Installing Windows 7 Beta in Sun's VirtualBox

With the release of the new windows 7, a lot of people want to try it out. However there is always a risk in corrupting your current environment. One smart way to try it out is to try one of those new buzzing "virtualization" software out there. Here is the instruction on how to do that and run Windows 7 in your current environment without having to reinstall your whole machine.

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There are a couple of tricks to get Windows 7 Beta working correctly in VirtualBox, and I’m going to show you how to get it done, from start to finish.

I’m going to assume you’ve already downloaded the ISO and gotten your installation key (Get them here before January 24), and burned the ISO to a disk. With VirtualBox you don’t necessarily need to burn the disk, and in fact the steps I’m going to go through here just mounts the ISO to make it available as a disk to the virtual machine.

I’ll be using VirtualBox 2.1.0 on a Windows SP3 host.

First, to make the ISO available to the guest operating system, we’ll need to add it to the media manager.

1. Open VirtualBox and click on File, then Virtual Media Manager.
2. When the Virtual Media Manager opens, click the CD/DVD Images tab.
3. Click the Add button.
4. Navigate to the Windows 7 Beta ISO file you downloaded. Choose it and click Open.
5. You should now see your ISO listed on the CD/DVD Images tab of the Virtual Media Manager. Click OK.

Ok, now let’s set up the guest virtual machine within VirtualBox.

1. In the main VirtualBox window, click the New button.
2. Click Next to start the wizard.
3. Type a name for your new virtual machine in the Name box. I called mine Windows 7. Choose Microsoft Windows in the Operating System box, and Other Windows in the Version box. Click Next.
4. Next we need to decide how much memory to give to the guest operating system. The minimum requirements for Windows 7 recommend 1 gig of memory. But my host machine has only 2 gig installed, and I didn’t want to give Windows 7 half of that, so I decided to give it only 512MB. Windows 7 was a little sluggish, but usable. Use your own judgment when deciding how much to give your guest operating system. When you’ve adjusted the memory how you like it, click Next.
5. Now we need to create a virtual hard drive for the new guest operating system. Click the New button to create one.
6. Now click Next, make sure Dynamically expanding storage is selected, then click Next.
7. Now we need to choose the location of the virtual disk. The default location is C:\Documents and Settings\username\.VirtualBox\HardDisks, and the default size is 20GB. The minimum suggested hard drive size for Windows 7 is 16GB, so 20GB is plenty to get it installed and mess around with it a little. If the size and location are good for you, click Next.
8. Click Finish. This completes the virtual drive creation wizard and returns us to the virtual machine wizard.
9. You’ll see the drive we just created listed. Click Next.
10. Click Finish. You’re, well, finished!

This gets the virtual machine created with some basic hardware settings.

Most of these settings are fine, but we need to enable the sound and tell it to mount the Windows 7 ISO you downloaded.

1. Click on Audio in the right pane. When the window opens, check the Enable Audio box, and choose Windows DirectSound. Click OK.
2. Click CD/DVD-ROM in the right pane. Check Mount CD/DVD Drive, then choose ISO Image File. Make sure the ISO we added to the Media Manager is chosen here. Click OK.

These settings will get us up and running with a CD drive and sound. There are a lot of other settings we could have a look at here, and you can go look at those on your own, but this is all we’re going to work with here.

Now our virtual guest machine is finally ready. So now go ahead and Choose Windows 7 in the left pane and click the Start button.

If you’ve installed Windows Vista in the past, the Windows 7 install procedure will look very familiar. If you’ve not installed Vista and have experience only installing Windows XP, then you’re in for a pleasant surprise. Installing Windows 7 requires very little user interaction.

First, you’ll be asked for language information, then the installation type.

Choose Custom here. On the next screen you should see only one drive and all of it should be unallocated. This is the virtual drive we created earlier. Just click the next button.

Now comes the longest part of the installation, so sit back, enjoy your beverage of choice, and wait. Later on you’ll be asked for your time zone, user name, password, and key. Provide all of those, then in a few minutes you’ll be rewarded with a fish.

