The problem is the adapter still protrudes beyond the bottom of the ATV. If you look at image ATV4.jpg of my OP (with the 3.5" PATA drive), you can see it sticks out too far.
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My 750 gig Apple TV
- Thread starter Cave Man
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The problem is the adapter still protrudes beyond the bottom of the ATV. If you look at image ATV4.jpg of my OP (with the 3.5" PATA drive), you can see it sticks out too far.
I also found this one. But it's quite a bit longer. You could, however, pretty easily trim the power leads
One other thought here ( apologize, I am just brainstorming here at work ):
According to this http://ocliteracy.com/techtips/ide-cable-select.html which includes among other things this:
"Pin 28 on the IDE ribbon cable is used for cable select. If a drive sees this signal as grounded, it's the master, but if it floats (unconnected), it is the slave" .
That "hole" i was talking about in the ATV cable is in fact the 28th pin which would indicate that it would be a "Slave" in the atv configuration in other words there is no ground signal from it. When we hook up directly to the logic board, that pin is *not* interrupted as it is with that cable. So even though the atv drive has no problem with this, the sata to pata bridge might be since that pin is connected when we connect right to the board and according to the ide pin out that would be a ground.
As well, there is also the matter of the number 20 pin ( I errantly called it 19 earlier) which is blocked off on the ribbon cable but has a pin in the logic board.
So other than the possible voltage drop issue supplying the pata to sata bridge, the only other inconsistencies I can see are these two pins which are blocked in the atv cable but not in our tests right to the board. Hmmm...
Edit: That number 20 pin may not even have any signal in the logic board, but there is a pin for it in the logic boards connector anyway.
According to this http://ocliteracy.com/techtips/ide-cable-select.html which includes among other things this:
"Pin 28 on the IDE ribbon cable is used for cable select. If a drive sees this signal as grounded, it's the master, but if it floats (unconnected), it is the slave" .
That "hole" i was talking about in the ATV cable is in fact the 28th pin which would indicate that it would be a "Slave" in the atv configuration in other words there is no ground signal from it. When we hook up directly to the logic board, that pin is *not* interrupted as it is with that cable. So even though the atv drive has no problem with this, the sata to pata bridge might be since that pin is connected when we connect right to the board and according to the ide pin out that would be a ground.
As well, there is also the matter of the number 20 pin ( I errantly called it 19 earlier) which is blocked off on the ribbon cable but has a pin in the logic board.
So other than the possible voltage drop issue supplying the pata to sata bridge, the only other inconsistencies I can see are these two pins which are blocked in the atv cable but not in our tests right to the board. Hmmm...
Edit: That number 20 pin may not even have any signal in the logic board, but there is a pin for it in the logic boards connector anyway.
Very true, I just thought it might work well as a test as I have a couple of these ribbon cables lying about and figured we could at least deterimine if there was a ribbon cable configuration that would allow it to work. Not a final solution, but might answer a few questions. If indeed it worked and there was no off the shelf 2.5" cable, frankly I am interested enough in it to buy an ide cabling kit and make my own.
I've tried that with a PATA drive and it worked just fine. For my setup, I think the issue is the voltage drop. Have you metered your 5v line when it works and when it doesn't work?
Right, but my concern is that the bridge might need that ground even though the drive does not. The only other pin not used with the stock atv ribbon is that number 20 which I verified is a dead end, no ground and no signal.
As far as the voltage thing goes, I think tomorrow I will just go ahead and tap that blue wire if its 5volts and run a decent lead up to the bridge using the stock atv cable just to verify one way or another. I cannot leave the atv open like that, but its killing me to put it back together with the now anemic 160GB hard drive in it.
Got it working with ribbon cable.
The problem is I had to switch around the end of the cable meaning remove the connector rotate it 180 degrees and re-attach it. I am now using a 40 pin cable between the 44pin adapter and the bridge, to see what I mean visualize everything plugged right into the logic board. Now take your cable and fold it so that the ends are straight though on a one to one. as if the pins went right through like directly into the logic board. you will notice the mark for pin one on the connectors is on the alternate row. At least in my case with the cable I used switching that end around gave me a one to one pinout. I used a cutout int the base and four standoffs to remount the base with more room to clear the adapter height (as cave man pointed out earlier).
