Only windows 7 32bit on old Mac Mini help

[Thor774]

Hello

I have an old Mac Mini (mid 2007) at the office that only has 1GB RAM.
I need to set this machine up as a secondary PC running Windows on another network. The reason is that I need to run a critical app that needs the latest Oracle Java 7, something that is not possible on OSX Snow Leopard. I cannot install Lion on the mini because the RAM restrictions (needs minimum 2GB) and don't want to tinkle on upgrading the RAM. The mini has all the firmware updates that Apple produced for it.

The machine does not have any OS at the moment.

I have booted the mini from an OSX Lion USB install disk and configured the hard disk into one MBR partition formatted as Windows FAT using disk utyl.

I am trying to install W7 without first needing to reinstall OSX Snow Leopard and going through the bootcamp process as I plan to erase OSX afterwards anyway. What I found is that the mini does not see the USB disk that holds the W7 install on boot (I have already tested that this W7 USB install disk works on other PCs).

Is there a way to install W7 from a USB pen in this mac mini as it is or do I definitely need to go through bootcamp?

Thanks.

 

[blackhand1001]

Hello

I have an old Mac Mini (mid 2007) at the office that only has 1GB RAM.
I need to set this machine up as a secondary PC running Windows on another network. The reason is that I need to run a critical app that needs the latest Oracle Java 7, something that is not possible on OSX Snow Leopard. I cannot install Lion on the mini because the RAM restrictions (needs minimum 2GB) and don't want to tinkle on upgrading the RAM. The mini has all the firmware updates that Apple produced for it.

The machine does not have any OS at the moment.

I have booted the mini from an OSX Lion USB install disk and configured the hard disk into one MBR partition formatted as Windows FAT using disk utyl.

I am trying to install W7 without first needing to reinstall OSX Snow Leopard and going through the bootcamp process as I plan to erase OSX afterwards anyway. What I found is that the mini does not see the USB disk that holds the W7 install on boot (I have already tested that this W7 USB install disk works on other PCs).

Is there a way to install W7 from a USB pen in this mac mini as it is or do I definitely need to go through bootcamp?

Thanks.

The older macs will not boot off non mac setup usb sticks. You should be able to do it fine with a dvd installer though.

 

[Thor774]

The older macs will not boot off non mac setup usb sticks. You should be able to do it fine with a dvd installer though.

Ok, DVD it is. But do I still need bootcamp to prep the mini? I really don't want to install OSX if its not really necessary in this case.

 

[blackhand1001]

Ok, DVD it is. But do I still need bootcamp to prep the mini? I really don't want to install OSX if its not really necessary in this case.

No, it should be fine without it. As long as you have the drivers.

 

[Thor774]

No, it should be fine without it. As long as you have the drivers.

It did not work without installing OSX first. The mini never loaded the Windows DVD installer.
When I installed Snow Leopard and ran bootcamp the mini had no problem loading the installer from the Windows DVD. i guess this Mac is too old and needs some kind of emulation that Windows needs to be installed. Maybe in newer Macs there is no need for this.

Bootcamp on OSX could not load the latest Windows drivers from the internet. I had to manually download the correct drivers from Apple.

At the end it worked. I reduced the OSX partition as much as I could and now Windows 7 is happily running on this Mac.