When you see this fish, you’re done installing. This is the Windows 7 desktop. Feel free to mess around a little and check things out. After you look around a bit, you’ll no doubt notice that there is no network, no sound, you can’t install the VirtualBox Guest Additions, and your mouse gets trapped in the virtual machine window. Press the right CTRL key to get it out of there.

To solve these problems, we’ll need to install the VirtualBox Guest Additions. But wait! Didn’t I just say we can’t install them? We can install them, but the installer is not compatible with Windows 7, but it IS compatible with Windows XP. So We’ll just run it in compatibility mode.

1. If your mouse is currently stuck in the guest window, press the right CTRL key to get it unstuck.
2. Now click Devices in the menu bar, and choose Mount CD/DVD-ROM, and then choose CD/DVD-ROM Image.
3. This should look familiar. Choose VBoxGuestAdditions.iso, then click the Select button.
4. The AutoPlay window should open at this point. Choose to open the folder and view files.

1. Right-click the VBoxWindowsAdditions file and choose properties.
2. In the Properties window, go to the Compatibility tab.
3. Check the Run this program in compatibility mode for: box, then choose Windows XP (Service Pack 2) in the box below it. CLick OK.
4. That should put us back at at the screenshot above. Now you can double-click the VBoxWindowsAdditions file to run it.
5. Click Yes to allow the changes.
6. Click next to begin the installation wizard.
7. Click Agree then click Install.
8. After a few seconds, you’ll be asked if you want to install the Sun display drivers. Check the box for Always trust software from “Sun Microsystems, Inc.” and click Install.
9. After a few more seconds the installation will be finished. Click Finish to restart your virtual machine.

You’ll notice you still don’t have sound or network, but at least you can smoothly move your mouse back and forth between the guest and host operating systems. To get the sound and network working, we’ll need to install the drivers by hand. Don’t worry, it’s not hard at all.

1. Click the Windows button in the bottom left of the virtual machine window, then right-click on Computer and choose Properties.
2. On the left sidebar of this window, choose Device Manager.

You should see two items under Other Devices, and both should have the yellow exclamation point beside them. They should be the ethernet controller and the multimedia audio controller.

1. Right-click on Ethernet Controller and choose Update Driver Software.
2. Choose Browse my computer for driver software.
3. Click the Browse button and choose the drive with the VirtualBox Guest Additions.

Click the OK button, then click Next. After a few seconds the driver will install.

Now that the network driver is installed, we only need to wait a few seconds to install the sound driver. One of the cool (Or scary, depending on how you look at it) things about Windows 7 is that if some piece of hardware needs a driver, Windows 7 will just go out and look for it. In this case, it goes out to the internet, finds a driver for the Intel 82801AA AC’97 Audio Controller and installs it without any interaction from you. Kinda cool, huh?

So that’s it. In a nutshell, to get everything in Windows 7 working correctly in VirtualBox, you need to run the VirtualBox Guest Additions in Windows XP compatibility mode, manually install the network driver from that CD image, then sit back and wait for the sound driver to install.

how to install Mac OS X on Dell Mini 9

I used to think people who uses OS X was because they really like the design of Macs, however seems like their OS is rather important to most people. Here is a chance you can get that without the extra cash by installing Mac OS X on a low budget Netbook. Follow the link to get more instructions.


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I am typing this on a 9-inch, 3G-equipped, almost-pocketable computer, running the best consumer OS money can currently buy. It costs around $400. Do you want one too? Here's how to get yours.

There are a lot of netbooks on which you can install and run OS X, but if you're mindful of the handy comparison chart those lads at Boing Boing Gadgets have compiled, you'll know that the Mini 9 is about as ideal a platform as you'll find for a Hackintosh ultraportable: Everything from wi-fi, sound and the function keys down to the optional integrated mobile broadband card and the SD card reader are supported and work as they should. No hardware compromises at all. It's awesome.

