Appletv crystal NO hard drive
#1
Sad 
For some reason the hard drive on my appletv stopped. I tried a new one and downloaded a new os.... Nothing. Is it possible to get XBMC (linux pref) to boot off a usb. I tried Crystalbuntu (i have a chip), but it seems to want the HD. Is their a way to get it to boot without looking for the HD? Or any other suggestions?
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#2
timallen2k Wrote:For some reason the hard drive on my appletv stopped. I tried a new one and downloaded a new os.... Nothing. Is it possible to get XBMC (linux pref) to boot off a usb. I tried Crystalbuntu (i have a chip), but it seems to want the HD. Is their a way to get it to boot without looking for the HD? Or any other suggestions?

install and boot atv(linux) from a USB based HD. my atv in the media room runs that way.
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#3
I can guarantee that the images posted on this forum don't require a hard drive. I have this weird issue where anytime I install a hard drive inside the ATV it causes it to short itself so I just took out the HD and popped a USB drive in the back, works flawlessly.
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#4
Philmatic Wrote:I can guarantee that the images posted on this forum don't require a hard drive. I have this weird issue where anytime I install a hard drive inside the ATV it causes it to short itself so I just took out the HD and popped a USB drive in the back, works flawlessly.

What images did you use??

I tried the 2 from Crystalbuntu both seem to lock up when it is detecting hard drives. Crystalbuntu is pretty much exactly what i want. Linux with crystal hd xbmc. Sorry im not good at building my own, i would pref copying an iso and maybe modifying it a bit for what i need. If i got a good bootable copy of ubuntu i could install xbmc and crystal hd drivers. (I’m a linux noob)
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#5
If you put the image onto a harddrive and put it inside the ATV then you must edit the plist on the second partition or else the system looks for the root partition on an external USB and it'll just hang until something like busybox eventually comes up.

If you have moved and enlarged partitions from the original image, then you must compile Davilla's patched parted (available with instructions from the atv-bootloader project) to make sure the drive is bootable by the ATV

All this is in the massive thread (now 100+ pages!) but it can be a bit hard to find all the germane info...

For the record: I used pin's minimal image on a 40gb drive and installed it directly into my atv - ran all necessary updates and it works like a charm...

Jim
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#6
Jimmer Wrote:If you put the image onto a harddrive and put it inside the ATV then you must edit the plist on the second partition or else the system looks for the root partition on an external USB and it'll just hang until something like busybox eventually comes up.

If you have moved and enlarged partitions from the original image, then you must compile Davilla's patched parted (available with instructions from the atv-bootloader project) to make sure the drive is bootable by the ATV

All this is in the massive thread (now 100+ pages!) but it can be a bit hard to find all the germane info...

For the record: I used pin's minimal image on a 40gb drive and installed it directly into my atv - ran all necessary updates and it works like a charm...

Jim

Hi Jim,

You mention that you used pin's minimal image on a 40gb drive and installed it directly into your ATV and it work like a charm.

Would you be kind enough to show me how to do this as I don't know much about Linux, and my ATV internal HD is 160GB

Thanks,
Alan
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#7
timallen2k Wrote:What images did you use??

I tried the 2 from Crystalbuntu both seem to lock up when it is detecting hard drives. Crystalbuntu is pretty much exactly what i want. Linux with crystal hd xbmc. Sorry im not good at building my own, i would pref copying an iso and maybe modifying it a bit for what i need. If i got a good bootable copy of ubuntu i could install xbmc and crystal hd drivers. (I’m a linux noob)

That's weird... locking up when detecting the hard drive is what I saw with my shorting hard drive problem. Have you tried removing the internal hard drive? That should resolve your issue.
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#8
Philmatic Wrote:That's weird... locking up when detecting the hard drive is what I saw with my shorting hard drive problem. Have you tried removing the internal hard drive? That should resolve your issue.

Well if it's getting to mounting root file system and just hanging there, then that sounds like the plist is incorrect rather than the harddrive is shorting out, since it's already got to this stage of the boot from the first two partitions of the harddrive. It's just that the plist then tells it to look at sdb3 rather than sda3, so it just hangs there waiting for a root file system to appear on the third partition of the USB drive rather than look at the correct root partition on the internal drive.

However, if it does nothing at all, then it's likely that the image has been incorrectly copied to disk (i.e. Incorrect use of dd) or resized with a non-patched parted or fdisk, neither of which respect the ATV's unique partition. The ATV will not boot from any drive without this correctly set up partition...

The best thing to do is get a spare 2.5" drive make sure you can make a bootable resized image on it using a patched parted that works via a USB hookup cable. Once this works, then edit the plist on the second partition to point to sda3, put the drive inside the ATV and it should boot up ok...

Jim
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#9
I plugged it in another tv so I could read the lines better. The last line that show up when booting is something about " dev/sdb2 not found. dropping to shell" I get this with the HD installed and not. So is their something wrong with the image on the usb. I have a 8 gig cruzer. and all i did was burn the iso on it. If you could point me to a guide to put the crystalbuntu on a HD and edit what you are talking about i think that would be better than usb. Like i said im pretty new at this)
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#10
As far as I know, you don't need to alter anything if you just burn the img to a USB stick - it should just boot. Some USB sticks don't work though - it has always been the same when creating patchsticks for the ATV. Someone used to have a list of sticks that were known to boot the ATV without problems...

I know from personal experience that some sticks come with that awful U3 partition system - in that case you must use the manufacturers tool to remove U3 before you try to make a patchstick - might be the same for this crystalbuntu img as well - Davilla's probably the one to ask about this kind of thing...

As for a tutorial, I haven't really seen one for a HDD install. Probably best to try and get a USB stick working first if you're a commandline novice. When you've got one of those booting successfully, then move on to patching and compiling parted, converting and resizing partitions and updating plists!

Jim
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