Restore first generation Apple TV?

[jaw04005]

My first generation (silver) Apple TV hard drive is finally dieing. 🤣

I love this thing and it's full of old Apple keynotes, commercials, ripped DVDs, etc. All of that is backed up.

I know I can replace the hard drive with a cheap SD/CompactFlash/MSATA to IDE convertor.

However, how do I restore the original firmware to the new blank drive? I can't seem to find a decent video/thread about it. Archive.org has the original firmware. If I remember correctly, it has two partitions—OS and media. Could I just recreate this on the new drive?

Restoring the firmware (dmg file) to a USB stick and holding down menu and up doesn't seem to work.

 

[Juicy Box]

IIRC, there is an installer than someone made to do this, although it is Windows only.

I have two first gens, as was planning on doing this to both of them a few years back. Never got around to doing it, but got the MSATA drives, and adapters. Both are currently taken apart with their HDDs pulled.

I think getting the OS installed was what held me up, I think the SW I was using wasn't working for me.

I got distracted with some other project, and never got back to the ATV1s.

 

[jaw04005]

I tracked down all the firmware options (since Apple pulled it from their servers a few years ago). There's the original Front Row firmware, then the Take 2 software update and finally the 3.0 version.

On the Apple support forums, someone mentioned if you get an USB A to USB A cable you can connect it to iTunes, but that seems questionable to me.

ATV USB Flash is the program I found, but I can't get it work in Snow Leopard. I'm gonna dig out my iMac G4 with Tiger and try it on that later this week.