Generally, there are two ways to approach a Hackintosh install: Using a "slipstreamed" OS X installer image that's been modified to install on non-Apple hardware, or using a $129 factory-fresh retail OS X install disk in tandem with a special bootloader that does the necessary tweaking to let the install happen. The former can be easy enough, but it's pretty much illegal since it contains a pirated OS X install disk, and on top of that you'll run into all kinds of problems should you ever want to upgrade your OS or software via Software Update.

By using a retail OS X disk, you stay mostly out of pirate waters, and ensure that once everything's up and running, you'll be as close as is possible to having an actual Mac. Here we're doing that, using a method referred to as the "Type11" install, cooked up by a fellow of the same handle and his colleagues over on the MyDellMini forums, a fantastic resource.

Even though we're using a standard retail-purchased copy of OS X, the disclaimer: Apple does not like Hackintoshing. It violates the OS X EULA, and probably won't make the Dell folks too happy either, should you need to return your hacked Mini 9 for service. So, as always, proceed at your own risk.

On a personal note let me tell you, it's worth it. The Mini 9 is a beautiful OS X machine. So let's get started.

What You'll Need

• Dell Mini 9 With 16GB SSD or higher (8GB SSDs will techincally work, but it will take some fiddling not covered by this guide)

• Retail copy of OS X 10.5.x (NOT an OEM copy that comes with a new Mac)

• A USB flash drive 8GB or higher

• An external USB DVD drive

• The "Type11" Bootloader: DellMiniBoot123v8.01.iso.zip (download link in this forum post)

• Blank CD to burn bootloader image (I actually used version 8.0 of Type11 on my CD-if your boot process with 8.01 is different than what's spelled out in this guide, you can download 8.0 here. Both should work.)

• Windows PC for preparing the flash drive (if DVD drive works fine, this is optional)

Preparing Your Boot Loader

The easiest way to use both the Type11 bootloader (burned to a bootable CD) and your OS X install DVD is via the external USB DVD drive. The catch is, some drives are mysteriously not compatible with installing OS X on the Mini 9. Mine was one of those drives—the bootloader CD would work without a hitch, but it would choke on the OS X install disk every time. Thankfully, it's also possible to run both the bootloader and the OS X install disk off of a USB flash drive. I'm going to spell out my method here, which actually included both approaches, but try an external DVD drive first, and if yours is compatible, your life will be a little easier than mine was. On the other hand, if you don't have an external drive, you can give the USB flash drive method a shot.

The general approach here it to boot from the Type11 bootloader, which allows you install, run and update OS X; once you're up to 10.5.6, you can install a suite of Mini 9 specific drivers so you don't have to rely on the bootloader anymore.

1. Unzip the DellMiniBoot123v8.01.iso and burn it to a CD with Disk Utility or a similar Windows tool (don't just drag the ISO file to a disk). Pop that disk into your external DVD drive, connect it to your Mini 9 and power it on, then press 0 (zero) at startup to bring up the list of bootable devices.

2. Choose CD/DVD from the list, which will bring you into the bootloader. Choose the first option, "Install Retail OS X 10.5" which will bring you to a command prompt that says "boot:"

3. Take out the bootloader disk and pop in your retail OS X install DVD, keeping the PC running. (You can power your external drive off and then on again to make sure everything's kosher.) Press Escape at the boot: prompt to bring up the drive options. The Type11 installer uses hex codes to choose which device you're booting from, which you can assign at any time from the boot prompt by pressing escape: enter "9f" for the external DVD drive or "80" for the primary internal SSD. Here we're booting from the external CD drive, so press escape, Type "9f" then press enter.

4. At this point, the OS X installer will either load or it won't. If it does, great. You can skip to step 12. If not, you'll need to do what I did, and transfer everything to a USB flash drive to install that way.

Preparing a USB Stick Instead Of/In Addition To a Boot CD

This is based on a tutorial found on the MyDellMini forums by "bmaltais"—bigup to him.

