Help needed installing Windows NT 3.51

[pwnell]

I have been trying to install Windows NT 3.51 under Parallels 6 for Mac under Lion to no avail. I can get all other OS's running, just not 3.51.

The problem is at the blue boot screen after the initial copying of files from i386 to the hard disk have been completed. Where it shows the RAM total and Multiprocessor Kernel... Then it just hangs there. I have tried various hacks, from replacing atapi.sys etc. with more modern versions - nothing works.

Please do not ask my why I want to install it and recommend installing something newer. I just would like to find out if anyone managed to get Windows NT 3.51 installed under Parallels.

 

[pwnell]

Nobody has any insights?

 

[rubenerd]

Still an issue in Parallels Desktop Build 8.0.18483

Forgive my bumping of this thread, but I've encountered the same issue on the current Parallels Desktop Build 8.0.18483. After the first reboot in the installation process, NT 3.51 hangs at the blue screen:



Other VM solutions on the Mac don't seem to have this issue, but I'd rather standardise on Parallels.

I'll keep trying to crack this nut. In the meantime, any ideas?

Cheers,
Ruben

 

[rubenerd]

Okay, I've been working on this for a while. So far I've ruled out:

• The bus. Seems to happen with IDE 0.0 or SCSI 0.0
• Memory. Have tried 256, 128, 64 and 32MiB
• Drive capacity. Have tried 7.9GB, 1.9GB
• Install procedure. Using virtual floppies, or "floppyless operation" with an ISO.

From Googling around, it seems some earlier versions of NT don't like VT-x being enabled. Is this still possible to disable in Parallells? I think I remember being able to do this in the first beta builds way back in 2006.