Unable to install OS on Mac Mini (Late 2014)

[allan.nyholm]

I would suggest you took the top drive in the sidebar, the one above "Macintosh HD" and formatted that one to Mac OS Extended Journaled

Just call it Macintosh HD again. It might be an EFI thing

Format with GUID partition table too

Next, see if you can alter the date if you really want Sierra installed.. If you can't create a good enough USB stick on your PC using Transmac.. then the only real option is to install macOS Sierra and find out which macOS is the latest compatible with this Mac mini. Then you would want to upgrade in place once you found the latest supported macOS version..

It would probably be Mojave, without me knowing of having read much of the previous comments here.

In the Recovery partition Terminal from the Utilities menu (after you close out of Disk Utility and see the little window that gives you, probably 4 options on what to do next, go to the menu bar and look for Utilities. In there is the Terminal along with, of course, Disk Utility)

date 1116211618

or which ever were closer to Sierra's release; 20. september 2016

date 1137092016

from here; Change Date in macOS Catalina via Terminal

If you ever wondered, how to change the date in macOS Catalina, or if you have following error message:

Installation Failed An error occurred while preparing the installation. Try running again.

During macOS install/upgrade to macOS Catalina, Mojave, High Sierra, or technically any other macOS Software this blog post is for you.

It's something to try

 

[DeltaMac]

The system that you are booted to (the internet recovery system) is old enough (Sierra) that the View choice is not available (and you can already see both the drive device AND the partitions, so the View menu is not needed)
Your picture from Disk Utility does show an external USB drive, but does not show that drive has a formatted partition.
Compare to the top couple of lines, which has the device model number, then immediately below that, the partition, which YOU named "Apple HDD"
which THEN means that there is nothing on that external drive, no partition exists. Whoever made that external drive, did not make a partition, and it is not a bootable installer-- it's not made correctly.
No system on the "Apple HDD", and no partition on the external USB, so no system there, either.
So, holding the Option key is useless. Your Mac simply attempts to look elsewhere for a boot system, and it defaults to Internet Recovery (the spinning globe that you see). That is the only possibility until you can get a USB externel with a properly installed bootable installer - or any external drive with a bootable system installed.

 

[Fishrrman]

OP:

Looking at the pic from reply 6 above.

You want to click on the top line to select it.

Then, click the ERASE button.

There will be a popup with choices on HOW to erase the drive.
You want:
"Mac OS extended, journaling enabled, GUID partition format".

Then, let the erase go through.

Then... QUIT disk utilty and open the OS installer.

Begin installing, and see what happens next.

 

[RagmanZL]

Oh My God. It is finally working. Thank you ALL so much for all your help!

The last screenshot I sent that showed the disk utility showed the external USB which was the one I created using DiskMaker X. It seems something mustve gone wrong with that one. I found another stick and created a USB boot with DiskMaker X again and this one showed up with an actual partitiion when I launched disk utilities. I powered off the Mini, and powered it back on while holding down the option button with my new USB stick plugged in. Instead of getting Internet Recovery, I saw an Icon for Mojave Install. I ran it and Viola! I now have a working Mini Mac with Mojave installed.

Thank you ALL again so much - this was really frustrating me - I feel very Mac-Dumb.

Is there anything else you all think I should do to this machine before giving it back to my friend?

 

[opeter]

Is there anything else you all think I should do to this machine before giving it back to my friend?

You can install some usable applications like Apple's iWork Suite (Pages, Numbers, and Keynote) and/or LibreOffice, VLC Media Playe, maybe Firefox or Vivaldi web browser (because the inculded Safari will be probably too old) etc. But you should ask her, what she really needs.

Be aware, that you only have 4 GB of system memory (RAM). And also a mechanical hard drive (HDD) in that machine. The later can be swapped out (there are guides on the internet) for an SATA SSD, the machine would be definitely faster at everyday usage. But if you are not brave enough, than don't do it.

 

[Boyd01]

An external USB 3.0 SSD works well with these old Macs, I have the same Mini booting Mojave from an old 256gb Samsung T3 USB SSD, it clocks around 400MB/sec vs the original hard drive which is 100 at best. I use it as a media server for two Apple TV's and other devices, running iTunes 24/7 with home sharing.

I used Mojave on mine because of iTunes, but the 2014 Mini is compatible with Monterey which is still supported with security updates for a little longer. So, if you want to greatly improve that Mini, get an inexpensive USB SSD and (optionally) install Monterey. Otherwise, you could just use Carbon Copy to clone the existing Mojave install to the SSD.

 

[danshawna]

I have the same issue and my only other computer is a windows 10 model. I have a late mac mini 2014 and I accidently erased too much. Please help!!! Thank you in advance. I can facetime with my tablet is anyone is willing to guide me through this. I was supposed to sell this tomorrow. ):