5. Open up Disk Utility and partition your USB drive (8GB or larger) into two partitions: one 200MB FAT32 (MS-DOS) partition named "TYPE11" and one with the remainder of the free space formated as Mac OS X Extended (Journaled) called OSXDVD.

6. Move to a Windows PC (I know, I know), plug in your USB stick and download Syslinux-this is a utility that will make the FAT32 partition of your USB stick bootable. With the Windows Command Prompt, cd over to the "win32" subdirectory of the Syslinux directory you downloaded and type the following, where "F:" is the drive letter for the TYPE11 partition on your USB stick:

syslinux -ma F:

You won't get any confirmation, but if you receive no error messages, you're good: This copies a single file named ldlinux.sys (invisible in Windows) to the USB drive to make it bootable. Pop it out and go back to your Mac if that's what you're using.

7. Now, unzip the Type11 ISO (instead of burning it to a disk) and copy the whole directory structure to the TYPE11 partition. Do NOT overwrite the "ldlinux.sys" when it asks—you want to keep the one you copied over with Syslinux.

8. To fill up the other partition, insert your OS X install DVD and, in Disk Utility, select it and choose "New Image." Save it to the OSXDVD partition of your USB drive as "live.dmg" with "compressed" as the type and encryption set to "none." This'll take about a half hour to rip the DVD to an image, which should weigh in at around 6.4 GB give or take.

9. After that's done, go to Terminal and copy your mach kernel file to the OSXDVD partition by typing this:

sudo cp /mach_kernel /Volumes/OSXDVD

10. And finally, download this zip file, uncompress it and copy the System and Library folders inside to your OSXDVD partition. This is the last bit of magic needed to make your Mini 9 think it's working with an actual OS X install DVD.

11. On your Mini 9, restart it and enter the BIOS setup by pressing "2"—and make sure legacy support for USB devices is enabled. Now, reboot and select the boot options list by tapping 0 at startup and choose USB Storage. Select the OSXDVD partition to boot from and press Enter. This should load up the familiar Apple and the OS X installer window.

Install OS X

While you're installing and doing initial configuration of OS X, everything will be all warped to 800x600 rather than your Mini's native 1024x600 res. Don't worry, this will be fixed soon enough.

12. The first thing you need to do is format your SSD. Bring up Disk Utility in the installer select it at the highest level possible. Go to "Partition" and make it a single Mac OS X Extended (Journaled) partition. Before hitting Apply, go to Options and select GUID Partition Table. Then hit apply.

13. Now, go back to the Installer, and install OS X to the SSD you just partitioned. You will definitely want to choose to customize your install to save SSD space—I would ditch all the printer drivers and language packs you don't need to save space. If you install with the default options though, don't worry—all can be removed later. The install will take about an hour, so go fix yourself a drink. You may come back to an Install Error message at the very end (I didn't), but if you do, don't worry. It's normal.

14. Once OS X is installed, it's still not ready for use right off the drive. On your first reboot, make sure you boot back into the Type11 bootloader on your CD or flash drive, as your new OS X partition is still not bootable without it.

This is, however, where a bit of weirdness set in for me. The Type11 partition on my USB disk would NOT recognize my fresh OS X install on the Mini 9 SSD. It just would not boot it. The Type11 boot CD I had made (with version 8.0 of Type11) DID recognize it, however, and booted it just fine. So bear that in mind here—even if you weren't using an external drive before, you still might need one.

15. So now you boot back into the Type11 CD and choose option 1 ("Install Retail OS X 10.5") again, even though you're not installing. This takes you back to the boot prompt. This time, hit Escape, and type the code "80" for your SSD (as opposed to "9f" for the external DVD). Press enter, and then back at the "boot:" prompt, type "-f" with no quotes before hitting enter again to boot. This will load all of OS X's kernel extensions (.kexts) to make sure wi-fi and everything works. OS X should boot, and you'll go through the typical OS X setup process. Notice the webcam and—hopefully—networking are already working!

