PC Help for a Mac user

[92greenyj]

ok I searched here and on Google and turned up nothing. I downloaded TinyXP thru torrent to my Mac. the PC I got for my cabinet project came with no operating system on it. When it starts it goes into the Bios. (bear in mind I am a total PC noob. been a Mac guy all my life. this is the first PC I have ever bought)

Anyway, i can't get the damn thing to boot from the CD. I tried burning the TinyXP.iso file onto a CDR. it burned fine (again did this on my iMac) put it in the HP PC, entered the Bios and selected the cd/dvd drive as the boot source. and after a few minutes got an error that no boot disc was found or some crap like that. So i take it to work and try to re-burn it from my work PC. While im there I found a new, sealed XP pro disc from when we set up all our computers. Only rub is the product key sticker is missing. where it went i don't know as all my work computers are running on vista and have vista product key stickers on them.

So I tried installing XP since i had it with one of the vista keys. no joy. tried it a few times and i thought it finally went thru as i was able to finish the install and set up. Now however when i reboot i am getting the 30 day activate notice. So im guessing the key didnt work? Again, brand new, sealed and wrapped copy of XP, just missing the key code.

So since I don't have the key code I figured i'd try to install tinyxp again. Now when I go to enter the bios and select boot from the CD/DVD drive, it just boots straight into XP. did I burn TinyXP wrong or something? I even tried pulling all the files out of the disc image for tinyxp and burning them onto a DVD, but i got a burn error when I tried this thru my Mac. I can't even get to the disc image or files thru the PC for some reason.

HELP!!!!!

and this is why I hate Windoze based computers

Update:
got XP sorted. still need to play with TinyXP. See last post in thread for new problems. 

[mr_doles]

I have not done the TinyXp yet so I can't give you any advice on that but...
Does the PC that you bought have a product sticker on it?  If the PC had an OEM version of windows on it at one point then you can use that key.  The trick is to make sure you match the type up, ie Home vs Pro, it will say that on the sticker as well.  Also when you do your "search" for the matching OS add the model and OEM to your search, ie Dell OEM windows XP.

I am not a mac person but does Mac have a iso viewer?  With windows I use a program called MagicISO,  I can mount to a iso like it was a real CD.  I use it to verify that the iso is good before I burn it.  If it works before and not after then the burn process was bad.

Hope that helps a little.

[WhereEaglesDare]

TinyXP is the easiest thing you could do, did you mount the iso image before burning it?  when you look at the cd in explorer you should see a bunch of files and not just one iso file.    if this isnt your problem you have to watch the screen when it is booting cuz it is going to say press enter to boot from cd... and you have a few seconds to do so.  I have installed TinyXP about 20-30 times and only have had a few issues and that was the CD rom drives were broken and not TinyXP.

If and when you do get it to run make sure you format using the NTFS system and NOT THE QUICK, if you do the quick and you hadnt done  a full format in a while or ever it will not run as efficient as you may like.

And if this is why you hate windoze computers maybe you should keep your snobby mind on the mac side.

[opt2not]

And if this is why you hate windoze computers maybe you should keep your snobby mind on the mac side.

So I tried installing XP since i had it with one of the vista keys. no joy.

tinyxp requires xp keys.

Silly mac user, vista keys are for vista.

and this is why I hate Windoze based computers

Yeah, things that require me to read and follow instructions frustrate me too. Thank goodness macs don't require you to actually know how a computer works.  /sarcasm

[92greenyj]

TinyXP is the easiest thing you could do, did you mount the iso image before burning it?  when you look at the cd in explorer you should see a bunch of files and not just one iso file.    if this isnt your problem you have to watch the screen when it is booting cuz it is going to say press enter to boot from cd... and you have a few seconds to do so.  I have installed TinyXP about 20-30 times and only have had a few issues and that was the CD rom drives were broken and not TinyXP.

If and when you do get it to run make sure you format using the NTFS system and NOT THE QUICK, if you do the quick and you hadnt done  a full format in a while or ever it will not run as efficient as you may like.

And if this is why you hate windoze computers maybe you should keep your snobby mind on the mac side.

when i open the CD on the pc it just shows the iso file. both on the pc burned copy and the Mac burned copy. I tried just burning the iso straight to the disc. Should I have used toast to burn it in a different fashion?

the pc has 2 old product key labels on it. one for Windows XP home edition. tried that one too with no luck. the other is for XP Pro  Sunterra Centralized Ser and the number on that isnt even long enough.

as for my hate of windows, well this computer has given me more issues to reinforce that. My other issue is that it isn't recognizing its built in ethernet card. I downloaded the drivers from HPs website onto a thumb drive on the mac and transfered and installed them onto the PC. restarted, and it still isn't recognizing it and it still wont connect to the internet. Whats that about? I like my Macs because everything just works. I don't have to mess with all these drivers and things for new hardware, let alone built in hardware that should just work.

