Tweaking4All
Computer News, Tips and Tricks ... ... for everyone
You have to follow 3 basic steps and have a little bit of patience … and really, it couldn’t get any easier.
This guide is only to be used with a FIRST GENERATION AppleTV - i.e. the silver one, not the black one!
You need a USB pendrive of at least 4Gb – keep in mind that the drive will be COMPLETELY WIPED!
Insert the USB pendrive into a USB port of your Windows computer before proceeding (I did it in Bootcamp on a Macbook Pro).
You can download the zip file either from the StmLabs website (to make sure you have the most recent one) or download it here (see below).
Click the options “Native Apple OS” and “Internal Hard Drive“, check the correct device indicating your USB drive and finally click the “Go” button.
CrystalHD Windows UI to restore your AppleTV
The application will now download the OS image (which will take a little bit) for your AppleTV and finally created and prepare your USB drive – follow the instructions of the application.
Power down your AppleTV (i.e. jank the cord). Insert the USB pendrive into your AppleTV and power the AppleTV up. During the startup of your AppleTV press “menu” and “-“ simultaneously on the remote to make your AppleTV take the USB pendrive as it’s boot device. Follow the instructions.
And that’s pretty much all there is to it and after a few reboots the AppleTV acts like never ever changed …
I can’t get the Windows installer to work on an install of Windows XP run via VirtualBox on my Mac. When I unzip it and run partitioner.exe it just throws a pop up error saying “The application failed to initialize properly (0xc0000135). Click on OK to terminate the application”
Any ideas?
One thing I can think of is that it needs the .NET framework.
(According to an article I found on the STMLabs website. The STMlabs website is very confusing when it comes to finding anything.)
There is also an Ubuntu version available: CrystalHD installer for Ubuntu.
I have to admit though that I have zero experience with that one.
The help,download and instructions are clear and precise. In fact they are better then the ones at STMlabs.
Well done !
Thanks lucky77346 
Very much appreciated your response!
Permission denied, please try again.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. I have followed all of the above steps listed on this site to restore my Apple TV1 to it’s original Native O.S. All went fine. Now on my ATV1 screen it prompts me with ATV-UBUNTU LOGINL As per the Crystal HD Linux for AppleTV Installer it tells me to use “atv” for username as well as “atv” for password. However each and every time i try to login it tells me “Permission denied, please try again”
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks.
So you restored the ATV1 to the original AppleOS – and now it shows a ATV-Ubuntu login?
Sounds like the AppleTV OS has not been placed back – something must have gone wrong.
I’d recommend trying it again.
Hello Hansaplastique,
thank you for your reply. I am still lost. I ended up buying a brand new USB 8.0GB pen drive. Formatted it and loaded the StmLabs Windows Installer UI onto it. Followed the instructions as per above. I unplugged my Apple TV1 and inserted the USB drive. Plugged the power in and held down the menu buton along with the “-” key and held it for 10 seconds waited for the Apple TV to boot up. Now all I have displayed on the screen is a Picture of the Apple TV1 along with a question mark above it flashing.
Not sure what to do next
I has the same problem of getting a question mark after restart. Any idea on what the problem is?
Has this issue been resolved? I have ran into this issue and have not seen a solution.
Does the unit need to hook up to the Internet using a Ethernet connection?
Thanks
Yes it does – it downloads the OS image. No worries about settings, it uses DHCP. But you need it wired to your network.
how do you type atv for password and username on the apple tv
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