Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

My 750 gig Apple TV

Thats how I first did it as it says in this thread. Much easier to just order the right cable. Well, I mean I manually crossed all 44 individual cables, which totally sucked. Just map it out. Personally the $18 dollars is well worth it. Those wires are very small.
 
dynaflash said:
Someone ought to buy a decent number of the part set and sell it as a kit. 😉
Click to expand...

Well that's what i plan on doing in the long run. I have a Carving machine and plan on making a slightly bigger apple tv case to house a 3.5" sata HD in as well as have an external eSata plug in the back with everything else. May also upgrade the power plug to a computer PSU-style plug. Also will be programming a chip so that one button on the front will allow the user (via the LCD) to change sata ports from inside to external and to turn the apple tv off/on.

Just need to get all the parts that actually work and then go from there. Since the dual Sata card did not work for Cave Man, i guess i will solder another sata connector on top of the one already on the board and just turn the inside hard drive power off and switch when using the eSata. (and vis versa.)

But hey, I'm always opened to your input 🙂

David
 
I planned to change my ATV HD to 250GB PATA but its hard to look for one in my country, all i can see is 160GB. I have also made a backup of my ATV using dynaflash ATVCloner.

For the meantime, I just use an external drive attached to my ATV's USB port. I just installed SSH using atvusb-creator and done everything manually to enable USB support and pointed my Media Library to my external drive, so far so good. Of course nothing beats a real hardware upgrade, like you guys are doing.

Here's my setup:
3837739429_4cdd9c68af.jpg
 
Ah, finally got around to getting a 3.5 1tb sata hard drive. I ordered a few IDE to sata adapters off of eBay to test out and I’m happy to say that out of the 4 I got, only one did not work... (And that one was the bi-directional one!)

Anyways, here is a listing that I got my IDE to sata adaptor: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=300342322119&ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT

They also have a few other shops on eBay that are named differently because out of the 4 adaptors i bought, 3 came from the same address (though, different store names on eBay and one from Hong Kong.). And they confirmed with me that they have more than 1 store on eBay so pretty much you get the same product like I did, ha. But for $6.50 shipped in the US, I can’t complain any.

Now onto making the housing to fit a 3.5" hard drive. Although I’m 99.99% sure i will have to make my own case for it, it should keep the same form factor. Maybe be a half inch longer on one side to accommodate the 3.5" hard drive.

I plan on doing the following:
- house a 3.5" hard drive
- have a 12v/5v circuit for the hard drive and adaptor.
- eSata external connector
- Front (or top) mounted LCD with a button to choose eSata, 3.5" hd, or turn off the apple tv.

I may also look into doing the RCA output hack as well if I can figure out a way to do it software wise.

Anyways, i hope to get some time to do all this but right now i have one more class (c++) that i need to pass in order to graduate so thats top priority 🙂

Feel free to post your ideas of what you would like to see the apple tv to do and ill see if I would be able to pull it off with my mods.

David
 
dynaflash said:
What exactly are you referring to ?
Click to expand...

Meaning what kind of external mods would you like to see the apple tv to have. Since i will be designing the case, i can add ports in the back for other things like a better power plug socket, 12v external power for eSata drive, etc etc...

David
 
I'm a bit late to the game, great thread and great work to both CaveMan and DynaFlash.

I'm based in the UK, and the links you guys provided for the components...

- 6" 44-Pin Female to Male IDE Crossed Cable
- 2.5" Molded Laptop IDE Hard Drive Adapter
- Syba IDE to Serial ATA Controller

...are all American companies and I couldn't find any shipping info on whether they can ship to the UK and how much.

Of course, I'd rather find UK suppliers - be cheaper and shipping will be quicker. I've tried Maplin and Dabs but can't find those specific parts.

Obviously I'd want the Syba SATA controller, as CaveMan had trouble with another brand.
 
Kilamite said:
Obviously I'd want the Syba SATA controller, as CaveMan had trouble with another brand.
Click to expand...

You might check dynaflash's link over at the Tiki Bar in the Handbrake forums. He's found a couple of other bridges that work as well.

As far as the cross over cable, that's the only one I've seen. Good luck on the hunt.
 
Does Syba still make that exact bridge? I can't find it on their website anymore.

I've searched through the HandBrake topic on this and can't find any other adapters that work.. am I blind? Or is it in a different topic in the Tiki bit?

Dabs does sell StarTech IDE to SATA adapter, but I think that is the one that didn't work for you.
 
Here's the link in the HB forums.

They may not make that part anymore. I've had mine for a year or two, so it could be out of production. The Startech did not work for me.
 
Note: I updated the original post with a link to atvcloner for imaging the drive. That way you don't have to read through four pages.
 
Cave Man said:
Here's the link in the HB forums.

They may not make that part anymore. I've had mine for a year or two, so it could be out of production. The Startech did not work for me.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I'm struggling to find any that are SATA input and output to IDE.

Really don't want to waste my money on something that won't work, but as you know, a lot of this is trial and error with stuff.

http://www.homestead.co.uk/productcategorydetail.aspx?categoryid=55930

http://www.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?TabID=1&criteria=usb&ModuleNo=222115&C=SO&U=Strat15

Would either of those do the trick?
 
Thankfully the company that makes the IDE cross cable and the 2.5" adapter ship to the UK and they will be arriving within the next 5 days.

Just need to find a SATA to PATA adapter that works. If my local Maplin store has that one in stock, then it shouldn't be too much hassle to get a refund if it doesn't work.

dynaflash - I'll use your atvcloner, thanks for making that. Next stage is to get a 1TB hard drive and eSATA enclosure.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back