So now I am permanently running the ATV eSATA Next step will be to get it working right with a 44 pin laptop ribbon so I can get everything inside without the standoffs and close it up like stock. Though really that will be mostly cosmetic actually. I don't have any pics right now but will try to post some later.
The problem is I had to switch around the end of the cable meaning remove the connector rotate it 180 degrees and re-attach it. I am now using a 40 pin cable between the 44pin adapter and the bridge, to see what I mean visualize everything plugged right into the logic board. Now take your cable and fold it so that the ends are straight though on a one to one. as if the pins went right through like directly into the logic board. you will notice the mark for pin one on the connectors is on the alternate row. At least in my case with the cable I used switching that end around gave me a one to one pinout. I used a cutout int the base and four standoffs to remount the base with more room to clear the adapter height (as cave man pointed out earlier).
So now I am permanently running the ATV eSATA
Next step will be to get it working right with a 44 pin laptop ribbon so I can get everything inside without the standoffs and close it up like stock. Though really that will be mostly cosmetic actually. I don't have any pics right now but will try to post some later.
Dyna,
That is truly fabulous. Can you post a few pics of this cable mod and setup? If I understand you correctly, you removed the ribbon connector on one end of your ATV cable and flipped it around? You're still using your gender adapter as well? I'm going this route, too, as soon as I get what you've done in place.
Good work.
That is truly fabulous. Can you post a few pics of this cable mod and setup? If I understand you correctly, you removed the ribbon connector on one end of your ATV cable and flipped it around? You're still using your gender adapter as well? I'm going this route, too, as soon as I get what you've done in place.
Good work.
Yep. [Edit: no, I used a 40 pin ribbon cable, not the 44 pin atv cable, I tried that and destroyed it in the process, so was committed to the 40 pin I had. So right now I am 44-40 pin adapter -> 40 pin ribbon cable (one end flipped 180) -> set of pins to go to male -> eSata bridge etc. etc.]
I had to remove the pins out of my old 44 pin gender adapter and hand pin the end of the 40 pin ribbon cable to get a male end to go into the bridge.
Family stuff today, will try for pics tomorrow.
k. no pics yet. But I did have one issue. For some reason this morning before leaving for work I did see the alternating white, yellow light flashing on the front of the atv. Turned the tv on and there was the question mark drive icon flashing . So, I simply restarted the atv and hit the power button on the mybook, it booted up fine . Was on all day yesterday with no issues. I think there may be issues with the power management firmware or something on the mybook. Not sure. Will take more troubleshooting I think. I would imagine if you had a drive with no power button of its own, you would be fine. Tough to say right now.
One note, my harmony remote is set to put the atv to sleep when I power everything off. Don't know if this is pertinent in this setup.
Cave Man, you have any luck this weekend ?
. So, I simply restarted the atv and hit the power button on the mybook, it booted up fine . Was on all day yesterday with no issues. I think there may be issues with the power management firmware or something on the mybook. Not sure. Will take more troubleshooting I think. I would imagine if you had a drive with no power button of its own, you would be fine. Tough to say right now.One note, my harmony remote is set to put the atv to sleep when I power everything off. Don't know if this is pertinent in this setup.
Cave Man, you have any luck this weekend ?
No, nothing this weekend. Nice weather + honeydolist = no free time...
I may also go the route you are as well. I'll see about getting some stand-offs and mill some wooden sides in my shop. I have plenty of scrap cherry, walnut and oak laying around, so it shouldn't be too much trouble. It's too bad the 3.5" drives don't take just 5v. Easier to power and wouldn't put out so much heat.
Well, I do not think I am using the optimum solution. I do think it is possible though. Like you its a matter of time to devote to this. I think I am kind of in the middle right now. Ultimately I see no reason a 44 pin ribbon cannot be used if its setup right. Which means it can be fully enclosed As much like stock as possible. Due to the lack of 44 pin cables over the counter (that and the fact that I hosed up the ends on my atv cable) I have resorted to getting everything ironed out with the much cheaper and more plentiful 40 pin ribbon cables. One other thing about the ribbon cable I used, none of the holes in any of the ends is blocked off as well as that number 28 CSSelect wire. Everything is connected from end to end. That helped eliminate possible causes of failure I think.
