Step-by-step guide to getting it all to work.

This is the magic driver zip that has all the drivers necessary to get pretty much the entire Mac Mini rocking:

mini.drivers.all.zip

Here's a couple pics to prove the stuff is all installed. We're aware you can't be sure that everything is working based on these screenshots, but you'll have to take our word for it.

Device Manager Screenshot (top)
Device Manager Screenshot (bottom)

The "unknown devices" are exactly that to us at the moment. Unknown. We believe that one of them is probably the IR receiver, but beyond that, not the foggiest idea. The USB HID that has an error has been that way since the first install. Don't know what it is, or why it's got an error, but everything on the machine works like a charm. We've connected to a WiFi network, used the gigabit, run Google Earth in DirectX mode... It's a fully functional Windows XP box.



How-to

This is a step-by-step from everything after the Mac OSX Install. You should have already made your XP CD and copied your xom.efi to the OSX side and be seeing the boot menu. There is an alternative xom.efi floating around the OnMac forums. We did NOT use it. This guide uses the ORIGINAL xom.efi distributed by OnMac. If you're having trouble getting there, please refer to the original instructions to get that far. We followed them exactly up to beginning the XP install. They are available from the OnMac.net Wiki here: OnMac HOWTO

Anecdotally, we found that we could create working XP CDs from both a retail disc and a Volume License Key disc, but our final install was made using the Volume edition.

Quick language guide. From here on in, the word "voodoo" will refer to moderately complex and/or unexplainable steps required to make something work. If a step says "no voodoo" it means there are no tricks. Just do what you would do with any other Windows machine.

  1. From the outcome of the process, we believe that these steps will work:
    1. Upon seeing the boot menu, press F4 to enable the console and then F7 to access the video mode editor.
    2. Type 640 at the first prompt, then 480 at the second, and then press return at each of the following until you see "0. Boot Mac".
    3. Press the down arrow to change it to "1. Boot Windows".
    4. Immediately after pressing enter to boot Windows, press and hold F6. You should see many lines of unintelligible stuff.
    5. Eventually, you should see a dash (-) appear by itself with a cursor after it. You can release F6. Type a lowercase g, and press enter. You may be greeted by another dash. Press enter again. So far, we haven't noticed any ill effects to pressing enter any time the console seems to hang. Don't be afraid to press enter.
    6. Eventually, you should see "Patching Succeeded". This is a good sign. Wait a bit longer and the Windows installer will start. If you've ever installed Windows this will look familiar.
    7. When you see the partition select screen, choose the FAT32 partition to install on. Note: Do NOT edit partitions from the Windows installer. Only choose the FAT32 partition.
    8. Format the partition to NTFS if you wish, we did.
    9. Windows setup should begin the first phase of file copying. It will reboot properly when complete.
     However, these are the exact steps we followed:
    1. From the boot menu, choose the Windows logo and press enter. IMMEDIATELY following enter, press and hold F6. The boot process should begin, with many lines of unintelligible stuff.
    2. Eventually, you should see a dash (-) appear by itself with a cursor after it. You can release F6. Type a lowercase g, and press enter. You may be greeted by another dash. Press enter again. So far, we haven't noticed any ill effects to pressing enter any time the console seems to hang. Don't be afraid to press enter.
    3. Eventually, you should see "Patching Succeeded". This is a good sign. Wait a bit longer and the Windows installer will start. If you've ever installed Windows this will look familiar.
    4. When you see the partition select screen, choose the FAT32 partition to install on. Note: Do NOT edit partitions from the Windows installer. Only choose the FAT32 partition.
    5. Format the partition to NTFS if you wish, we did.
    6. Windows setup should try to start copying files to the drive. It will hang. This is not a bad sign. Hard reset the Mini.
    7. When the boot menu appears, hit F4. This will drop you to a text console. Press F7 to activate the video mode editor. Type 640 at the first prompt, then 480 at the second, and then press return at each of the following until you see "0. Boot Mac".
    8. Press the down arrow once to change to "1. Boot Windows" and press enter.
    9. Windows setup should begin again shortly. Perform setup as usual. It will reboot when complete.
  2. After you hear the Mac startup ding, press and hold the left mouse button on your mouse. Continue holding it until the CD ejects. Choose the Windows logo from the boot menu and the second phase of Windows setup should begin. It will prompt you to reinsert the CD. Do so.
  3. When the second phase completes, it will reboot again. Again, hold the left mouse button following the startup ding to eject the CD.
  4. The final phase of Windows setup should complete. Make your user accounts and whatnot, and it should drop you to a desktop.
  5. You will now need to get the mini.drivers.all.zip file copied to your Mac Mini. We used a USB keychain, but a CD-R/RW would also serve fine.
  6. At this point we believe you can install the drivers in any order, but this is the exact order we chose. First, install the Marvel ethernet drivers. No voodoo is required. Reboot when complete, even if you aren't asked.
  7. Now we tackle the video drivers. Judging from the final results of this process, you should simply be able to install the video driver marked "old" and it should just work. However, the first time we got it to work, we used a more intricate process. This is that process:
    1. Open device manager and disable both of the default video devices. Reboot.
    2. Install the video driver marked "new". Reboot.
    3. Open device manager and enable the top video device, and then the bottom video device. The computer will crash. This is good. It will reboot.
    4. Open device manager again and disable both video devices. One may already be disabled.
    5. Install the video driver marked "old". It will ask if you want to downgrade the driver. You do. Reboot when prompted.
    6. When the machine reboots, you should have proper video devices, both enabled and have the power to change the resolutions and whatnot from the Display control panel.
  8. Install the chipset drivers. No voodoo required. Reboot when prompted.
  9. Install the wireless drivers. Necessary voodoo:
    1. Run the setup package in the Wireless folder. It will extract the Lenovo wireless drivers to your HD (C:\DRIVERS\WIN\WLLANATH\WINXP_2K).
    2. Open the device manager and choose the unknown "Ethernet Controller". It be under "Unknown Devices" with a big yellow question mark as its icon. Right click and choose "Update Driver".
    3. Do not allow it to check Windows Update, tell it not to search for drivers and choose Network Adapter from the list of device types.
    4. Click the browse button to pick your driver location. Browse to the folder where the drivers are (C:\DRIVERS\WIN\WLLANATH\WINXP_2K) and you should see an inf file to click there.
    5. When you choose the inf, you will be prompted with LOTS of choices. You want the "11a/b/g Wireless LAN Mini PCI Express Adapter".
    6. Hit next, do a little dance, reboot when it completes, even if it doesn't ask.
  10. Install the audio drivers. No voodoo required, except that, through a cosmic joke, the ports are assigned differently by the Windows driver. So, sound will come out the Microphone port. The price you pay. There are also some reports that the optical digital port works. Not having any optical digital hardware to attach to, we can't claim that.
  11. Run the "install.cmd" in the btinstall folder. It will pop up a shell window briefly, and then close it. Moments later the "Found New Hardware" thing will start going nuts. It stops eventually.
  12. At this point, I'd crack a cold one and light a stogie, cause you, my friend, are now facing a working Mac Mini running Windows XP. Huzzah!

v1.2 Last Edited: 10:49PM MST, 03/29/2006

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