i tried to follow the steps. when i plug my drive to atv i still get the logo with ? on top. how i fix this? thanks
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i tried to follow the steps. when i plug my drive to atv i still get the logo with ? on top. how i fix this? thanks
First off, thank you to all who have contributed to this and all the other forums, of all things Apple, AppleTV (ATV) seems to be a hit and miss fix.
So in the spirit of giving back, I will post my solution. I have 2 ATVs and have had reliable use from both of them over the years. One day however I found one not working with expired support so I hit the forums, and wow did I come a cross a ton of suggestion and great guides. Unfortunately none of them produced a successful restore. They did however point me in the right direction. So here is my guide.
First off try the "Menu - option" with the ATV remote, this brings you to the restart / restore / diagnostics screen if you can get here this should solve 95% of the problems out there.
I found the diagnostic to be useless, but that is probably because I did not have any hardware failures just boot problems, so run it just in case and if you have faulty hardware...my condolences.
Selecting the restore option as mentioned will solve 95% of the problems but if you have had a corruption of the restore partition (more on that later) then you may get stuck in the endless loop of "ATV ?" with amber to white LED blinking. If this is the case read on....
The dreaded "ATV ?" with amber to white LED blinking is what this guide will be focusing on. Whether or not you get the ATV ? with amber to white LED blinking and the ability to Menu - to the restore screen but no success with the restore or nothing but the "ATV ?" with amber to white LED blinking. You are going into the box so here is the list of items you will need (note this solution is for OSX user only, sorry Windows users, find a friend who has a Mac);
Hardware
Torx screw driver (T-8),
IDE to Laptop IDE adapter,
an IDE to USB adaptor or 2.5" USB drive case,
Applications
Disk Utility /Applications/Utilities, and
AtvCloner DynaFlash Tech AtvCloner
So most of the guides go into using Terminal and DD for assisting with the drive setup that needs to be performed, Atvcloner (many thanks to the development of this handy app) will simplify this for you with a nice simple GUI.
Step 1
Get the hard drive out of the ATV. If your drive is still functioning and is not the root cause of the failure, i.e. you get the "ATV ?" screen or can get to the restore menu but can't get any further. Peel back the rubber base and unscrew the back panel and remove the hard drive. Sample video of the process YouTube - Removing Apple TV hard drive to recover iTunes media files.
Step 1.1
If your drive is dead or you want to increase your ATV capacity with a new drive, you will need an image/copy of an ATV drive before going to Step 2, do a search on your favourite torrent provider for OS-dot-DMG 1.0.dmg or smallatv.rar or if you have two ATVs or a REALLY GOOD FRIEND WITH NO WARRANTY left willing to let you borrow their drive.
* At this point please scan any DL'd files and make sure everything is clean *
Step 2
Place the drive (this is the functioning but troublesome one, the torrented image or friends drive) in the IDE to USB adaptor or a the 2.5" USB drive case and connect this to your Mac or the DL'd image to your desktop (for easy access)
Step 3 (note these steps have been documented elsewhere and thank you to those who came before, I'm just expanding on what worked for me and 3 others)
Run the AtvCloner.app and where the GUI lists the TAB for "Image Source Drive partitions" and the Field: Source Device ID, select the Choose button and pick the physical drive or the image.
Select the Output images path in the second field to /Users/*user*/Desktop/ (for easy access).
Select the "Image Sources Partitions" button and wait till the extraction has completed. What Atvcloner is doing here is making images of the individual partitions that make up your ATV drive and dumping them to your desktop.
Once finished your desktop should contain the following images;
efi.dmg,
recovery.dmg, and
boot.dmg
Keep AtvCloner open, we still need it.
Step 4
Double click on the recovery.dmg to mount it. In the mounted drive should be an image called OS.dmg, copy this to your desktop (for easy access).
Step 5
Get the new drive you want to use in the ATV and connect it to your MAC or open Disk Utilities and erase your existing ATV drive.
Step 6
In AtvCloner select the Partition New Drive TAB and follow one or both if the first does not work methods below. The Second method is the one that finally work for me and came from hours of playing around with different images, some luck and small moment of clarity.
Select your newly erased drive as the Target Device ID using the Choose button and navigating to this drive in the finder window.
AtvCloner has three "Path" fields listed that correspond to each of the new images you just extracted with AtvCLoner in Step 3. Select the Choose button for each and select the corresponding image for each field (boot, efi and recovery)
Once the fields are populated select the "Prepare New Drive" button.
Sit back and take a moment while AtvCloner does it's magic (this is all the terminal DD work that other guides run you through)
Once completed unmount the new drive it will have three new partitions created, one visible called Media and two others with alpha numeric names.
-->Go to step 7
Step 6.1
Welcome to Step 6.1!
This method is the one that finally worked for me. Remember opening up the recovery drive and copying the OS.dmg. Yeah....it's the "restore" image. Makes sense right, that was my moment of clarity.
Follow Step 6 to the letter but substitute the boot.dmg for the OS.dmg and follow through to Step 7. Worked like a charm for me hope it works for you.
Step 7
Place your newly imaged drive back into your ATV, no need to screw everything together just yet, connect the video and data cables and then carefully plug the the power cable in (with out the back plate the plug can be a little loose). Make sure you have your remote handy, and right after you plug in the ATV point the remote at the front and hold the Menu and - button down until the amber light goes solid for at least 2 seconds, release the buttons on the remote and cross your fingers. If everything went right in the previous steps you should have a version 2.x of ATV and are ready to upgrade to the next version.
***
If you finished Step 6 and went on to Step 7 and had no luck, don't feel bad. You can try Step 6 again if you think it did not go well and see if that works, if after two attempts you have no luck go to Step 6.1.
Step 8
If everything worked great, why not make a backup before you put everything back together or at the very least place all of the images you DL'd and/or created with AtvCloner to a safe place just in case.
Hope this guide was helpful, happy ATV'n.
For some reason i'm getting only 2 images efi.dmg and recovery.dmg. No boot.dmg. :mad: :confused:
If you have no boot.dmg just get the the OS.dmg from the recovery.dmg and try step 6.1
Hope this helps http://www.hackint0sh.org/images/smilies/apple.gif
I wish i had one. :(. Can't find it anywhere.:confused: You link does not opens either.
This download downloads a 16kb file, most likely SPAM, SPOOF, or SOMETHING.
Does anyone have the actual DMG to download for recovery as my ATV drive crapped out, and this TORRENT crap has me downloading crap for days. Getting ready to just go buy another Apple TV and post the frickin file myself, it is just dumb to me.
Hi!
This is a great forum!!!
I have a noob question:
Can I use this image for install the OS of the Apple TV on a windows pc...
I want to put this OS on a pentium4 for manage my files and other...:)
Can you help me???:D
Thank you very much...:D:D:D
Nothing?:(
Not without a lot of hacking..Quote:
Originally Posted by I-Gamer
This is designed for specific hardware, you would get a bit further with OSx86 (tiger)
Hi,
This is a old thread but more or less they only one I could find... Is there someone who can help me!
My ATV just broke down (HDD is dead) so I cannot take a backup from the original disk!
Is there someone who could share the image with me so I can use a new disk instead! I have been searching for smallatv.rar but without any success!
Our ATV is a must for our son, and he cannot understand it's not working, so would love if I could fix it asap!
Hope someone can help!
Thx