Mac mini Model A1176 Hard Drive Replacement

Written By: Walter Galan

Comments: 49

Mac mini Model A1176 Hard Drive Replacement

Difficulty

Moderate

Steps

Time Required

30 minutes - 2 hours

Introduction

Upgrade your hard drive for more storage capacity.

Tools

Parts

Step 1

Power down your Mac mini, disconnect all of the cables, and flip it over.
Insert the Jimmy into the crack between the aluminum top housing and the plastic lower housing.
The Jimmy should reach a stop about 3/8" down.

A spackle knife makes these steps go much faster.

jouniseppanen - 12/01/19

A double sided letter opener or a thin non-serrated butter knife will suffice.

To prenent cosmetic blemishes, place a matchbook cover or similar thin cardboard on the outer perimeter under the “jimmy”.

Mike - 12/04/20

Step 2

Gently bend the Jimmy outwards to pry the crack open a little larger and lift the lower housing up a small amount.
There are several plastic clips on the lower housing that fit into a channel in the aluminum top housing. Your goal is to use the Jimmy to push these clips inward enough to free them from the channel, while gently pulling up on the lower housing.

Patience is your best friend.

Do not insert “jimmy in too far. Marking a line from tip upwards on the tool will prevent too far insertion, possibly breaking tabs or damaging internal components.

To prevent the cover closing back up, small strips of matchbook cover (os equivalent) can be inserted about half inch hold prevent closure.

Mike - 12/04/20

Step 3

Once you have the first side free, rotate the Mac mini and start prying up on the front edge.
Use the same prying motion to both bend the clips inward and lift the lower housing up out of the top housing.

Step 4

You may need to move the Jimmy along the edge to pry up all of the clips. Be patient and do a little bit at a time.

Step 5

Keep working around the perimeter, freeing the clips along the final edge.

Step 6

Flip the Mac mini back over and lift the top housing off of the lower housing.

Before reassembly, make sure no wires are sticking out.

Line up top cover carefully. Gently press down on top cover until top and bottom fully seated.

CAUTION! DO NOT PRESS TOO HARD ON THE COVER TO PREVENT CRACKING THE PLASTIC TOP.

GO EASY.

Mike - 12/04/20

Step 7

Later in this guide you will remove several recessed Phillips screws. Bit drivers are generally too large to fit in the recesses, so be sure to have a thin shafted Phillips screwdriver on hand.
First remove the AirPort antenna (the larger of the two), located near the power button.
Slightly squeeze the two retaining arms toward each other and lift the AirPort antenna off its post.
Squeezing the two posts excessively will surely break them off the internal frame. Work delicately.
During reinstallation, you will have to slightly squeeze the two posts together so they fit into the openings on the AirPort antenna board.

Step 8

Use the tip of a spudger to slightly lift the left side of the ZIF cable lock up from its socket.
The ZIF cable lock will lift about 1 mm and stop. Do not try to completely remove the ZIF cable lock.

Now also lift the right side of the ZIF cable lock up from its socket.

chriZ -

Good catch of the incomplete unlocking instructions. ;P

lamarhavard - 25/12/15

Hmmm... what if I didn't read this before and I removed the cable and the lock sort of broke?... what would happen... would I experience problems? I can still put the cable back in place and push the lock back down with the spudger.

Dan O -

Same. I totally removed the lock , the edges are busted and won't stay in place, How can I get the cable to stay? what's the fix?

Suzanne -

Dan O & Suzanne, hold the cable in the socket and put a dab of hot glue on both sides, It's non-conductive and should hold...worked for me.

lamarhavard - 25/12/15

does any one know, where to get the connector from zhe ZIF Cable?

someone, that preowned my mac broke the holder!

julian gmeiner -

Julian, did you ever find where to get a replacement lock for the Zip Cable. Mine is also broken..

Suzanne -

This is not my first memory replacement in a Mini and I got over-confident and stupidly fully removed the audio cable ZIF lock and assumed I had broken something. But, now that I have read this guide more carefully, I am not sure. I sure would love to hear some detailed instructions for putting a ZIF lock back on.

Is it possible that I have removed it without having broken it? If I have broken it, do I have to buy a new cable? Just a new ZIF lock? A new audio board? This is a 2.0 GHz A1176.

Thanks!

GalvanicMacPro -

Michael, Mine seems to be broken. I bought & tried the Kapton Tape that was suggested & still no sound.

Suzanne -

C’est la première que je doit déverrouiller un câble ZIF. Je précise qu’il faut lever à gauche et à droite, ça force un peu, prendre appui sur le boitier du Mac, comme e montre la photo.

La partie noire reste dans la partie blanche (+1 mm), et la nappe flexible sort par le haut.

Ludovic - 17/12/17

Step 9

Lift the audio board ribbon cable up out of its socket.
If it refuses to lift from its socket, the ZIF cable lock is not fully released. Make sure it is evenly lifted about 1 mm from the socket on the interconnect board.

