Now I got a popup, your photos from cloud are now in "C:\Users\Computername\Pictures\iCloud Photos\Photos" and there they are :D - but with a cloud Icon, so the thumbnail is downloaded. size on disc is 0kb :-) need to check how to download them fast - could rightclick the folder an select "always keep on this device" this should do it :) - yep it's downloading

nope, it is not listing my device in iTunes, I installed iCloud on windows and on the path you mentioned I do have 4.000 pics out of 12.000. (I had icloud installed before once, must have synced at that time. Currently wasn't able to sync the rest.) I do have full sync enabled in photos on my device, so all should be in the cloud.

nope, it is not listing my device, as written in the documentation. Even though I allow "trust device" on my iPhone.

Command option p r sure, my mistake

No chance for me to get to the utility menu.

When releasing the command option p r combination it will boot me straight to the login screen. Is this expected ? And then boot using command r and hope to get to the disk utility option ?

Would like to erase first. I resetted an old mac book pro last week without issues (but date update haha). This mac mini drives me crazy ;)

thank you sir! only all steps (date and recovery mode helped)