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I wanted to replace the hard drive on the Mac min A1347. The original hard drive is a Hitachi 500GB 2.5inch HDD: 5K500 B-500 C P/N H2T500854S SATA which has only 2 sets of pins on the connector I ordered a replacement hard drive which is a Toshiba 500GB 5400 RPM 2.5 inch hard drive Part#IF107-060-1 which has 3 sets of pins on the connector and the original cable will not fit tightly since the cable has only 2 connections. After booting up the hard disk was not recognized at all as a device, so I can’t even format it. Did I order the right replacement hard drive?

Can you take a hires picture of the connector area of your drive and the cable you are having trouble with so we can see things. Your drive you have spec’ed is a SATA II (3 Gb/s) so it should work in this system which is also SATA II (3 Gb/s) and the spec sheet for it states its a 9.5 height drive so it should fit without any issues. Update The third block is a jumper block for adjustments (far left pins) and is not used by your systems SATA interconnection (data & power). You sill might need to place a jumper across these pins if the SATA speed needs adjustment (depending on which version of Mac Mini you have).

Your machine may have a 6 GB/s bus and the drive you got has only a 3 GB/s. What are the last three figures of your serial number?