searching around but can't find exactly what to do

[xrnc]

sup folks i've been reading guides and tinkering with vmware for a couple of days but can't figure out where to go with this install.

 

here's the details...

 

1) aopen minipc duo (very similar hardware to a mac mini, GMA950 graphics, intel e1000 nic, ICH7 chipset, laptop parts).

 

2) core 2 duo merom

 

3) sata HD, IDE DVD-RW

 

now, the problem and somewhat of a catch 22.

 

the sata HD and IDE DVD-RW in this box are exactly like the mac mini in configuration. there's a riser card the HD and DVD drive plug into, and both plug into a single PCI bridge on the mobo. so it's impossible to change which port they show up on in the BIOS. the DVD drive is always channel 1, drive 2, and the HD is always channel 2, drive 1. there's no where else to plug them in so that can't change.

 

i can emulate IDE (pata mode on most mobos) on the hard drive if i so choose, but i don't think that makes any difference.

 

i've seen mentioned in several places that the HD needs to be the first drive on the first channel for this stuff to work. is that actually the case? if so, i don't think this is gonna be possible on this box. nor does vmware (for the purposes of a native install) do me any good, since vmware can't install anything natively to sata drives, it only installs natively to certain scsi controllers (yes i've seen the guide on the wiki about changing the vwmare config to reflect ide instead of scsi, but it doesn't work, at least not in vmware 6, the vmware bios shows nothing for IDE except the shared DVD drive, no matter what you change from scsi to IDE, and thus, the OSX install doesn't see any IDE disks either). i even tried running vmware from the ubuntu live cd running on a usb key to give the virtual OS complete control of the sata drive, and nothing shows up no matter whether it's config'd as ide or scsi, either in the BIOS or the OSX installer.

 

the reason for the vmware approach is, apparently this aopen mini computer doesn't have a USB legacy option either, which i suspect is preventing the OSX installer from picking up a keyboard and mouse, so if i try to run the uphuck disk directly without any intermediate os emulation, it hangs as soon as the GUI pops up with no mouse pointer visible . there are no PS/2 ports on this machine so USB keyboard and mouse are the only option.

 

so before i waste any more time, is this gonna be possible at all? with these settings that can't change? (HD on second controller or SATA on ICH7, USB keyboard/mouse without legacy support)

 

tia