Okay so I took it back apart and may now have a better solution than my hand pinned 40 pin cable. This cable http://www.cablesonline.net/644fetomaide.html does the same thing in the smaller 44 pin cable size, as well it allows us to move the adapter that prevents the atv from being closed up. I just ordered it.
So this should work unlike the atv cable. The thing is, if you try to use a standard ide cable it cannot work as unlike the drive that is normally attached to the end of the cable, the bridges all have the exact same pin arrangement. Drives otoh are actually "paralleled" which means that the even and odd numbered rows are reversed. If you were to plug your drive directly into the logic board socket as we are with the bridge, the drive would not work either. Pin 1 on the logic board would actually plug into pin 2 on the drive, 3 becomes 4, and on and on. cave man, I really believe that you were likely suffering from this as opposed to the voltage drop you suspected initially. The cable linked above is a 44 pin version of the 40 pin cable that I handpinned and worked. So I do think its likely the answer. Notice in the description:
"This Cable is used to extend 2.00mm, 44 pin Laptop Hard Drive cable." meaning it maintains the row arrangement exactly as it is on the logic board whereas a regular ide cable parallels it reversing the two rows.
BTW, since that initial weird no hard drive incident, the eSATA drive has been working flawlessly. Approx 340 GB loaded up on it and the wife and kids have been using it almost daily with no glitches at all. We are close I thi nk ...
So this should work unlike the atv cable. The thing is, if you try to use a standard ide cable it cannot work as unlike the drive that is normally attached to the end of the cable, the bridges all have the exact same pin arrangement. Drives otoh are actually "paralleled" which means that the even and odd numbered rows are reversed. If you were to plug your drive directly into the logic board socket as we are with the bridge, the drive would not work either. Pin 1 on the logic board would actually plug into pin 2 on the drive, 3 becomes 4, and on and on. cave man, I really believe that you were likely suffering from this as opposed to the voltage drop you suspected initially. The cable linked above is a 44 pin version of the 40 pin cable that I handpinned and worked. So I do think its likely the answer. Notice in the description:
"This Cable is used to extend 2.00mm, 44 pin Laptop Hard Drive cable." meaning it maintains the row arrangement exactly as it is on the logic board whereas a regular ide cable parallels it reversing the two rows.
BTW, since that initial weird no hard drive incident, the eSATA drive has been working flawlessly. Approx 340 GB loaded up on it and the wife and kids have been using it almost daily with no glitches at all. We are close I thi nk ...
Dyna,
That is great to hear - I sure hope you are right. (And I appreciate you being the Guinea pig on this. )
Please let us know how it works. I'm leaving town for a few days, but hope to get this done in the next couple of weeks (pending your results).
Thanks - CM.
That is great to hear - I sure hope you are right. (And I appreciate you being the Guinea pig on this.
) Please let us know how it works. I'm leaving town for a few days, but hope to get this done in the next couple of weeks (pending your results).
Thanks - CM.
Good News. It works great. No need to tap that power supply (at least not for the sata bridge I am using) . So it isn't as messy as my hand made 40 pin cable and folds up neatly in the atv. Only caveat is it required a small mod to the "shroud" around the logic board pins as the connector on the ribbon cable is a touch wider than the shroud allows (though possibly a different brand of the same cable would be narrower ?). Not a huge deal to be sure, but worth noting. Still have to mod my base and secure the card to get it closed up. Hoping to get to that tomorrow. Will snap a couple pics hopefully and get them posted. Have been running it (sans base, and upside down) all day and it works just fine. The only thing I am curious about is if that card and cable will have any effect on the airflow from the atv's fan once its closed up. I wouldn't think it would. But who knows ? Afaik this is somewhat uncharted territory.
. So it isn't as messy as my hand made 40 pin cable and folds up neatly in the atv. Only caveat is it required a small mod to the "shroud" around the logic board pins as the connector on the ribbon cable is a touch wider than the shroud allows (though possibly a different brand of the same cable would be narrower ?). Not a huge deal to be sure, but worth noting. Still have to mod my base and secure the card to get it closed up. Hoping to get to that tomorrow. Will snap a couple pics hopefully and get them posted. Have been running it (sans base, and upside down) all day and it works just fine. The only thing I am curious about is if that card and cable will have any effect on the airflow from the atv's fan once its closed up. I wouldn't think it would. But who knows ? Afaik this is somewhat uncharted territory.
