Installing Windows XP on Virtual PC 7 for Mac OS X

Virtual PC 7 for Mac OS X comes with a preconfigured VM image for Windows XP. The approach for installing from disk image (.iso, .dmg) files instead of physical media is not so obvious, but here’s the steps that worked for me.

I’m installing on Virtual PC 7 on OS X 10.5 running on a dual G5 Power Mac.

Select the ‘Install from a Virtual PC for Mac CD’ option:

Next you’re prompted to install the install disk:

At this mount if you double-click the first of the .iso images for Virtual PC, it will mount the disk image, and should appear in Virtual PC:

This step seemed a bit flakey for me. If it doesn’t work, unmount the image, close Virtual PC and try again. I also noticed that it doesn’t work with the .dmg images, only the .iso images.

If it does pick it up, you’ll see in Virtual PC it shows the XP Pro disk is inserted:

Press Continue and it starts installing:

It only take a couple of minutes:

When it prompts for disk 2, double click the second of the .iso files:

Once installed, you’re ready to start up the VM:

XP starts up and you can continue through the XP setup steps:

Done!

Mapping network drives across Mac OS 9, Mac OS X 10.4, 10.5 and current MacOS versions

Having a NAS drive on your network is an easy and simple way of copying files to/from different machines on your network, even older machines. I have a small collection of older machines, mainly older Macs like a 2002 Powermac G4 and a 2005 Powermac G5. When working on blog posts like this one, it’s easier to drop screenshots in a central place where I can pick them up from my daily driver MacBook Pro to include them in a post.

I have a Netgear ReadyNAS drive which supports SMB as well as AFB drive shares which supports most clients. This post on the Netgear site says not to use both options at the same time, I’m not sure if this is still an issue, but in most cases SMB has worked well.

Recent Windows PCs and Macs are easily able to mount the SMB share, so no problems there.

OS X 10.5 on the G5 is able to mount either the SMB or AFP drive without any issue, the NAS shares for SMB and AFP both appear in the Finder under the network section.

OS X 10.4 on the Powermac G4 is able to natively mount the AFB share, but can’t see the SMB share.

Mac OS 9 on the same Powermac G4 though is a bit more tricky but still works natively. Go to the Apple menu and open the Network Browser, then press the Connect icon and then ‘Connect to Server’:

Enter the IP for the ReadyNAS:

Connect either as a Guest user or with specific credentials:

Done! Now you should be able to browser the shared drives and access like normal:

At some point I also looked at using a util called Dave to mount SMB shares on OS 9, but at least for OS 9 to the ReadyNAS using SFB this isn’t needed.

Mac Pro 2008: dead ATI 200 XT GPU replaced with not so dead Nvidia 120 GT

The ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT that came standard in the 2008 Mac Pro was a good looking card. I mean, chrome flames?! But unfortunately in this case, mine died:

I primarily used this card only to access the Mac boot screen to switch between MacOS and Windows 10, as my other card, an Nvidia 750ti doesn’t support the boot screen. Once the ATI card died, I was stuck in Windows 10 and couldn’t boot back into MacOS.

Not really needing an upgrade, just a replacement that supports the boot screen, I picked up a cheap Nvidia 120 GT on ebay for $30. Nowhere near as flashy looking as the ATI:

Got the card installed, and it works great:

Turns out the fan on that ATI card was also the noisiest fan in my Mac Pro. Now with the new Nvidia card, my Mac Pro is barely audible. I have 2 SSDs and one 2.5″ HDD, so other than the system fans, I guess with low usage it really shouldn’t be spinning up the fans that loud anyway. Turns out this new card is significantly quieter. Bonus!

Comedy of Errors: Mac gpu dies, no boot screen, Unifi Controller on unselectable MacOS disk

I’m not sure how all these issues occurred at the same time (or at least close enough together to cause issues), but here’s the story:

My Unifi network Controller app is on my 2008 Mac Pro. It has 2 GPUs, the original ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT that supports the Mac boot screen, and a Nvidia 750ti that is a PC card and so doesn’t support the boot screen. The 750ti is my normal gpu, the 2600XT is connected to a smaller monitor that I only use to access the Mac boot screen to switch between Windows 10 and MacOS.

At some point the 2600 XT just stopped working, it doesn’t have any video output from either of the monitor connectors. I’ve pulled it out and reseated it, but it’s just dead. While I was booted in MacOS a couple of days ago I changed the default boot disk to Windows 10 (mistake #1) to access some files from Windows. At that point I started to realize I’d lost a way of getting back into MacOS without a way to get to the boot screen.

Fast forward a few days, I started up my DL380 rack server which I use on a different IP range to the IP range for the rest of the house. I can get to the HP ILO on 10.0.0.2, but I can’t access ESXi which is normally on 10.0.0.3. I can’t get to the Unifi Controller (because it’s on the MacOS disk that I can’t boot) to see what IP that port on the hub has, and running arp -a or using Angry IP scanner is not showing any new IPs getting allocated via DHCP.

My stack of network hubs is under my desk, so getting underneath my desk I realized I’d plugged the DL380 in to the PoE input port and not a network port. While adding another PC to the hub a few weeks back I had moved that port from my 10.x.x.x network back to 192.168.1.x. So now plugging the DL380 network into any other free port on another hub means ESXI still thinks it’s on 10.0.0.3, but I can’t reach it as there’s no route via the port it’s now plugged into.

I need to switch back one of the ports on my Unifi switch back to the 10.x.x.x network, but:

  • I can’t boot my Mac Pro to MacOS because it’s stuck in Windows 10
  • I need to get a replacement Mac GPU that supports the boot screen
  • I can’t switch a port on the Unifi switch back to 10.x.x.x because I can’t access the Unifi controller app
  • I don’t have remote access enabled to my Unifi network
  • I don’t even know what id/pwd I can use to ssh into the Unifi switch

Next steps:

  • Cheap replacement Nvidia GT 120 ordered on ebay for $30.