Caught in a conundrum while trying to upgrade a Mac Mini (mid 2010) from Snow Leopard to Mountain Lion

Question

Caught in a conundrum while trying to upgrade a Mac Mini (mid 2010) from Snow Leopard to Mountain Lion

Hi gang,

I am in a very frustrating position as I try to upgrade my Mac Mini (mid 2010) from OS X 10.6.8 Snow Leopard to whatever the latest version of Mountain lion is. The reason I am doing this is because the original hard drive died and the Mini sat there for 6 months before we decided to get a new hard drive and revive it.

I installed a new 500GB 7200rpm SATA drive and the problems began.

First I couldn't get Mountain Lion installed as a fresh OS installation (using both a USB drive and a DVD to no avail). It just wouldn't go. The grey Apple logo/loading screen would come up and just sit there doing nothing while the loading icon spun.

I then tried installing Snow Leopard (the OS that the Mini came with when it was new). After some messing around, that got done.

However, a peculiar thing happens when the Mini boots. Everything loads up into Snow Leopard, but although the mouse curser moves, I cannot click on anything or use the keyboard for 4-5 minutes. Then it just work (I am typing this on the Mini). This happens every time.

Now, when I updated to 10.6.8, I was able to load up the App Store and download the Mountain Lion install app. I clicked it and went through the initial copying of files and then the restart, but after the reboot, the grey loading screen would not progress. I rebooted again and held down the Option key to check out the available boot volumes, and all I saw was the installation DVD I had in there for Snow Leopard and a hard disk volume called "Mac OS X Installer."

So I booted into the Snow Leopard install DVD and opened Disk Utility to check things out. I did a verify disk and a permissions repair. Interestingly, the first repair I did gave me the message that the ACL was missing from Volumes and that is was fixed. I read something somewhere which talked about the Access Control List and mouse/keyboard issues. But who knows. When I boot back into the Mini as normal I am returned to the fully-functioning Snow Leopard installation, like nothing happened.

And now here is the kicker: it appears that the Firewire bus is hooped. In the Profiler, when I view the FireWire settings I get the message, "Warning: Unable to list FireWire devices." So I am pretty sure the one thing I cannot do is boot the Mini into target disk mode attached to my Mac Pro and installed Mountain Lion that way.

So to recap: I can't finish the Mountain Lion installation because the install won't continue after rebooting because there is something wrong with the underlying base system, which might be hardware (FW bus) related. I think.

Some things I have tried:

Resetting the SMC
Resetting the PRAM
Reparing permissions
Booting into Safe Mode (doesn't work)
Booting into Verbose Mode to observe what happens (I get the "Can't load the Bootcache.playlist" error, which I suspect is related to the screwed up FW bus)
Trying to boot using Internet Recovery (doesn't work)
Booting into Single User Mode and attempting the "fsck -y" etc. sequence to try and repair the ACL that way

So I am stuck.

I guess the question is, should I get an external HD enclosure and install Mountain Lion onto the hard drive that way and hope it works when I put it back into the Mini?

Any other ideas? I have spent a couple days farting around with this is am running out of ideas...

Any advice would be appreciated!

iPhone 4, iOS 5

Posted on May 12, 2013 3:57 PM

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Answer 1

May 12, 2013 5:32 PM in response to Aaron Hokanson1

Addendum: I read on a post here (http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=420169) about removing some kext files in order to trick OSX into thinking that there were no FireWire ports.

I followed the instructions and removed from /System/Library/Extensions/ the following files:

IOFireWireSerialBusProtocolTransport.kext

IOFireWireAVC.kext

IOFireWireFamily.kext

IOFireWireIP.kext

IOFireWireSBP2.kext

I restarted and BAM...Snow Leopard booted crazy fast and the mouse and keyboard worked instantly.

The System Profiler says "No FireWire ports were found."

So this tells me that the FW port is probably the culprit and is messing up the installation.

So how do I hack the Mountain Lion installer and tell it to ignore the FW port, which is obviously quite dead? Or is there something I can do to the Base system that is similar?

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Answer 2

RRFS

Level 5

4,522 points

May 12, 2013 6:24 PM in response to Aaron Hokanson1

As you did the install yourself, if it were me, I would go through the whole process again ensuring that all the connections are made up properly. I would also use a bright light and magnifying glass to inspect all the connectors. Having done an SSD upgrade to mine and replaced a bluetooth module I am well aware of how small and tight things are in there and they could easily get bent pins or improperly socketed connectors. Also do a Google search and ensure the drive is compatible with the system, some work better than others.

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Answer 3

May 12, 2013 7:35 PM in response to RRFS

Thanks RRFS,

Thinking back, I seem to recall that the whole thing got started with the Mini acting in exactly this way (was a while ago). I think I was trying to install Mountain Lion and I got the grey loading screen with spinning icon and it stuck there. I assumed at the time that the hard drive had died. Maybe the FW port died instead...

I am going to get a 2.5" USB HD enclosure tomorrow and will load up the original drive to see if it is OK. I will then also remove the new drive and install ML onto it via USB and make extra sure that everything is connected properly. Replacing the hard drive in a Mini is incredibly involved. Not for the faint of heart.

I'll post an update afterwards.

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Answer 4

May 12, 2013 7:37 PM in response to RRFS

Also do a Google search and ensure the drive is compatible with the system, some work better than others.

Snow Leopard is rocking on the new drive. Super fast. I assume this means the new drive will act the same with Mountain Lion on it.

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Answer 5

May 14, 2013 9:13 AM in response to Aaron Hokanson1

UPDATE:

So it was just as I suspected. I got my hands on an external hard drive enclosure and installed Mountain Lion directly onto the drive while it was connected to my Mac Pro via USB. Once that was done I booted into it and deleted the FireWire .kext files and then placed the drive back into the Mini.

Worked like a charm.

Boom. Done.

So the dead FireWire port was borking the installation and a few other things. As soon as ML thought there were no FW ports, everything started working.

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Answer 6

BDAqua

Level 10

239,177 points

May 14, 2013 2:15 PM in response to Aaron Hokanson1

Good work, thanks for the report! 🙂

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