Chosen Solution
I have updated my Mac mini with a new SSD hard drive. After the update, My Mac couldn’t boot in normal mode, only in safe or using an USB boot disk. I have tried booting from the new hard drive, and from the old hard drive, and always the same, it start to boot, and suddenly the Mac restart again. Some times, few seconds after reboot, other times, some minutes later, so it’s very strange. Using safe mode, I can boot from the new hard drive, and from the old hard drive, both have operating system, and the Mac never reboot. I’m using macOS Sierra (10.12.5) in both hard drives. I have 16GB of RAM, I tried to install the original 8GB of RAM that came originally in the Mac, and happen the same. I checked the RAM booting in DIAG mode, and left the system checking memory all the day, and RAM seems good. Furthermore, I have checked the MAC using TechTool Pro, and Etrecheck, and everything seems good, no problems detected. I don’t know what could be the problem, because when the system reboot while booting in normal mode from hard drive, never reboot in the same point, like I told you, it reboot in randomly way. I don’t know what to do. I have removed the NVRAM booting pressing Cmd+Alt+P+R, and no solution. Thanks.
Sounds like you cloned the old hard drive. Booting in Safe Mode but not in standard mode = software conflict. Install a clean system on the new drive so that you also get the repair partition. Then during set up use migration assistant to move your data.
Here’s a few things to try. Is the firmware up to date? Did you do an SMC reset? With regard to the PRAM, I vaguely remember that to do a full reset you have to hold it for 3 chimes. What format did you put on the SSD? How is the spinning disk connected?
Looks like a software conflict. Is it possible to try to restore and reinstall MacOS and restore the files. Start in recover, Hold CMD + R when turning on the mac Click and open Disk utility Select the installed SSD Click erase, make sure the format is set to Mac OS Extended Journaled Click erase, Warning: ALL DATA ON THE SSD WILL BE ERASED. When done, exit disk utility Click Install MacOS Follow the steps, When asked to restore data click Restore from a Time Machine backup or Startup volume Select the old spinning hard drive Click next, etc When done, reboot the mac and test
Just had the same issue with the same machine and HD . I had just imported some mini DV footage via Firewire using quicktime . Dumped the footage to an external and trashed the file on the Mac. It hung and would only restart in Safe mode. I think upgrading to an SSD will fix most High Sierra issues as most I am having are with SATA spinners. All my other machines with SSD work great. Oh the days when APPLE JACK used to fix everything! Cheers! FS
I have a Mid 2010 Mac Mini and I installed a Kingston 480 Gb SSD last year. If I keep it always connected to the energy plug, it boots in Safe Mode only very occasionally, but when I started to use a energy stabilizer that is turned off after I use the computer, then it always boot in Safe Mode. For sure it has something to do with the PRAM, but in my case, all I need to do is to restart (soft boot) and VOILÁ! Everything works very smoothly without any issues so far. It runs macOS Sierra and I still didn’t upgrade to newer versions not only because it’s old hardware, but because I concern there will be problems with Apple’s new file system (APFS) that converts and treats SSDs differently…
I have a mid 2011 Mac Mini. It has a RAID of 2 x 750Gb SSD drives, I think (I didn’t build it). I’ve noticed in the past it runs hot and sometimes it shuts itself off. Lately I haven’t been able to start it up in normal mode, only Safe Mode. Then when I try to restart, it stops and turns off soon after Apple appears. I haven’t tried reset PRAM since it won’t boot. I have unplugged it multiple times. In fact I can only restart it after unplugging for awhile. I’m wondering if it has something to do with the onboard battery, maybe it’s dead. Would that explain my problem or yours?
