iATKOS | United Kingdom

Hi everyone. First post on this sub.

I recently got gifted a Late 2012 Mac Mini (Macmini6,2; I think it’s the server model?) which has an i7, 16GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD, and wanted to try and use OCLP to update it to Sequoia/Sonoma, but I'm having a strange issue with it.

Right now the only other MacOS device I have is a 2009 MBP (MacBookPro5,3), so I used that to fill up a spare USB with software to install on the Mini. When I got it I installed OCLP and installed it to the drive, then used a pre-formatted USB with Sequoia and tried to install it. However, midway through the install it rebooted and then booted from the internal SSD, giving me a 30 minute timer. Midway through that, however, I got an error with a blank app icon which just said "an error occoured preparing the software update".

I've been trying to troubleshoot all day, rebuilding and flashing installs to USB and ensuring I have the right device selected on my MBP when building, but the same issue seems to persist regadless of what I try to install.

As of now the last OS I tried was Sonoma 14.7.6 Via a USB, and although it went pretty far, it also seemed to suddenly restart towards the end of the install (with about ~13 minutes remaining), booted from the internal SSD, started the "about 30 minutes left" timer, and errored out the same way.

I've tried about everything I can to run a modern MacOS build on this machine, but I don't understand why it's giving me such a hard time. I was able to install Ventura on my 2009 MBP rather easily (which I also upgraded with 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD), yet this machine is giving me much more headache than I thought possible.

Would anyone be able to push me in the right direction? 🥲