Borked Mac Mini, setting up as a headless unit

joey1211

joey1211

joey1211

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Problem.

My mac mini's graphics went bye-bye at xmas. What I would like is to set up the mini to run as a headless unit. I have access to a macbook so what I want to do is to use the macbook's keyboard and screen as an interface for the mini.

Holding T on the a keyboard plugged into the mini boots it as an external hard disk when connected to the macbook, is there an option to boot the macbook from an external hard disk, which is what the mini would be.
 
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Pretty sure they removed booting from firewire a while ago.

You can run the system headless using screen sharing, I used that for ages with my powermac, but you need to be able to see what you're doing to set it up.
 
Is it possible to copy the system folder from one mac to another? (i'm sure i read it somewhere)

or

Installing the minis hd into the macbook, setting it up with the relevant settings/software (does osx natively support remote login?) and then reinstalling the hd into the mini.
 
You can still boot from firewire. If you have the other machine in target disk mode it should appear in the list of devices when you boot the macbook while holding alt down.

Doing so won't be "using the macbook's keyboard and screen as an interface" though, it will just be using it's harddisk as a boot volume. Once you've got it booted up though you should be able to enable some screen sharing and then connect to the mini that way.
 
Ok. On the mini hold down T, on the macbook hold Alt, this will allow me to use the macmini as the first boot disk. Correct? And then configure it's ip address and remote software via the macbooks screen and keyboard.
 
joey1211 said:
Ok. On the mini hold down T, on the macbook hold Alt, this will allow me to use the macmini as the first boot disk. Correct? And then configure it's ip address and remote software via the macbooks screen and keyboard.
Click to expand...

Yep, then shut both of them down, unplug the firewire cable and boot em back up.
 
Mini not appearing as a drive in the macbook when alt is pressed. The minis a powerpc and the macbook is an intel, I think (bought on the 31.07.2007). Would this matter?
 
The install wont be compatible though. one being powerpc and one intel. you can not do what you want without putting a cheap mac compatible graphics card in the mini.

//edit

Unless you left it open to being shared with. You could do a remote access to it?
 
The hard drive isn't bootable on an intel mac, we were assuming it was an intel mini.

You're not going to be able to do this unless you can get your hands on another PowerPC Mac
 
Resurrection!!

Got hold of a powerpc mac and activated remote desktop on the mac mini. I now have it here beside me. I can ping it, but how on earth do you log into the damn thing on the macbook. Is there no such equivalent of XPs Remote Desktop in OSX?
 
If you're using Leopard you should just be able to press "share screen" in finder if you've enabled remote desktop.

The other alternative is VNC, but that needs to be specifically enabled on the mini before you can connect to it.
 
You could setup a installation settings and all on a working mac, set it to auto login and arrange some access via apples built in VNC.
Clone the hard drive over then you should be able to access via VNC. :cool:
 
Another Resurrection!

Managed to install vnc onto the mac mini. But out of the box I need to manually start this service, which of course I can't do. How do I get the VNC server to autostart when the mini is powered on. This does NOT mean when a user logs on, but powered on.

Thanks
 
joey1211 said:
Another Resurrection!

Managed to install vnc onto the mac mini. But out of the box I need to manually start this service, which of course I can't do. How do I get the VNC server to autostart when the mini is powered on. This does NOT mean when a user logs on, but powered on.

Thanks
Click to expand...

Put it in the "Login items" list under the root account.

Easiest way to do that is to drag the app to the list, and it'll automatically add it.
 
Assuming that this works, what's the best option of ensuring that any tinkering in the future that breaks my vnc link can be easily rectified?

Is it possible to create an 'autorun bootable image cd' that resets the mini back to a working config?
 
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