As an option to avoid potential damage when disconnecting the cable from the ZIF socket and clip, it is possible to unscrew the audio board and remove it along with the internal frame.

Nick Baldwin -

Step 10

Rotate the mini so that the SuperDrive slot loading mechanism is facing you.
Use a pair of tweezers to lift the hard drive thermal sensor cable connector up off its socket on the logic board.
Use tweezers to grab the connector (as seen in the picture), not the wires.
The connector is located under the optical drive opening, next to the PRAM battery.

Managed to leave this connected by flopping back the drive rather than totally removing

pglock -

WATCH OUT!!

separated one of the wires from the connector very easily. i would have preferred to use a spudger at this step. the tweezers in effect snipped the wire!!

mklsvg -

As my experience you should definitely use angeled tweezers as shown in several pictures. To avoid stripped cable deflash sharp edges of the tweezers a little bit. I never experienced problems when using that kind of tool carefully.

Timpetou -

I've had to remove a few of these connectors on iBooks and other small Apple devices ... I've found that, with careful and gentle pressure (working first one side and then the other) using a small flat-headed jeweller's screwdriver is best.

Mike Haines -

I agree Mike.

dixieskettlecorn - 23/03/18

Note where the airport antennae connecting wire comes out from the interior along the top. When reassembling, it has to be routed the same way, or it won't reach its install position.

robert -

If your fan runs at high speed after you complete this project, you have forgotten to reconnect the thermal sensor.

Curt -

Step 11

In the next few steps, you will remove the four Phillips screws securing the internal frame to the bottom case. Included in each step is an overview picture showing the general location and a closeup showing the actual screw.
Remove the recessed Phillips screw near the power button securing the internal frame to the bottom housing.

Step 12

Remove the recessed Phillips screw near the sleep light securing the internal frame to the bottom housing.
This screw is the longest of the four screws securing the internal frame to the bottom case.

Step 13

Remove the Phillips screw from the internal frame near the Bluetooth antenna.

Before removing any of these screws, there is another step needed which is not here:

On the front of the optical drive, right side as you look at the slot-load, is a small blue board attached by a single black screw. This needs to be removed before the optical drive can be taken out.

Mike Haines -

Step 14

Remove the Phillips screw near the audio ports securing the internal frame to the bottom case.

On reassembly, if you don't have a magnetic screwdriver, a tiny dab of grease at the tip of your screwdriver will help hold the screw on the driver so you can lower it into the recessed slot.

pfbloom -

Step 15

Gently lift the internal frame up from the bottom housing, minding the AirPort antenna and any other cables that may get caught.
It may be necessary to pull up near the interconnect board to separate it from the logic board.

At this point be careful that you don't pull out the Airport antenna ... but if you do, just check that it is back before re-assembling.

Mike Haines -

During re-assembly, the internal frame has to go in at an angle ... the back of the optical drive goes in first.

This means that you can seat the fan cover correctly, but more importantly, there is an interconnect board on the back of the optical drive that must be firmly pushed back into its housing on the logic board.

Mike Haines -

Reassembly: Before slipping the main frame back into its place, refer to earlier photos, ensuring proper routing of the WiFi cable.

Steve -

If, like me, you pull the wire on the airport antenna free, it snaps back into place easily. The connector is on the extra card screwed to the motherboard that looks like it has a phone battery embedded in it. The connector is at the top of the 'battery'. This accessory card is the wifi card, so it makes sense that the antenna plugs onto this.

Dan - 07/06/15

Step 16

Remove the two Phillips screws securing the side of the hard drive to the internal frame.

Phillips #2 required for this step!

Javier Campos Delgado - 22/01/17

Step 17

Remove the two Phillips screws securing the bottom of the hard drive to the internal frame.

Step 18

Use your thumbs to slide the hard drive toward the speaker, disconnecting it from the interconnect board.

Step 19

Maneuver the hard drive out of the internal frame.
During reinstallation, it may be helpful to move the cables away from the SATA connector and to hold the internal frame upside down (while supporting the hard drive) to help seat it in its connector.
Don't forget to transfer the foam padding to the new hard drive.
If you are installing a new hard drive, we have an OS X install guide to get you up and running.

I thought I needed to reload the OS starting with the system disks which came with my mini. The problem I had was that the OS at that point would not recognize the new hard drive. The Snow Leopard disks did just fine.

Curt -

excellent instructions of how to remove hard drive

John Towers - 21/08/17

Well, only 5 screws left over! Time to see if it works… (I had to start with your step 12; I’ve put this job off for too long! Wish me luck.

Thanks for the encouragement, and the moral support.

Donald Jackson - 12/10/20

The thermal sensor cable in Step 10 is important during reassembly. Forgetting it will cause the fan to run all the time.

js290 -

Conclusion

To reassemble your device, follow these instructions in reverse order.

