2012 Mini lost internal

[Black]

Robert M wrote:
Black,

Have you tried booting off a different disk (spinner/SSD/flash drive) and seeing if the computer even shows the internal drive as connected? My brother had an iMac with a similar situation. He booted off a clone backup and t turned out the machine recognized the internal drive was connected but couldn't mount it due to errors. Tried fixing the drive but it failed. The directory got hosed beyond repair. He was able ot nuke and pave the drive and then restore from a clone. No problems since.

FWIW, if you must go back into the machine, I'd just disconnect the internal drive and, if you're going that far, remove it. Drop it in an external and take it from there. Same suggestion I'd made to Jerry and what I'd do myself if it was my own machine.

Robert

I moved right over to an external backup SSD which is now my boot drive. No trace of the internal. Runs absolutely fine off the external, so was thinking I was going to fish that SSD out of there and leave it empty for the rest of its life. I really don't think a restart killed the SSD.