

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Answer 5

den.thed

Level 10

91,732 points

Mar 22, 2022 7:28 AM in response to R_55a

Yea’ the server model had two drives. Plus you could buy an upper bay ribbon cable and add a second drive into the upper bay of a single drive Mac Mini model.

In your case, if there was no drive or ribbon cable in the lower bay? Then I suspect that some one had removed the lower bay drive and cable for some reason.

I would also highly recommend replacing the HDD with an 2.5” SATA SSD instead of another HDD.

Sadly because of the ToU, we can not post DIY links here in the forum.

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Answer 6

R_55a Author

Level 2

262 points

Mar 29, 2022 12:24 PM in response to den.thed

Here is another puzzle. My hard drive was connected by TWO connections to the logic board. One is on the left. I see that one in all the online instructions. But this hard drive has another connection on the right. Something online, maybe IFixit, instructed me to disconnect both cables. I did. I do not know if the cable on the right makes any difference to the removal of the HDD.

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