New ATV user here. Purchased it soley to add an external USB drive.
I use PC and the drive in question is a 2TB Western Digital drive in a NexStar USB case formatted in FAT32. I can see the drive on my PC when connected to the computer and can successfully copy files to and from it with no issues.
I have run the Smart Installer twice so far and restarted as requested.
If I have the drive powered up and connected when I restart AppleTV, then the restart hangs.
If I connect the drive after the main menu comes up, then try and change my storage from internal to external, it says “no external drive attached” and when I press “menu” button to restart finder, the restart finder hangs. I have to disconnect the drive, restart AppleTV with a power cycle to try again.
So far, pretty frustrating. Any help is appreciated.
Alright, I got one of my AppleTV’s converted, and recognizing a 1tb Lacie HFS USB drive. All good on that one.
So, I thought I’d just go buy another 1tb HFS Formatted Lacie drive and convert my other AppleTV - no such luck. ATV installs fine. Smart Installer installs fine (no errors) - I am able to see the Lacie drive in the Maintenance menu and direct AppleTV to use it as external storage - HOWEVER, iTunes (even after multiple restarts of AppleTV and iTunes) only sees the AppleTV as having a 140gb drive, where my other AppleTV that has been converted successfully shows as 989gb (1tb).
So - any thoughts?
I have started the AppleTV with the drive connected. I have waited to connect the drive until the menu comes up. I have directed the storage back to “Internal” and then rebooted and then back to “External” and rebooted - all for nothing.
Do you know if the drive has any pre-installed software? Often times some of the pre-installed software is not AppleTV (OSX 10.4) compatible and can cause issues such as this.
If you’re drive came with a software cd you may try running the removal or uninstall application from the cd.
I have no idea - I bought a HFS formatted drive just for this reason - and it is the EXACT same model that worked flawlessly on my upstairs AppleTV.
If is hook up this HFS formatted drive to my PC, I doubt I’ll be able to do anything to it unless I format it in FAT32, and that’s what I was trying to avoid by buying an HFS formatted Lacie drive.
You may try connecting it to your PC to see if it’s recognized. If needed you can download to the free trial of MacDrive to re-format the drive in a Mac format, or use the guide in the link above to format it in FAT32.
I had the exact same problem with my 2Tb external hard drive to solve the problem I went in to the apple tv and setup the hard drive as primary which apple picked up the hard drive and reformated it into the correct format then I deselected it as primary and I was able to use it as an external USB HDD for storing my movies and music again . one other thing you mentioned that windows XP would not assign a drive letter to your drive are you using mac drive?
I have reverted the AppleTV to original settings, reinstalled aTV Flash, reformateed the drive to FAT32. Hooked up the drive and AppleTV and changed the storage to External - AppleTV says this may take a while, but when I go to iTunes my AppleTV says 144.63GB capacity and it is filled with "Other".
So - this program doesn't work.
I bet I don't get any response from this support forum either. It's been almost 2 months and everything that has been suggested doesnt' work.