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My 750 gig Apple TV

Cave Man/Dynaflash,

Thank you for all the hard work you have put into this and for sharing it with the ATV community. I just placed an order for all of the components and can't wait for them to arrive to give this a shot. I have been using the patch stick with a USB drive hack for a few months now and it is less than ideal. While it works 95% of the time it always seems to have troubles the other 5% of the time when my wife is using it. ;) After doing hours of research on the best Hard Drive hacks I think this looks to be the clear winner and a great candidate for the much coveted wife approval and "Ronco" award. "Set it and forget it".

Thanks again. I will report back in the next couple weeks with my progress.
 
I have a 500GB WD Mybook eSata drive that I have on hand that I am going to use to start with. I will eventually move up to a 1TB drive if everything works out as planned.
 
Success!

Well, sort of. I've gotten it to boot for the first time on my 1TB external SATA drive. It did a full factory restore and I got the main menu and everything is perfect. Except for the fact that I can't close the case because I had to nix the extension cable and plug the bridge directly in to the AppleTV.

It sounds like this is a common problem, the ribbon cable not working, what was it that fixed the problem? I ordered the correct cable, the F12-X06M hard drive extension cable so I think it should work properly, but for whatever reason when the ribbon cable is plugged in I get nothing further than the Apple logo.

So, experts, what's the answer to the ribbon problem? Sounds like you've all had it, what do I need to do to fix it?
 
So I'm at a loss. No matter what I do the bridge won't work with the cable. I'm thinking maybe I'll order the bridge from the other place, instead of the place where it's a bit cheaper. The first bridge I got had the same chipset and all but wouldn't even work as well as this one does, so maybe the two that are supposed to be the same at a different price actually aren't the same afterall. Here are some pictures I took, just incase there was a glaring mistake that I've been missing.
 

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Vortec4800 said:
Yes, unless they shipped me the wrong cable (and put the wrong part number on the bag it came in) that's the cable I ordered. Is there any other reason that cable might not work correctly?
Click to expand...

Are you sure you have the cable on the correct direction for the drive? The first time I tried it, the cable was connected backwards.

Vortec4800 said:
So I'm at a loss. No matter what I do the bridge won't work with the cable. I'm thinking maybe I'll order the bridge from the other place, instead of the place where it's a bit cheaper.
Click to expand...

Dyna and I have the exact same bridge - from Syba. Are you saying yours isn't the exact same? My other bridge did not work with a cable, only if it was directly connected to the ATV logic board.
 
Cave Man said:
Are you sure you have the cable on the correct direction for the drive? The first time I tried it, the cable was connected backwards.



Dyna and I have the exact same bridge - from Syba. Are you saying yours isn't the exact same? My other bridge did not work with a cable, only if it was directly connected to the ATV logic board.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure if it's the same, that's why I ordered the other one to double check. With the bridge turned the other way on the cable it doesn't even power up, so I think it's connected correctly. Do you guys have any other ideas on why the bridge wouldn't work with the cable connected to it assuming the bridge is the same one you guys have?
 
It looks to me that your using one too many adapters.

It's possible to just use a 44 pin female to 40 pin female cable adapter (available here) to connect the logic board and the IDE-SATA Adapter without that extra adapter.

I'm guessing your SATA controller doesn't like the extra resistance the cable and adapter introduces.
 
Vortec4800 said:
Do you guys have any other ideas on why the bridge wouldn't work with the cable connected to it assuming the bridge is the same one you guys have?
Click to expand...
Other than being hooked up wrong, nope. At least in my case as soon as it was hooked up with the that cable/bridge then "Voila!" working atv (x2).
 
dynaflash said:
reduces the "macroblocking" you get in dark scenes with x264 big time. Though we are derailing this thread a bit. Trust me, the reencoding time is worth it.
Click to expand...

Pulling the thread a bit off-course for a moment again, I downloaded the snapshot and have a few movies I want to encode. Will the default AppleTV preset do this or is it something else I need to turn on or enable that's off by default? I see all kinds of stuff that's off, detelecine, VFR, denoise, deblock, decomb and so on.
 
Cave Man said:
Probably ought to just use the ATV preset. Make sure you update them before doing it. If you're just testing, it ought to be good enough.

I take it the new board arrived?
Click to expand...

No not yet, should be here the end of the week. For the time being it's being used on top of my entertainment center upside-down with the card sticking out the top. I'm hoping the new card takes care of it because if that doesn't work then I don't know what to try.
 
I got the new board, and while it is actually a different model from a different brand (with different versions and markings on the PCB) the end result is the same. Plugged directly into the ATV it boots right away but with the cable it just shows the Apple logo and restarts endlessly. I think maybe I'll just make some room in my cabinet and keep the ATV in up-side-down mode all the time. If it's hidden away, I guess I don't really care and I get 1TB eSATA AppleTV goodness without pulling any more of my hair out. Maybe one day Apple will get their heads on straight and release a high-capacity version of the device or a HDD company will release a 1TB notebook drive that will fit right in there.
 
Cave Man said:
Wow, that's a bummer you're having problems with it. Are you using the Syba adapter?
Click to expand...

Yeah, same one. Don't know what else the problem could be, it has to be something strange with my AppleTV. Maybe mine is an older hardware revision with a slightly different motherboard or something, I don't know. Oh well I guess, doesn't really matter.
 
I'm currently working on getting the new Samsung 500GB M6 SpinPoint 2.5" inside the AppleTV....wish me luck.
 
Same Issue

Well looks like I have the same issue as Vortec800. I can get mine to boot up just fine with the Sybase adapter plugged directly into the ATV, but it doesn't work with the extender cable. It will keep rebooting and one time I got it to go to the recovery screen but not any further. I will keep looking into it and see what I can find.
 
The cable thing sucks. I don't know what to say, it has worked for me twice with no issues.

Only thing i can think is that with the cable the orientation is wrong (still looks that way to me on vortec's pics). Hmm, all parts being equal I cannot figure out what the issue is.

For the record, my first atv is like the second one shipped to my state or something, I got it right when they first came out, so I don't think its anything having to do with older models.
 
Same Issue

Looking at Vortec's pics it seems to be reversed from how I have it hooked up as well. On mine the cables red stripe is located on the right hand side towards the rear of the ATV. I can tell it is correct as the Syba board gets power and shows disk activity for a bit then the ATV will reboot. Every once in a while it will work long enough to get it to the recovery prompt but then it just drops connection again after the reboot. I don't have anything to test the voltage unfortunately, so my troubleshooting for now is limited to verifying everything is connected properly. I may see if I can purchase a similar cable from another vendor if I am not able to make any progress.

I appreciate all your help!
 
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