Mac Mini - one step forward...

[malada]

... one step backwards.

I pulled six from the garbage. All booted - if slowly. I gave away two.

When I replaced the slow hard drive in the first one, I couldn't get the disk to fit right - but it works. There are several guides to do this online and I followed the one with the least steps: remove bottom, remove four screws, wiggle out the old drive, remove connector, add new drive. The minis are built like laptops and the fit is extremely fussy.

I installed a newish OS and all went well. Then I installed Open Core Legacy patcher and updated the software to almost the newest OS. Go me! One step forward.

The second one I followed the more complex and hopefully would make it little easier to pull out the hard drive. This included removing the fan and a shroud next to it. It didn't make swapping the drives easier by much and when I went to install the fan again - I broke the fan connector on the motherboard. One step backwards. This made me very upset since I had spent a lot of time - more than an hour - carefully doing everything... for nothing. With a broken mainboard it's parts.

So if you every want to replace the hard drive on a Mac Mini - DON'T PULL THE FAN OUT.

The third one I did the four screws and wiggle and was done in fifteen minutes.

It's said that experience is based on the amount of equipment you break trying to learn things. I've learned that at least with Mac Minis - you unplug as few things as you can to replace things.

Still, since the Macs cost me nothing I'm only out the time I spent breaking... learning things.

-m

Comments

[siliconshaman]

IIRC with some mac mini's there is a space fan connector for a fan they never installed. Maybe you could patch to that?

[malada]

Hmmm... I did notice a unused header on the motherboard. I'll have to keep that in mind.

The next task is to rescue the half dozen (or more) mid-2010 MacBook Pros. Batteries and SSDs are on their way.

[radiantfracture]

Very impressed!

[warriorsavant]

Most impressed however much you could do this. Anything over 1 is a win (heck, anything over 0). Agree in general with your "experience ⇆ breaking things," but somehow that's NOT how we are supposed to teach our medical students. Clearly short-sighted on our part.

[malada]

Breaking _things_ is okay.

Breaking _people_ is not.

That is why I'm a techie and not a healer.

[warriorsavant]

Philosophical question: what about sentient robots?

[malada]

Hmmmm... depends. I could piece together arms and legs and other parts but the thinking parts? Nope. You don't ask a physical therapist to do brain surgery. I can't code worth spit.

But I believe sentient robots deserve health care so I'll have no problem working on them.

[dewline]

You managed to keep a few more machines out of landfill or recyclers' hands for however much longer. Impressive.

[fluffybeaver]

I support your work to return the equipment to service. Unfortunately, it is becoming more difficult to do this every year. The wires are getting thinner. Batteries are built-in everywhere. You need a microscope to solder something. The other day I couldn't resuscitate the damn mouse because the connector turned out to be microscopic.

[malada]

Apple is *really* bad at making things repairable. I'm lucky that I rescued older Macs that you can least get *some* upgrades done. Right now I'm working on a pile of 2010-2012 MacBook Pro laptops. About a third are beyond my ability: bad mainboards and keyboards. RAM, batteries and hard drive replacement is no problem. Those little screws are a pain in the neck and the fact that several lappies had missing screws - and the batteries had broken screw holders - tells me that some ham fisted idiot was in there before me.

Still, with Open Core and SSDs I can make them useful again. I hope to donate them to my church when I'm done.

[fluffybeaver]

I'll tell you a funny story. I worked for a while in a computer disassembly service for spare parts. The work is simple, but it requires accuracy. So inside one Macbook, an inscription was burned with a soldering iron:" I love Apple." Someone got really angry.