aTV and Enabling USB Port

jteddy · #1 October 16th, 2008, 12:10 AM

I have installed Boxee & XBMC using the atvusb-creator.
I have a 1tb external drive that I would like to plug into my aTV.

I followed this guide to enable USB support, although after rebooting my AppleTV I could not scroll through the menus, so I had to do a factory default restore.

Could you please point me in the right direction of enabling the USB port on the Apple TV. I thought the atvusb-creator would do this be default, but if I run the

Code:

diskutil list

command, I do not see the drive.
Thanks in advance.

docbrown · #2 October 16th, 2008, 03:19 AM

It might be as simple as formatting your drive correctly.
I have 2 drives mounting automatically formatted as HFS+ Journaled. I dont think NTFS drives work. I have yet to try FAT32 but i have heard of it not working.

If you want to try reinstalling USB Storage i would recommend using this guide instead:
http://wiki.awkwardtv.org/wiki/Enabl...Storage_on_2.x

the other option (easier) is to install NitoTV and run the included smart installer. To enable USB, you need Tiger 10.4.9 combo update copied to ~/Documents in your AppleTV before starting the smart installer.

Combo Update:
http://www.apple.com/support/downloa...dateintel.html

NitoTV:
http://wiki.awkwardtv.org/wiki/NitoTV_Take_2

good luck.

jteddy · #3 October 16th, 2008, 07:29 AM

I followed the guide at http://wiki.awkwardtv.org/wiki/NitoTV_Take_2 downloaded the combo update, and placed it in the aTV documents folder and ran the smart update via NitoTV

I now have USB drive access.

Thanks for information on a painless installation.

conjett · #4 October 16th, 2008, 01:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jteddy

I followed the guide at http://wiki.awkwardtv.org/wiki/NitoTV_Take_2 downloaded the combo update, and placed it in the aTV documents folder and ran the smart update via NitoTV

I now have USB drive access.

Thanks for information on a painless installation.

Quick question: Do you place the combo update dmg file in ATV documents folder and does the the smart update extract what it needs to enable USB from that?

Thanks.

docbrown · #5 October 16th, 2008, 07:35 PM

copy the 10.4.9 combo dmg to /Users/frontrow/Documents before running smart installer.

if the documents folder does not exist then you will need to create it.

and yep, nito's awesome plugin will extract everything it needs to enable usb.

jteddy · #6 October 16th, 2008, 07:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by docbrown

copy the 10.4.9 combo dmg to /Users/frontrow/Documents before running smart installer.

if the documents folder does not exist then you will need to create it.

and yep, nito's awesome plugin will extract everything it needs to enable usb.

Exactly

mytran80@hotmail.com · #7 October 27th, 2008, 01:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by docbrown

copy the 10.4.9 combo dmg to /Users/frontrow/Documents before running smart installer.

if the documents folder does not exist then you will need to create it.

and yep, nito's awesome plugin will extract everything it needs to enable usb.

this info was very useful to me,thanks docbrown

hsofco · #8 October 28th, 2008, 07:10 PM

I saw another tutorial about the nitotv, and they mentioned something about creating a restore.dmg file, but they werent clear about it.
Do I have to create an empty file with that name? if so where do I put it?
Am I supposed to get it from somewhere?

docbrown · #9 October 28th, 2008, 08:36 PM

recovery.dmg is required when u want to enable AFP filesharing both to and from your AppleTV. If you dont have a Mac then you dont need it.

If you do have a mac then this will be really useful. Not only can you access the appletv internal drive from your mac, but you can also access any usb drives that you may have plugged to the appletv, essentially turning your AppleTV into a NAS.

To make this work you will need a recovery.dmg created from an AppleTV that can factory restore to 1.0. Place "recovery.dmg" into ~/Documents along with the 10.4.9 combo update and then run NitoTV's smart installer.

If you do not have a 1.0 AppleTV there is an alternative but from what Nito says, this is not the correct way. I have successfully enabled AFP using this method so it works for me.

1. You will need to find an image of an AppleTV 1.0 drive somewhere on the internet. I will not tell you where as it is copyrighted material.

2. Create a recovery.dmg from your current AppleTV (regardless of what firmware its on) by ssh'ing to your AppleTV and type: sudo dd if=/dev/disk0s2 of=recovery.dmg bs=1m

3. This will create "recovery.dmg" at /Users/frontrow/

4. Copy this to your Mac and mount it. Inside you will see OS.dmg. Delete the recovery.dmg from your AppleTV.

5. Mount the image of AppleTV 1.0 on your Mac. You should see inside another OS.dmg

6. Replace the OS.dmg inside the recovery.dmg you just created with the one from the AppleTV 1.0 image.

7. Copy recovery.dmg back to your AppleTV in /Users/frontrow/Documents

8. Copy 10.4.9 Combo update to /Users/frontrow/Documents

9. Run NitoTV smart installer.

good luck!

hsofco · #10 October 28th, 2008, 08:43 PM

I am running atv 2.2, with the atvusb creator patchstick (which installed boxee). Will the procedure you explained restore my atv to a different version?

One more question - if all I want is the atv to read an external HD connected to it via usb, do I still need to perform this procedure (you said it's required for AFP - just making sure)