# Apple TV W/USB Storage



## Megs_29 (Sep 25, 2007)

Hey

Has anyone hacked a new Take 2 OOTB with a patchstick in order to use it with a USB external drive?

If so, can anyone help.. im having trouble figuring this whole thing out :S


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## gtgt (Jul 19, 2005)

If you successfully use the patchstick, then you can ssh into the atv.
Use the free program Fugu to ssh into it. Make sure you have force ssh1 clicked on.
Download NitoTV. Put into the frontrow folder of atv (you can drag and drop it with Fugu).
ssh into the appletv with terminal. (ssh -1 [email protected])

then
cd /mnt/Scratch/Users/frontrow/nitoTV Take Two

then
sudo ./installme

Once Nitotv is installed follow the instructions to install all the stuff in it's settings/install menu.

It makes the usb option work.
whew!


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## Snubnose (Sep 28, 2003)

So gtgt, exactly how difficult/potentially harmful is hacking the ATV? I work in technology and am pretty comfortable with the Terminal, etc...but am no hardcore hacker. Can you give an idea? Is it a case where, if you follow the steps carefully, it should be fine?


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## Megs_29 (Sep 25, 2007)

How do you tell if the patchstick you created works properly? When i put the USB key into the back of the apple tv and hold down menu and -, it just restarts over and over and goes back to the language screen?


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## gtgt (Jul 19, 2005)

Snubnose said:


> So gtgt, exactly how difficult/potentially harmful is hacking the ATV? I work in technology and am pretty comfortable with the Terminal, etc...but am no hardcore hacker. Can you give an idea? Is it a case where, if you follow the steps carefully, it should be fine?


Well....... I knew nothing about the terminal before starting my atv hacking ways.
It became an endless challenge for me. Even if you follow the instructions, there are still things that pop up that are unexpected (Harpoon can attest to that). If you know your terminal stuff, it may be much easier though.
I found that the best way for me was to use one of those usb/ide accessories and take the hard drive out of the atv and work on it that way. As soon as you get the atv, clone the drive (dd) and then you can always return it to the origional state if things go wrong. I have hacked 4 atv's now, and have cloned drives of all the versions (1.0, 1.1 and 2.0). Just bought one from Sig last week ($199 cash) and was pleasantly surprised to find that it was a 1.0 version of the os on it. That is the ideal atv to hack. Now both of my atv's are now at 2.0. I can't believe how many hd movies I have rented from Apple in the last 2 weeks. They look awesome, and are very convenient to rent. I can still drag and drop any format on to it and it will play it, and attach a usb drive to it as well. NitoTV makes 
most of the hacking part easy once you get it on the atv.


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## Megs_29 (Sep 25, 2007)

Does that essentially mean that Take 2's are impossible to hack? Im using the tutorial from here iClarified - AppleTV - Install SSH with a Take 2 Patchstick (Easier) and it looks fairly simple... I had heard it depends on the USB key you're using..some brands don't work?

As well, do i just plug in the USB off the bat and hold menu and -, or is there a certain time I can put in the USB key..

anyone wanna do this for me? Joking..haha..


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## gtgt (Jul 19, 2005)

Megs_29 said:


> Does that essentially mean that Take 2's are impossible to hack? Im using the tutorial from here iClarified - AppleTV - Install SSH with a Take 2 Patchstick (Easier) and it looks fairly simple... I had heard it depends on the USB key you're using..some brands don't work?
> 
> As well, do i just plug in the USB off the bat and hold menu and -, or is there a certain time I can put in the USB key..
> 
> anyone wanna do this for me? Joking..haha..


Great link. I love that site, made hacking my iPhone much easier a couple of months ago.
Just stick the usb key into the atv (once it's made into a patchstick of course), plug in the atv, and wait for the process to finish. You will see the timer counting down from 30 sec. when it is done. Then pull the usb key, unplug the atv, wait 1 minute and plug it back in.
ssh should work then.


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## Megs_29 (Sep 25, 2007)

For the most part that tutorial is easy enough, and it does just kinda end... and i found this link which picks up where it leaves off AppleTVHacks.net • View topic - SSH Access (Leopard + ATV2.0)

the only thing is.. with that iClarified tutorial..it says find all these files on the tiger disk, but i cant find ONE file 

"AudioIPCDriver.kext"

any hints?