ONE MORE NOTE: If networking isn't working, don't panic. On my first boot from the SSD, wi-fi didn't work. But after a restart and another boot from the bootloader CD (with the "-f" option) it worked fine. Throughout this process, if anything is screwy, before you panic and start Googling new strategems, simply re-do the last step that failed—it's often that easy.

Free Up Space and Update OS X to 10.5.6

Now that you've booted from the fresh install on the SSD, it's time to update to 10.5.6 (if necessary). After a default install, I only had a gig and change left on my 16GB SSD, so I had to dump some programs I wouldn't need as well as all the printer drivers found at /Library/Printers. There is an app called Monolingual which can also help clear some space by removing unwanted language files and stripping out all legacy PPC code from your universal binaries.

16. Once you've cleared up enough space (if necessary, you'll need around 6GB), go to Software Update and install the 10.5.6 update. This will take a long-ass time too (the SSD, strangely enough, seems to actually be slower on tasks that take tons of reads and writes).

17. After it's done, restart, and boot into the Type11 bootloader one last time. This time you don't have to use the "-f" flag. Once you're booted, go to the DellMini9Utils folder on your Type11 CD or flash drive and run the DellEFI installer. This will load all of the Mini 9 .kexts and drivers as well as a special bootloader to boot your SSD install. Choose the easy install option and just let it do its magic.

18. After it's done, you'll be asked to reboot one final time. You won't need to boot from the Type11 CD this time; you should boot straight off of your SSD like normal, and enter upon your fresh new OS X desktop, now in gloriously correct 1024x600 resolution. Awesome!

Configs, Tweaks and Fun Stuff

You'll notice right away that OS X runs fantastically on the Mini 9. I was really stunned, and you probably will be too. Here are some things to make it even better:

• Follow this tutorial to get your mobile broadband working if your Mini 9 has it. Network preferences should recognize it out of the box.

• If you're especially OCD, you can run the "AboutThisMac.pkg" inside the Type11 utilities folder to change "Unknown Processor" in the About This Mac window to the correct 1.6GHz Atom designation.

• This is a neat trick for fooling pesky oversized windows into shrinking themselves for your small screen.

• I haven't had luck with this, but you can apparently enable some multitouch scrolling action on the Dell's Synaptics touchpad by following these instructions.

Conclusion

So congrats, now you have a 100% functional OS X netbook. I've been using mine for a few days now, and it's quite the machine for basic netbook activities-surfing, IM, email. It connects to my shared AirPort disk and streams my video collection (even high-def files) perfectly, and also backs up wirelessly over Time Machine. The 9-inch screen will make even your lower-res full-screen video look fantastic—YouTube or Hulu, QuickTime trailers and video rips are a pleasure to watch. Watching an episode of something in bed without lugging my 15-incher in with me is really nice.

In addition, I think I may have found the perfect toilet computer. No one wants to fight Windows on the throne. And of course it's amazing for traveling. I'm about to take a trip to Cairo, and I'll be bringing this little guy without a doubt.

Resources

Many thanks to everyone at the following sites:

PSP 500 M33-6 Upgrade

Dark Alex has done it again, the new PSP firmware 5.00 M33-6 is out.



Download 5.00 M33-6 and download 500.pbp

After that, follow these steps.

1.Unzip the 5.00 M33-6 file and put the EBOOT.PBP into X:/PSP/UPDATE (X is the root of the MemoryStick)

2. Put the 500.PBP also into X:/PSP/GAME/UPDATE folder.

3. And start update from XMB. :smile:

the release notes can be found here

Gamecube Backup Loader for Wii is out

New WiiGator is out. This is used to play gamecube backups on your Wii console without mod chips or without voiding your warranty. However at this very moment, not all games work perfectly. So please check out the compatibility list before you proceed. I will try this on my newly acquired Wii console. Be sure to check out the list of best selling gamecube game all time list.
Thanks Wiigator Team.


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