AppleTV eSata Edition
Okay, finally got around to some pics. Here are the components I ended up using:
44 pin hard drive extension cable ( NOT a standard laptop hdd cable) http://www.cablesonline.net/644fetomaide.html for $9.99 U.S.
44 pin to 40 pin pata converter (same as cave mans) http://www.cablesonline.net/44pinto40pin.html $6.99 US.
Pata to Sata Bridge (local over the counter for me, you can order it online here): http://www.nanosys1.com/hd-cnt-cu-satahd-ide.html $19.99 US
Sata to eSata Cable: Take your pick, many available all over the place I bought mine over the counter for about $10.00 US.
Only real modification for this part was that the width of the connector for the 44 pin ide extension cable was greater than the "shroud" around the header in the logic board. So instead of searching for another cable (by now I was very tired of ordering things only to find they didn't work) I merely broke off the end of that shroud which is very easy as its just a brittle plastic and has no real function. Its right at each end so the plastic part of the cable connector can hang over a bit.
Here's some pics of the cable and adapter assembly.
Okay, finally got around to some pics. Here are the components I ended up using:
44 pin hard drive extension cable ( NOT a standard laptop hdd cable) http://www.cablesonline.net/644fetomaide.html for $9.99 U.S.
44 pin to 40 pin pata converter (same as cave mans) http://www.cablesonline.net/44pinto40pin.html $6.99 US.
Pata to Sata Bridge (local over the counter for me, you can order it online here): http://www.nanosys1.com/hd-cnt-cu-satahd-ide.html $19.99 US
Sata to eSata Cable: Take your pick, many available all over the place I bought mine over the counter for about $10.00 US.
Only real modification for this part was that the width of the connector for the 44 pin ide extension cable was greater than the "shroud" around the header in the logic board. So instead of searching for another cable (by now I was very tired of ordering things only to find they didn't work) I merely broke off the end of that shroud which is very easy as its just a brittle plastic and has no real function. Its right at each end so the plastic part of the cable connector can hang over a bit.
Here's some pics of the cable and adapter assembly.
Attachments
So here are a couple of shots of the base closed up and the atv running with the WD MyBook 500GB eSata drive. I know, the quality of workmanship sucks on the base, but installed its not bad. Note by routing out the bottom like this you need some kind of feet. Fortunately I had always kept the rubber pad off of the base of mine and used those felt stick on furniture pads as feet anyway. I figured with the perforated metal bottom it would only promote airflow.
So, to echo Cave Mans early perfomance reports, I could not be happier. I went ahead and did a factory restore back to 1.0, then did the update just to make sure there was no issues. All went smooth as silk. You can see from the About screen that I have already synced more than I ever could with a standard pata drive and have plenty of room left. Its been running for a few days now and there have been no problems so far. In fact movies seem to play back smoother with extreme settings (placebo effect ?) and definitely tend to ffw and rew much smoother with no lag at all. I don't imagine that the 7200 rpm 32 mb cache drive hurts much in that area.
One advantage I see here is that when the drive get's too full, just buy bigger eSata external, image it and reformat this one and use it in my system for other things as its fully unmodified.
So, to echo Cave Mans early perfomance reports, I could not be happier. I went ahead and did a factory restore back to 1.0, then did the update just to make sure there was no issues. All went smooth as silk. You can see from the About screen that I have already synced more than I ever could with a standard pata drive and have plenty of room left. Its been running for a few days now and there have been no problems so far. In fact movies seem to play back smoother with extreme settings (placebo effect ?) and definitely tend to ffw and rew much smoother with no lag at all. I don't imagine that the 7200 rpm 32 mb cache drive hurts much in that area
.One advantage I see here is that when the drive get's too full, just buy bigger eSata external, image it and reformat this one and use it in my system for other things as its fully unmodified.
Attachments
Cave Man covers that earlier in this thread. This mod requires no software hacks that can be broken by an update. My atv has been out of warranty for some time so thats not an issue. As well, the eSata interface as well as the original pata interface is considerably faster than the USB interface .
But, thats just my preference. Glad your USB hack works well for you.
But, thats just my preference. Glad your USB hack works well for you.
Excellent dyna - I've just ordered my crossover ribbon. Hopefully it'll be here on Friday. It'll give me something to do, other than mow the grass and other honeydo things.