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## jicon (Jan 12, 2005)

Megs_29 said:


> Does that essentially mean that Take 2's are impossible to hack? Im using the tutorial from here iClarified - AppleTV - Install SSH with a Take 2 Patchstick (Easier) and it looks fairly simple... I had heard it depends on the USB key you're using..some brands don't work?
> 
> As well, do i just plug in the USB off the bat and hold menu and -, or is there a certain time I can put in the USB key..
> 
> anyone wanna do this for me? Joking..haha..


I bought an ATV Take2 Saturday, and then started looking in to ways to get a Take 2 Patchstick on the device. Using Leopard alone, it did not look like an easy thing to do. However, using Windows XP, and a 1GB Compact Flash card attached to a USB CF reader, it was a piece of cake.

ATV4Windows
Main Page - ATV4Windows

With the ATV already on, I plugged in the drive, and then held down - and menu.

During reboot there is a definite text update on your TV, and once done, the text tells you to unplug the USB drive and reboot again.

Back to Leopard, I've since installed Perian, ATVFiles, configured my Harmony remote, and used Cyberduck to easily manage files since then.


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## Megs_29 (Sep 25, 2007)

I get the text on the tv.. but im missing two files from my patchstick and I cant find them anywhere in the tiger disk..any help

im missing AppleACPIPlatform.kext
and
audioIPCDriver.kext..

im certain with those, it will work...


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## harpoon (Sep 7, 2006)

I had a bear of a time with the aTV, am still fighting some odds and ends. I might just leave it stock as I'm not sure it's worth the effort at this point as it's pretty awesome even without the hacking.

With the patchstick try and use a 512MB one if you can as I found a 1GB wasn't working for me. It's easier to hack in Tiger too (IMO).

gtgt was a super help to me, I had everything working except I couldn't figure out the update from 1.0 to 1.1...part of the WAF (wife acceptance factor) for this thing is YouTube, so I tried Take 2. Uglier menus and slightly slower interface, but I might try to hack it next as I'm bamboozled with the updating to 1.1 on my hacked 1.0 version of things. But the USB and everything else worked pretty good.

One thing that I'm worried I might've done, I don't see a list of rental/iTunes options under 'Movies' for Take 2...it's there for TV shows and music but not movies! I'm trying diagnostics and a re-install right now...

Oh, prepare to get sick of the flower screensaver and startup movies while messing around with the hacking as well.


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## Megs_29 (Sep 25, 2007)

I just tried running the patchstick I just made and I got a kernel panic..I dont get this thing at ALL!


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## gtgt (Jul 19, 2005)

Hi Harpoon,
Try changing the itunes store the the US one instead of Canada.
That might be the problem.


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## gtgt (Jul 19, 2005)

Megs_29 said:


> I just tried running the patchstick I just made and I got a kernel panic..I dont get this thing at ALL!


Hey Megs,
It is supposed to look like a panic attack when the patchstick is working on the atv.


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## gtgt (Jul 19, 2005)

After using my 2.0 set-up for a while, I think most people should be pretty happy just using it the way Apple wants you to. Just make sure you buy Visual Hub, then you can convert your personal movies from any format and add it to itunes easily.
All without this hacking mess. If you get your US itunes account via gift cards, you can rent away, high def. and all.
You can spend hours just watching all of the video podcasts out there. Who knew there were so many.


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## Megs_29 (Sep 25, 2007)

gtgt said:


> Hey Megs,
> It is supposed to look like a panic attack when the patchstick is working on the atv.



Gotcha.. but it still says im missing a file.. I took a screen cap of what it said when it made the patchstick in terminal. On the ATV it said something along the lines of the Apple ACPIPlatform file not working, and it doesnt seem to work, even though it gives me the kernel panic message, it wont let me ssh into it thru fugu with [email protected]l or whatever the address is!


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## harpoon (Sep 7, 2006)

hey Megs29,

It'll look like a bunch of files are missing, but that's fine, it should work. If you can't ssh in, delete the previous info in your hosts file (google 'cant ssh into apple tv' for a better explanation).

gtgt, the simple things always get me. Thanks! I'm fine now. You're right, 90% of people won't need to hack the thing if they handbrake/visual hub it for their media, especially with 5.1 support now. Ideally you'd want an old mac or something running iTunes to serve the TV up its media as my one peeve is that you have to have a Mac running iTunes to sync media (and a ReadyNAS NV+ type of solution won't work either as you have to type that numeric code to sync).

I think my main beefs with the TV are personal, like a lack of video playlists (ie, 'stuff to watch', 'stuff for the kids' etc) and music video playlists/random capabilities as well. I might hack it and try Sapphire or something like that, some of these hacked plugins are buggy in spots though and can be a hassle to set up.