[92greenyj]

forgot to mention, the XP disc I have is a gold version Disc. I think it was retail from the looks of it, but I'm not 100 % sure. I found it in the huge pile of discs that came with all of our game units and that we have from setting up our servers, computers, etc in the arcade.

Come to think of it, I wonder if maybe its for one of the arcade games.

[92greenyj]

ok, think I got XP sorted.

Now I'm having issues with thew computer itself! I downloaded the drivers for the network card onto a thumb drive via my Mac. transfered it to the PC and installed them. I also DLed and installed their latest graphic drivers for this computer.

Restarted at the installers request after the driver finished its installation. Got the HP splash screen, followed by the XP splash screen. then, nopthing. I have a floating bubble on my monitor that says "Input not supported"

wth? how can I get past this and revert to the previous driver? I have nothing but this bubble on my screen!

[Hoopz]

You need to enter safe mode when restarting the computer.  Try holding F8 through the boot sequence.  You'll (hopefully) get a screen that says something like:

Boot using:

Safe Mode
Safe Mode with networking
Safe Mode with command prompt
Last known good configuration

Try safe mode.  Hopefully, you have an XP restore point.  Go to START - ACCESSORIES - SYSTEM TOOLS and select system restore.  Pick a point before you installed the video drivers.  Doesn't sound like you grabbed the right ones.  Your system will restart and you should have normal functionality. 

Try that and post back.  Once that's done, we'll walk you through the network driver.  It sounds like you aren't grabbing the right ones from HP (for the video card AND the network card).  HP's site sucks so its not always easy to find it. 

I'm going to suggest everyone keep their Mac/Windows opinions out of this thread.  It's not productive and will only make things worse.   

[92greenyj]

thanks. I'll give that a shot when I get home and report back. hopefully that works. I did download the drivers for my Acer monitor too, but obviously I can't install them currently since I can't get an image past the XP splash screen

[Hoopz]

You don't need drivers for your monitor.  The video card drivers will do everything you need. 

Long shot, but do you know the type of HP computer you have (model # etc) AND the motherboard type details?  Odds are it's a stock motherboard, but the motherboard dictates what drivers you get.  For example, if you have a HP Pavillion XXX, you should be able to go to HP's website, find that product, and get your drivers. 

Odds are that it's a stock motherboard, but if it's not, then that's when you'll need the details about which one you have.  It's not hard to get that info at all, so don't sweat about that.  We'll cross that road when we get to it.

The nice (?) thing about a PC is that there are almost unlimited ways to upgrade it.  That means that driver issues are more important than on a Mac because there's a million ways to do it wrong.  Macs being mostly closed meets Apple controls how much (or not) that can be upgraded.  The controlled environment makes it easier to deal with stuff like this for newbies (non-derogatory way).  A lot of PC users are used to tweaking stuff like this so it's old hat.  It's still freaking irritating at times though. 

[92greenyj]

the PC is a  HP/Compaq D220 with a 2Ghz Celeron Processor. as far as i know its still the original Mother Board. All I did to it upon receiving it (won it on eBay for 20 bucks plus 15 for shipping) was to remove the original 20 gig HD. Installed a 120 gig and a 160 gig hard drives in it. pulled the floppy drive as I don't need it. I know the hard drives are set up properly. both are set on cable select and the cable is the correct one for this setting.

As for the drivers, thats what i did. I went to HPs website. put in the product number and serial and it gave me a page with all the various drivers for that specific computer. I downloaded both drivers available under the network category onto a USB flash drive. (did it thru my iMac since obviously i can't get online to get drivers with the pc) I put the flash drive in the pc, opened it. ran both of the drivers. (double clicked both icons and they ran and supposedly installed) Tried to go thru network setup assistant again but it still didnt recognize the ethernet port.

I do have an extra PCI ethernet card I could maybe try to install. I won't be home until almost 10 pm tonight though so I won't be able to dig into it until then.

[Hoopz]

Well, it sounds like you did it correctly.  You'll probably want to install a few other drivers once everything is working on the graphics front.  If you didn't already, you'll want to install the chipset drivers and audio drivers.  You'll be using onboard graphics and audio probably so having the proper drivers will help.

