My Apple TV recognizes my attached USB drive no problem now. Question is, now can I safely dismount it?
I don’t want to just power it down, I want to dismount it just like I would if it was mounted to my Macbook, then power it down and disconnect.
I can’t seem to figure out how to do this.
Any advice?
Just got this stuff tonight, so I’m still pretty new at it.
Hello,
I am running aTV Flash, Mac - 4.5 on my 1st generation, silver AppleTV. I use an external USB drive for media, to which my AppleTV has no problems connecting. However, using the below instructions to unmount:
“To unmount the drive (so it can be disconnected while the AppleTV is still powered on) highlight the drive in the nitoTV > Files menu. Press the left arrow (<<) button and the drive will disappear from the list. It can now be safely disconnected.”
My Apple TV freezes every single time after I “press the left arrow.” Every single time. What is the problem? Does this feature simply no longer work?
Am I better off simply pulling the USB plug out of the AppleTV and not bothering trying to unmount it? Because, since it freezes every single time, I see no downside into not bothering to unmount it. Please advise.
Thank you in advance!
As the Apple TV was never specifically designed to accommodate an external USB drive, there’s no safe way to unmount the HDD. You’ll often find that if you put the Apple TV into “Standby” mode in order to remove the USB HDD, then connect the hard drive up to another device (such as an iMac) the drive fails to mount on the new device. The first time this happened to me I freaked out thinking hours of films had simply vanished, but no! You have to reattach the HDD back onto the Apple, come out of standby mode and literally pull the power cord of the Apple TV in order to remove the HDD. It’s a bit of a nightmare on HDDs that have insufficient methods to protect data in case of power outage. I used 2 x iOmega HDD which have great protective circuitry, but previously used a pair of WD HDD that didn’t. Net result, data loss. I thankfully had it all backed up!
Thanks for the information… I appreciate it, Parris!
Now, if only FireCore would state why their instructions won’t actually work the way that they say that they should:
“To unmount the drive (so it can be disconnected while the AppleTV is still powered on) highlight the drive in the nitoTV > Files menu. Press the left arrow (<<) button and the drive will disappear from the list. It can now be safely disconnected.”
Mine too. installed aTV flash and had to do factory restored about 5 times. My aTV flash version is the newest one downloaded from my account.
I take it due to lack of response there isn’t a way to do this.
I have been using the the usb on my atv for a while and it works by simply pulling it out then back in or powering down your machine. Whatever you prefer from these methods you should be fine. No unmounting process necessary Cheers.
For right now the best option is to power off the Apple TV. There will be a more elegant solution in the next version.
Just for the record, my installation works exactly as the firecore documentation describes: i highlight the drive in the nitoTV file menu, press left on my remote, and the disk disappears from the menu.