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## Megs_29 (Sep 25, 2007)

I created the patchstick in windows no problem, but I am having trouble ssh'ing in..

it gives me an error message about getting rid of the hosts to reset the message.. 

I googled cant ssh into apple tv, but I cant seem to find where to delete these 
'hosts' files..


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## mangotangoe (Oct 12, 2005)

try ssh [email protected] Replacing "192.168.0.5" with the actual IP of your appleTV


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## gtgt (Jul 19, 2005)

Megs_29 said:


> I created the patchstick in windows no problem, but I am having trouble ssh'ing in..
> 
> it gives me an error message about getting rid of the hosts to reset the message..
> 
> ...


you have to get a program to show invisible files then go to your home folder then under .ssh folder, and delete "known_hosts"


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## Megs_29 (Sep 25, 2007)

gtgt said:


> If you successfully use the patchstick, then you can ssh into the atv.
> Use the free program Fugu to ssh into it. Make sure you have force ssh1 clicked on.
> Download NitoTV. Put into the frontrow folder of atv (you can drag and drop it with Fugu).
> ssh into the appletv with terminal. (ssh -1 [email protected])
> ...



I put the nito TV folder in the frontrow folder on the tv by using FUGU, and used terminal to install it.. but where do I access the settings to install all the stuff?


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## gtgt (Jul 19, 2005)

Megs_29 said:


> I put the nito TV folder in the frontrow folder on the tv by using FUGU, and used terminal to install it.. but where do I access the settings to install all the stuff?


Easy, in the atv menu, go under nitotv, under setting, under install software, then install the top 3.
Then create a folder called "Documents" in frontrow folder and put "MacOSXUpdCombo10.4.9Intel.dmg"
in it and run smart installer. then wooo hooo.


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## Megs_29 (Sep 25, 2007)

gtgt said:


> Easy, in the atv menu, go under nitotv, under setting, under install software, then install the top 3.
> Then create a folder called "Documents" in frontrow folder and put "MacOSXUpdCombo10.4.9Intel.dmg"
> in it and run smart installer. then wooo hooo.


ugh im getting soo frustrated. I cant find nitoTV in my appletv menu even though i installed it in terminal. As well fugu wont let me ssh into it for some reason..its hit and miss with it.

am i missing something?


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## jicon (Jan 12, 2005)

Megs_29 said:


> ugh im getting soo frustrated. I cant find nitoTV in my appletv menu even though i installed it in terminal. As well fugu wont let me ssh into it for some reason..its hit and miss with it.
> 
> am i missing something?


I noticed on a few sites that there was a step to ensure that when the AppleTV phones home every few days, it won't resolve the address correctly. If it is able to phone home, apparently hacks can be reset/removed.

Aside from problems using a network share with NitoTV, I've been problem free. I haven't had an issue with installing any software add-ons once the PatchStick2 was used.

If/when you get the patchstick working again, be sure to disable the auto-update feature:

sudo bash -c 'echo "127.0.0.1 mesu.apple.com" >> /etc/hosts'


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## Megs_29 (Sep 25, 2007)

I did that.. Im not sure if it it worked or not, it gave me some weird message about like 'the usual lecture from the system admin"

however, i STILL can't fugu into my appleTV.. but i can SSH thru terminal into it.. I keep going through the re-install for nitoTV but it doesnt add it to the menu..

can i do the USB external thru ATVFiles?


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## gtgt (Jul 19, 2005)

Megs_29 said:


> I did that.. Im not sure if it it worked or not, it gave me some weird message about like 'the usual lecture from the system admin"
> 
> however, i STILL can't fugu into my appleTV.. but i can SSH thru terminal into it.. I keep going through the re-install for nitoTV but it doesnt add it to the menu..
> 
> can i do the USB external thru ATVFiles?


To fugu, you must make sure that the "force ssh" is clicked on or it wont work.


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## Megs_29 (Sep 25, 2007)

I do have that clicked, and when i change the user name to frontrow, and put the password in as frontrow, it says permission denied. But terminal is letting me ssh into it cause i just installed atv files no problem!


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## Megs_29 (Sep 25, 2007)

OKay.. I can see nitoTV and ATVLoader in my frontrow folder on my Apple TV but when i use the remote to click on those two things i get like.. the following things

nito TV-Contents-nitoTV.pkg (or something like that)-englishl.proj


obviously these dont seem to be installed correctly?


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## atvpatch (May 12, 2008)

megs, I would restart from scratch. You probably messed something up in the process. 
I think it will be very difficult to track down the initial issue.

PM me if you need more info.


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