Author

Walter Galan

694047 Reputation

16 comments

The foam on the harddrive is attached with an adhesive tape - be careful to peel up the tape from the harddrive, rather than the foam from the tape.

robert -

I seemed to succeed - until I discovered my optical drive had broken. Disks do not mount, after some tries they eject. There was a LOT of dust inside my Mini, I think some got in the optical drive. A cleaning DVD and compressed gas didn't fix it. I wonder if it would be wise to seal the opening to the optical drive -- certainly before cleaning.

This was a failure for me, even though the memory and drive change went well.

John Faughnan -

Can't fault this guide.

* if you don't have a putty knife & you don't mind some scratches, a thin butter knife will do the trick for getting the case off.

*if you plan to replace hdd with an ssd - you may need to rejig some of the internal wires that run around the edges of the hdd/ssd: after I installed the ssd, and returned the wires to the tight track around the side and socket port end of the ssd, and turned the machine back on, there was a high pitch interference noises coming out the internal speaker every time the drive was active.

The solution: make sure the speaker wire isn't where it's *supposed* to be! There are three sets of wires, include the speaker pair. I reversed the positioning of these with respect to the SSD, i.e. I moved the speaker pair to be furthest away from the SSD, and *didn't* tuck them back in under the plastic lip beside the ssd connector port. I turned it back on, and no more high frequency whining whenever the drive is active

Rodders -

I upgraded my 2007 A1176 Mac Mini with a 2 TB M9T drive that I broke out of Seagate Backup Plus Ext. HD and increased my RAM from 2 GB to 3 GB! Success!

Toshi Tazawa -

Be very careful with the audio cable removal the ZIF cable lock is VERY DELICATE!!!

Matt Canepa Jo Canales - 27/05/14

Love you guys! My old Mac Mini mid-2007 (2.0 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo) was successfully upgraded with 240 GB Solid-State SATA hard drive as well as 3 GB of 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM. The process took 30 minutes for both hard drive & RAM upgrade. It was easier than I anticipated. The Solid-State drive is superb making things runs so smoothly & quietly. Be careful with the delicate cables while upgrading. Follow the instructions step-by-step (I read 5 times & also watched the upgrade videos). And TAKE YOUR TIME. Funny, that the OS X install took longer than the upgrade (close to 1-1/2 hours). My next steps would be to replace the Airport card to 802.11 N and perhaps the Intel CPU to 2.3 Ghz. Thanks again!

erg208 - 25/10/14

be careful removing the ZIF CABLE LOCK... I did not expect it to be so frail and broke it even though being very careful since this is first time trying to upgrade the hard drive. having a very hard time trying to find a replacement online.

currypowpow89 - 01/03/16

Je ne vois pas comment remplacer le disque par un SSD ! Démonter le disque, OK ! Mais le remplacement ? (Fixation, câblage, etc... ?)

Jules Gourci - 03/08/16

Les SSD de 2.5" ont exactement les mêmes dimensions que les disques durs. Choisissez-les plutôt quel les SSD sous forme de barrette.

eric - 12/09/16

En aucun cas je ne vois comment installer le SSD (fixation, etc...)

Jules Gourci - 03/08/16

mad props to you folks for the written and video presentation. appreciate the help.

workingyouth - 13/01/17

As far as I can tell, I followed this guide correctly, but my poor Mini was so old that the plastic around the base was extremely brittle, and a number of pieces broke off as I opened the case. Everything inside still seemed ok, and the metal parts of the case still fit together fine, but having replaced the hard disk… it won’t turn on. At all. No chime, no action. I can’t see anything that looks to be dislodged or disconnected (apart from the bits of plastic grille that broke away), but it seems to be completely dead.

I has a sad Mac. :(

Robin Darroch - 11/04/19

False alarm! I unplugged the power supply, left it for a few minutes, then came back and plugged everything in… and away we go! Now to dig up my Lion install DVD... which, because the internal superdrive isn’t working any more, I’ll have to install using a USB DVD drive. With USB 1.1. Because that’s how we rolled in 2009.

Robin Darroch - 11/04/19

Hi, I followed the above steps and switched on. Things looked ok but when I went to install os the new HDD was nowhere to be found on disk utility. Tried putting old one back and same problem……any ideas?

Thanks

Gavin Barnes - 20/05/20

wonderful - thanks

r.holmes - 19/02/21

No problems following this tutorial to disconnect the HD. Mine didn't have the T shaped foam and the spring in the antenna holder. Both may have been discarded by the Authorized Apple Service Provider in the two previous HD changes. What took me by surprise was that the HD slipped away from the socket as soon as I removed the screws. As if the socket didn't hold the HD firmly. Thanks for the clear photos and caution tips.

Carlos Pedro -