Broken Harddrive-Old Windows

J

Jiraiyaraj

Registered
Intel mac mini 1.66Ghz,
Mac OS X Tiger 10.4.11,
512 MB RAM,
64 MB VRAM,
Hard disk-55 GB
Hard Drive-CD-RW/DVD-R= which was broken year ago
And year or two ago i had:
Windows XP installed via Bootcamp utility from tiger, and then my big stupid bro installed vista by removing XP.......then the hard drive broke and now i do not have drivers for vista as i've drivers for only xp which was created by boot camp.........and now the boot camp is expired.......and is there anyway to install xp again..............

PLS PLS PLS PLS PLS PLS PLS PLS PLS PLS PLS PLS help........?!?!??
THANK YOU EVERYONE..............
 
Going to have to upgrade to Leopard to run bootcamp again. Leopard comes with bootcamp setup assistant and drivers. Otherwise you could run Windows through a Virtual Machine such as Parallels, VMWare Fusion, or the open source app by Sun Microsystems, VirtualBox http://www.virtualbox.org/
 
but my hard drive is broken...and i don think i'm going to upgrade to leopard.........can rEFIt help solve my problem
 
I replied to your PM about rEFIt. Their Myths and Facts section should answer your questions:
http://refit.sourceforge.net/myths/

As for the hard drive, how do you mean that it's "broken?" Does it boot at all? Does it make odd, repetitive clicking sounds? Is it "broken" because it won't boot into Windows anymore? We need some more specifics on that. Just because it won't boot into Windows doesn't mean that the hard drive is broken.

In the meantime, you might want to give djackmac's recommendation a try. VirtualBox should allow you to access your installed Windows partition and run from within Mac OS X without having to reboot.
 
that virtual sounds good i'try that



and whenever i insert a cd/dvd it spits out........it wont read at all......its like the drive reads a disk like 1 in 100 times of try......i've already vista installed.....and windows too not reading any disc.......i gave the mac mini to apple service centre and they told it cant be repaired cause there is a mechanical problem....which they didnt xplain

I thank you for replyin
 
Jiraiyaraj said:
that virtual sounds good i'try that



and whenever i insert a cd/dvd it spits out........it wont read at all......its like the drive reads a disk like 1 in 100 times of try......i've already vista installed.....and windows too not reading any disc.......i gave the mac mini to apple service centre and they told it cant be repaired cause there is a mechanical problem....which they didnt xplain

I thank you for replyin
Click to expand...

If you have another Mac you could install the disk in its optical drive. Then boot that machine into Target disk mode. Then connect through firewire to your mini. Then boot the mini using the option key. Then you should hopefully see the option to boot from the Leopard installer that way. I would make sure the Mac you are using in Target disk mode is intel based.
 
and sorry......i don have another mac.......and could explain how to install using virtualbox,.......thank you again......
 
If I'm not mistaken (since I haven't used VB in OS X yet), all you need to do is install VirtualBox on your the Mac OS X side and then point it to use the physical partition that contains the Windows OS on it.
 
In Vbox hit 'New', select the OS and give the VM a name, select the memory availabel to it on the next panel then on the screen after that you can hit 'existing' to use an existing VM. From the look of it that VM must be in /Users/YOURUSER/Library/VirtualBox/HardDisks/ though
 
To nixgeek:
Awesomely super sensationalistic bro.......you gave me a great idea to solve my problem.......and u mean i have to install VB on mac and install files from windows partition......
 
To ora:
i'm grateful......thank u for seeing this thread and replying.....since i dont kno anythin or that much abt VB.......and u mean that using VB that i can install xp on an already existing windows partition.....through a pen drive.......????

I'm kinda little back knowledged about computers
Click to expand...
 
the main problem with already existing windows vista is that i cant get drivers for it.....instead i've the drivers for windows xp......which was created by bootcamp in 2006 or something.........till now i;ve only 10.4.11......and my financial status wont allow me too upgrade to leopard
 
Regardless of what you have installed in the other partition (Vista or XP), you should be able to load it up through VirtualBox (aka "VB" for short for the purposes of this thread). In fact, you can even wipe Vista from that physical partition through VB by having it perform the Windows XP installation. Once you have that installed there, you can install the Guest Additions package that comes with VB into your newly installed XP system. That will give it the drivers it needs to run optimally through VB.

The directions that Ora gave you are if you want to create a virtual disk image where you can install XP on. However, I believe that VB will allow you to use an actual, physical partition on the hard drive.

Let me know if this still doesn't make sense to you.
 
yeah......now i'm very very clear.......and thank u.....i'll tell u if i have any problem.....on the other hand....will the VB damages any data on mac partition if i fail to install win??????
 
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