Installing Lion on the Mac Mini Server (Intel Core Duo)

I purchased two Mac Mini Servers a while back to run some VM's, etc... I no longer have a need for one of them and I was pressed to see if the standard version (non-Server) would run on the device. Now, just to note... the install media for Mac OS X "workstation" will not install on this box via CD/DVD. There is a mechanism in the installer which inquires what hardware OS X is being installed on, and that inquiry is not good ;-)... So, with a new Firewire cable and some goofy procedure... I now have Mac OS X Lion running on my Mac Mini Server 1TB.

Installing OS X Lion "workstation" on a Mac Mini Server....

What you will need:

Mac Book Pro (or another Mac with Firewire)

Mac Mini Server 1TB - Intel Core Duo

Dual-Ended Firewire Cable (not common)

OS X DVD (10.6 or later)

OS X Lion Disc Image (download from AppStore - yes.. it ends up on your drive)

Backup your Mac Book Pro (I have no idea how messed up things can get).

Make sure everything is powered off, initially.

Plug-in the firewire cable into both the MBP and the MacMini.

Boot your Mac Book Pro normally.

Power on the MacMini while holding down the T key and wait for the Firewire symbol to appear on the screen (to boot to Target Disk Mode).

-- Your Mac Mini will show up as a drive on your MBP.

Open Disk Utility.

"Erase" whatever configuration your current MM drives are in. I do this by creating a new/dummy partition.

Create a RAID set and add the 2 drives. For this experiment I created a RAID 0 striped RAID set. This step will take about 5 minutes to complete.

Open the diskimage InstallESD.dmg and double click Install Mac OS X Lion

Select the Orange disk with the Firewire symbol. The installer will complain that some of the features will not be available. Whatever... Click Continue. The installer will take about 5 minutes copying files to the MM drive(s).

The system will then reboot and take another 25 minutes copying stuff to the drive.

IMPORTANT: (at least I believe this is important). The installer will complete and reboot. Power off the MBP before it is able to reboot. Then power off the MM. Then power on the MM normally. The MM should continue the installation.

NOTE:

I'm pretty certain I don't understand the logic behind a few things:

- why does the workstation installer not work on the Mac Mini Server?

The installer literally checks the hardware type and flat out "fails" the install

- why does Mac OS X Lion only come in a download and not a physical media format?

This isn't the most ridiculous computer task I have attempted, but it is certainly not the easiest either.

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