You don't need both drivers for the network card though.  The Intel gigabit driver that was updated in 2008 probably isn't the right one.  I'd try just this one:

Compaq Business Desktops Broadcom Network Driver for Windows 2000/XP    

It's from 2003 and is the most likely one.

So try the restore point going back to before you installed the graphics driver, then install the network driver, then you may try Windows Update for the graphics driver.  I'd avoid alot of the Windows updates but graphics, audio and chipset (if they list it) are important ones.  The rest won't apply if it's just for Mame, not online, etc. 

[92greenyj]

Hoopz,
thank you for all your help. Safe mode worked. I managed to clear some other uneccessary stuff. get that driver off. then i got the netwrok driver you suggested and it worked like a charm.

Now my next issue. Downloaded MAME .137. went to launch it and it says I am missing direct3d?

[Hoopz]

Glad that worked. 

For an older computer like that (about the same that I use), I'd suggest an older version of Mame.  Unless you are getting the newer version because of specific games, you may find an older version works better for that PC.

You probably do need to download direct3d from microsoft.  It doesn't come installed.

[92greenyj]

ok. So DirectX doesnt appear to be on my XP disc. So i'm on the microsoft download site and there are 202 results under the directX category!! I have no friggin clue which one i need to download.

[Hoopz]

There should be a small client that you install.  I mean less than a meg or two.  It runs, determines what you need, and then installs.  Lemme search.

[Hoopz]

Try this

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=2da43d38-db71-4c1b-bc6a-9b6652cd92a3&displaylang=en

That wasn't too hard.  Even a Mac guy should be able to search the web.   

j/k

[92greenyj]

i dunno. half the links i've followed have downloaded these driver update programs instead of what I was actually looking for. Driver Detective and something else. i already deleted them off my computer though. And links in google would redirect me to some oddball sites. But i just downloaded IE 8 and got that installed. seems to have fixed that issue.

[Hoopz]

The nice thing about my link is that it's an official Microsoft program so that actually does mean a lot. 

I just downloaded it and installed it.  It's what you need.

And get rid of IE.  Firefox! 

[92greenyj]

i ran it and it seems to have worked. Just tried to launch MAME again.

first error: proposed video mode not supported on device\\.\DISPLAY1
click ok
second error:
Unable to initialize Direct 3D

[Hoopz]

i ran it and it seems to have worked. Just tried to launch MAME again.

first error: proposed video mode not supported on device\\.\DISPLAY1
click ok
second error:
Unable to initialize Direct 3D

Using Mame command line, MameUI, or through another FE?  Still Mame .137?

[92greenyj]

yeah. i just double clicked the MAME icon in the MAME folder to try to run it. still .137. thought i'd just try it out first since I already downloaded it.

Can't get Mala to launch either. sys its missing a file and re-install should help.

[92greenyj]

ok, I dont think its a MAME issue. just tried to run MESS and got the same errors as I did trying to run MAME. 

[Hoopz]

I'll post more later, but did you reboot the PC?  I'm sure it prompted you to if it was needed. 

[Blanka]

<mac-modus>Why not put in a mac?</mac modus>

[92greenyj]

i've rebooted about 10 times now. Ran all the various XP software updates. Downloaded and tried .127 of MAME and I dont even see an icon to click to launch it. tried MAMEUI. got the same message when it opened MAME. Going to try to redownload MALA again here in a few. I think I downloaded the right versions of MAME for .137. but im not sure considering it gives 6 options when you go to download it and not much information on any of them.

I did consider using a Mac for the cab, but the ones I have are all iMacs. nothing with an external monitor for starters. Also, to my knowledge there aren't any good front ends for using a Mac in a cabinet. And MacMAME doesn't seem to like a fair few of the ROMS i have for my favorite games, which from my research is due to MacMAME not supporting as many roms as the PC release. I also want to have this set up to emulate some classic consoles as well. NES, Genesis, Atari, etc.

BTW I can't get NEStopia to run right either.

[92greenyj]

ok, baby steps.
Got MALA 104 downloaded and installed. that launches properly. So thats one problem down. now i need to figure out why MAME and MESS wont run and both give me the sam errors listed above

[Blanka]

which from my research is due to MacMAME not supporting as many roms as the PC release.

What is the last version of macmame? One from 2007?
Maccers mame on SDL mame, totally on par with the PC versions. And for a front end, Emulaunch is good. Simple, but effective. On the other hand, console-emulators are better than on a PC on the mac, since all are made by the same guy, and thus very easy to setup.

