Installing a pci card driver

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Level 1

10 points

Installing a pci card driver

Hi all

I am new to OS X. I've only just installed it on the Mac below. The computer had OS 9.2.2, which it still has on a separate partition. I installed OS X 13.3.2 onto a partition that did not have any system on it, and then updated it to 10.3.9. No problems so far,

Just previously to installing OS X I had fitted a 5-port USB PCI card which 9.2.2 did not recognise; the card is one of these cheap ones (Pluscom with a VIA chip) and it says on the tin that OS 10.2, 10.3, &10.4 are supported.

Well, it didn't work unaided in 9.2.2, which prompted me to install Panther.

When all this is done it still doesn't mount the USB flash drive when inserted into a socket on the card. So I visited the makers site and downloaded a OS X driver. It arrived as a .dmg file and it unzipped itself and I now have a folder with the following files in it:

Archive.bom
Archive.pax
Info.plist
Pkginfo
Resources, a folder containing:
Description.plist
postflight
VIAMACUSB-160.bom
VIAMACUSB-160.info
VIAMACUSB-160.pax
VIAMACUSB-160.sizes

My question is - how do I install this driver?

Many thanks

John

G4 400/120Gb (PCI), Mac OS 9.2.x

Posted on Nov 26, 2009 4:10 PM

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Answer 1

K Shaffer

Level 8

36,022 points

Dec 1, 2009 12:01 PM in response to John Wood3

Depending on what the file icons look like, there may be
different kinds of items there; one may be an installer.

About the hardware, it may be you will end up looking
for a better-supported PCI card which can be used in
Mac OS X and also in Mac OS 9.2.2; some brands are
better at that and the Mac-friendly ones really are.

Some really friendly ones are supported by the OS
already; others may need to have drivers or general
kext items in the system to support their use.

Without seeing the items you've opened from the
downloaded .dmg, I can't say if one is an installer.
You could use Get Info on a highlighted icon to
see what the file type may represent.

For example, the one ending in .bom may be an
additional archive that would open; or it may not.

Good luck & happy computing! 🙂

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