Chosen Solution
I installed a new 500gb HDD in my 2012 Mac mini. I was able to start the internet install and got to the screen that asks to chose a drive to install the operating system. There are no drives listed. I tried searching for answers and one kept coming up saying to go to utilities and erase and have the drive journaled so it could be written to. I tried this and my HDD is listed as being 2.01gb and it would not allow me to format it. After some more searches I am a bit lost on what to do next. Any suggestions?
Try running the installer via USB enclosure first, or plug it in as a 2nd hard drive on another computer. If it isn’t recognized, then the drive is defective. Otherwise, somethings wrong with the Mac mini or your drive isn’t supported. Update (02/07/2018) Did you use Disk Utility to properly partition the drive you want to install on first? Use GUID/Journaled.
I created a bootable drive and its the only one that shows up in the install window I just installed 1tb and a 500gb drive in my mini and they don’t show up. the install and instructions from ifixit were easy enough, what else could be wrong?