[Hoopz]

ok, baby steps.
Got MALA 104 downloaded and installed. that launches properly. So thats one problem down. now i need to figure out why MAME and MESS wont run and both give me the sam errors listed above

I wonder if your video card supports Direct3d?  Its onboard video I'm sure.

Download a program called Belarc Advisor.  Install and run it.  It'll give you a profile of everything on your PC including hardware.  Post the motherboard details and the graphic details please.

I'm running Mame .94 on an older PC.  The key difference though is I have a Nvidia GeForce 3 card in mine.   

[shateredsoul]

Hmm.. what are your pc specs again? If I remember .. I think you posted the ebay auction and you won this for $20 right? I'm wondering if you might think of upgrading a little more and taking the loss.

Honestly if you were to just take the loss and buy a newer machine maybe you can run something that will impress your mom (or was it your grandma?) like the Hyperspin frontend.

Have you seen that yet? I think that would be great for that cab (and makes it feel more "arcade like")

[92greenyj]

shatteredsoul,
yes, i won this on ebay for $19.99 + $15 shipping. Hyperspin is on my consideration list. I want tto get MAME working first. then I'm going to play with a few different FEs and see which ones I like.

Hoopz, heres what I got from Belarc:

Operating System:
Windows XP Professional Service Pack 3 (build 2600)
Install Language: English (United States)
System Locale: English (United States)

System Model:
Hewlett-Packard HP d220 MT (DC523A)
Enclosure Type: Desktop

Processor:
2.00 gigahertz Intel Celeron
8 kilobyte primary memory cache
128 kilobyte secondary memory cache
Not hyper-threaded

Main Circuit Board:
Board: Lite-On Tech. 0888h
Bus Clock: 100 megahertz
BIOS: American Megatrends Inc. 1.02 05/09/2003

Drives:
160.03 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity
152.39 Gigabytes Hard Drive Free Space

COMPAQ CD-ROM LTN486S

ST3120026A [Hard drive] (120.03 GB) -- drive 1, s/n 3JT2567C, rev 3.06, SMART Status: Healthy
its not showing my second drive. there is also a 140 gig in there on cable select mode. hmmm?

Memory Modules:
248 Megabytes Usable Installed Memory

Slot '0' has 256 MB
Slot '1' is Empty


Display and Multimedia both say None detected

I also don't see anything about a graphics card

[Hoopz]

When I run it, I see a category called display and it shows that I have crappy integrated Intel graphics on this laptop. 

Yours shows none?

[92greenyj]

correct. Under display it says "None"

I do have a couple of oldr ATI graphics cards floating around, but it appears this PC doesn't have a gaphics card slot on the mother board. there are 3 expansion slots, but the top one doesn't look like a graphics card slot.

[Hoopz]

correct. Under display it says "None"

I do have a couple of oldr ATI graphics cards floating around, but it appears this PC doesn't have a gaphics card slot on the mother board. there are 3 expansion slots, but the top one doesn't look like a graphics card slot.

Well.

Well.

Damn.

Huh.

I'd guess it's just using the generic msft VGA driver so it's not identifying the hardware.  I'll search that motherboard and see what I can find.  The chipset for it is important as that'll determine the driver.  Odds are pretty good it's Intel graphics but we need more info.

Are the ATI cards PCI or AGP?  Not meaning offense, but they go into different slots based on the type.  Not sure if you're familiar with that. 

Hell, if you were closer to me, I'd give you an equivalent PC to use.  Avoid the problems here and get you up and running! 

[92greenyj]

the slots are PCI. the cards are AGP. i actually just took a look at the mobo and it loks like the board was designed to have an agp slot on it, but there isn't one there. theres 4 block offs on the back of the tower, but only three lower PCI slots. no slot lined up with the top block off plate where an AGP slot would be normally.

[andrewbean90]

this has got to be a dell they have addon cards for there clamshell cases that add on more pcis

[Hoopz]

this has got to be a dell they have addon cards for there clamshell cases that add on more pcis

It's a HP. 

[92greenyj]

Hoopz,
what version of MAME are you runnig on your set up?
And also, which ones do I need? the source? or the binary? or both?

[Hoopz]

I'm at .94.  It has Golden Tee, avoids a big sound/video change that occurred around .105 or so, and runs what I want to play. 

You want the binary, not the source.  The source code allows you to make modifications to it.  If that's something you want to do later, there are people here who can help.  I'm not one of them!     I don't know diddly about that stuff.

[andrewbean90]

BTW activate over online your copy of xp and Im running 0.85