Macintosh HD drive not showing using Disk Utility / Not able to reinstall Mac OX

I've been trying to reinstall Mac OS on my Mac Mini (Late2014). When I goto the Disk Utility, I only see the Mac OSX drive, not the regular Macintosh HD drive I've come to expect. When I goto reinstall the Mac OS, there is no drive for me to select. I've clicked around and can't seem to find the hard drive anywhere. Furthermore, the Mac OSX drive is about 1/2 the size of the total drive. Is my hard drive dead? Any solutions? Here are some pictures. Any ideas would be great. Thanks!



Posted on Oct 27, 2023 1:03 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Oct 27, 2023 3:41 PM

It appears to me that the internal drive has failed and is not communicating with the OS at all.

The only thing Terminal sees is the disk image "OS X Base System". This is a required volume on every Mac, used in the background to facilitate booting, but it is not user accessible. Generally speaking that volume is to be ignored.


There should be another device, the APPLE HDD... (or SSD), with the associated startup volume "Macintosh HD" and others.


I do believe you're going to need to replace that internal drive. It's an involved process best undertaken by a skilled tech. If you're interested in learning about the process, the good folks at OWC/macsales have videos about it.


A good option would be to buy an external ssd drive, format it for Macintosh, install macOS on that and use it as the startup drive going forward.

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Oct 27, 2023 3:41 PM in response to myron296

It appears to me that the internal drive has failed and is not communicating with the OS at all.

The only thing Terminal sees is the disk image "OS X Base System". This is a required volume on every Mac, used in the background to facilitate booting, but it is not user accessible. Generally speaking that volume is to be ignored.


There should be another device, the APPLE HDD... (or SSD), with the associated startup volume "Macintosh HD" and others.


I do believe you're going to need to replace that internal drive. It's an involved process best undertaken by a skilled tech. If you're interested in learning about the process, the good folks at OWC/macsales have videos about it.


A good option would be to buy an external ssd drive, format it for Macintosh, install macOS on that and use it as the startup drive going forward.

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Macintosh HD drive not showing using Disk Utility / Not able to reinstall Mac OX

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