Mac Mini - Won't Boot SSD Drive

Did you ever get this resolved? I'm having the same issue with my 2009 Mac Mini 2.0. I installed a Crucial M500 and can not boot from USB. Looks like the issue could be that the drive is SATA III and my Mac Mini uses SATA I.

What if you install the SSD internally and do a fresh install of OSX via a bootable USB installer?

I had a late 2009 Mini and cloned when booted to Recovery with Disk Utility the internal drive to a cheap Oz 240 GB SSD and it worked fine when installed internally with the exception at first it would only connect with a 1.5 GB (or similar wording) instead of the SATA II speed of 3 GB. After a while it would use a negotiated link speed of 3 3 GB.

I have seen a very few posts with bootup problems with Mini's with SSDs and especially with the 2012 with the SSD in the upper bay.

From your description it appears that the computer is reading something from the disk that leads to the KB problem

DId you solve it? Im having the exact same issue here!

Same here, I tried everything CCC, Disk Utility and OS X Recovery. The SSD would boot fine externally in both USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 enclosures, but absolutely refused to boot after it was installed in the Mac Mini.

To over come the problem:

I had to re-format and install OS X on the SSD while it was installed in the Mac Mini.

(Luckily, I have an OS X Recovery Partition on an external drive)

If you do not have another drive with an OS X Recovery Partition to startup from:

(then you will need to use internet OS X Internet Recovery to re-format and install OS X)

see > About OS X Recovery - Apple Support

Likewise, the supplied OS X install disc should work for earlier per Lion Mac Mini's.

Ok, I'm still working on this.

You know, this is a 2009 mac mini, I don't have an OS X recovery partition anywere and Command + R do not work on my mac.

I have a Leopard old installation dvd, but it doesn't boot from the dvd either.

Do you have any other idea?

I'm trying to clone the original HDD to the SSD again using Disk Utility, but I don't have any good expectations...

Any comment would be highly appreciated!

Try cloning using the free SuperDuper app

The Late 2009 Mac Mini's originally came with 10.6 Snow Leopard pre-installed and you can not use an earlier Leopard Install DVD. In other words, the only Install Disc that will work (providing the disc drive works) is the original Install Disc #1 that came with that computer.

If SuperDuper (like IIIaass suggest's) and/or CCC do not work....

Then I would try,

putting the old HDD into the external enclosure and the SSD into the Mini,

startup from the old HDD and use that Disk Utility to re-format the internal SSD,

then use the Disk Utilities Restore feature to copy the HDD to the SSD.

note: as I recall, the above steps will only work if the OS X is 10.6 or earlier.

Hi there,

I am actually comforted to hear that someone else was having the exact issue that I have been experiencing recently. That a solid-state drive would not boot when inside the 2009 Mac Mini but would work fine outside was really troubling me. I originally thought it was El Capitan specifically that was the problem as the status bar on the boot screen would freeze at a certain point or fill up entirely but hang just like some other posts I was reading about where the fix involved removing certain extensions. But after fooling around a little bit it seems to be something else.

I have tried:

- installing El Capitan on the solid-state in an external enclosure then booting from it and using migration assistant to copy the user from the computer to it then installing it in the Mac Mini. Migration assistant did freeze the first time I tried this. I had to do it twice.

- re-installing El Capitan on the internal solid-state while booting from the original hard drive in an external enclosure.

- erasing the hard drive entirely while in the computer and installing El Capitan: I have done this from the external hard drive, from Internet recovery, from an installation USB, and also from The recovery partition of another external drive.

- I erased the solid-state again in an external, made a new user, made sure it booted on the external then installed it in the computer.

- used disk utility to restore a stock El Capitan disk image I had and also to restore the previous hard drive.

- attempted to install snow leopard again from a suitable retail DVD, and also from a USB installer I had.

In general something that keeps coming up is that the system boots irregularly/intermittently. It will often not boot from an installer disk or an installation USB or an external drive and will hang, but this was never ever a problem before I tried to upgrade the hard drive. And in fact is not a problem if I just put the normal hard drive back inside it.

My current theory is that there is some sort of hardware incompatibility with the solid-state which is odd, or that the solid-state is not seated all the way in the city connection which is something I noticed putting it in and as I put the screws back in to secure the drive.

Please let me know if any of you have any other insights. Thank you.

Your new SSD is a SATA III drive, the interface on the 2009 Mac Mini is SATA II.

If your drive does not support SATA II, it's not going to work internally.

Get a Mercury Electra 3G drive from OWC...

https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/ssd/owc/mac-mini/2009

Thank you, that could very well be an issue. I have installed SATA III drives in numerous older Macs and never seen this problem before but perhaps this particular drive has an issue (OCZ Trion SATA III, but specifically says it is backwards compatible with SATA II). I have another brand of SATA III handy; I'll see if perhaps it works before purchasing another drive.