partitioning from scratch problems, recovery from dead HD

[GoogleCodeExporter]

What steps will reproduce the problem?
1. start with a blank hard disk
2. boot from stick created with atvusb-creator-1.0.b13.zip
3. check the partition table

I had an ATV with a dead HD, so i replaced it with a new one and had to recover 
from scratch. 

the re-build seemed to work, but there were problems with mounting /dev/sda4 
and once i finally got the ATV to boot into a root shell, this is what i had 
for a partition table :

# ls -1 /dev/sd*
/dev/sda
/dev/sda1
/dev/sda2
/dev/sda3
/dev/sda4
/dev/sdb
/dev/sdb1
/dev/sdb2

# blkid
/dev/sdb1: TYPE="hfsplus" 
/dev/sdb2: TYPE="hfsplus" 
/dev/sda3: TYPE="hfsplus" 

Any thoughts on why the partition table is all messy, and what to do to fix it ?

BTW, there aren't many good docs on what to do in this situation, so i may have 
missed something, or we need a wiki page on this step.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by slcho...@gmail.com on 27 Sep 2011 at 10:40

[GoogleCodeExporter]

also, my patchstick.sh doesn't contain any reference to '/dev/sda2' which 
should be the recovery partition.

So what step did I miss where i copied a recovery part to the patchstick to get 
pushed to the ATV drive ?

Original comment by slcho...@gmail.com on 27 Sep 2011 at 11:02

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I was able to re-partition the HD and get things all synced up, but i still 
don't have a ATV OS.

I'm guessing that atvusb creator doesn't have access to a DMG of the recovery 
disks anymore, and the 'boot.efi' that i pulled off my patchstick, was the 
patchstick setup and not the ATV os.

Original comment by slcho...@gmail.com on 27 Sep 2011 at 11:30

[GoogleCodeExporter]

FYI, after much pain, here is some extra documentation that may be useful

How to re-build an Apple TV with a Dead Hard disk:

1) Fart around on google for a few hours trying to find the quickest,
simplest way to rootkit/rebuild an apple TV, Decide that this is the best
thing :

  http://code.google.com/p/atvusb-creator/

... Install the new HD, run the creator, discover that it hangs

2) Fart around on google, to find out how to get the patchstick to boot
into the a unix with a network connection, and discover that you have to

    Remove or rename 'patchstick.sh'

... reboot and get a root shell, telnet into the ATV

3) Fart around on google for a few hours trying to work out why the
install failed, and discover that the patchstick is broken, and that it
does't create the rebuild partition correctly.

... check the partition table, discover that it is hosed

4) Fart around on google for a few hours trying to work out what the
partition table should be for the ATV.  Eventually find the manual
instructions here:

   http://code.google.com/p/atv-bootloader/wiki/ATVBackup

... and manually re-partition the drive, reboot, rerun the patchstick

... and discover that it hangs, again.

5) Fart around on google for a few hours and discover that the patchstick 
DOES NOT install the rebuild partition.  

6) Fart around on google for a few hours trying to find a recover image
that can be gutted for recovery partition.  Eventually find one here:

    http://www.iclarified.com/entry/comments.php?enid=970

7) Go back to the atv-bootloader instructions, including the part about
'Opps I did not make a backup' and follow the steps to manually install a
recovery file and factory reset the ATV

8) Finally, re-do the patchstick process, and finally, the ATV boots with
all the plugins and packages

9) Discover that the Patchstick crew have no UI/UX experience and there
is a mess of extra menus and commands that make an ATV interface look
like it was designed by a 3yr old. Sigh. (why do geeks love extra
switches ?)

10) Fart around on google for a few extra hours trying to work out what
the new menus do and how to turn stuff on.

11) Enable boxee, and life is better

Original comment by slcho...@gmail.com on 28 Sep 2011 at 7:15

[GoogleCodeExporter]

you forgot,

0) spend months and months of non-paid time developing the various bits to even 
allow patching the atv1 in the first place.

Original comment by sdavi...@gmail.com on 28 Sep 2011 at 7:37

[GoogleCodeExporter]

...And thank them for their hard work. Yes, That is important, I forgot.

But developing *anything* without decent documentation is going to hamper it's 
adoption, especially when the developers of "atv-bootloader" say things like:

   "ATVUSB-Creator has been released... 
    Say goodbye to manual creation of an atv-bootloader USB flash drive "

The user community gets confused, and eventually go develop their own solution. 
99% of the 'open source' projects out there suffer from low adoption and 
fragmentation because they can't get up to speed with the the current project.

Throw a rock at any random project out there (github, google.code, whatever), 
go to it's home page and see if the following test is passed :

   'Does it say anywhere in the first 3 paragraphs, what this thing does?'

You can't assume that everyone can read everyone's source, or that they have 
been following all the threads and issues as closely as the original developers.

Documentation is important. And it should be opened up to the other developers 
as much as the code itself.

We should be asking ourselves, "Could someone else do all this is I wasn't 
around" instead of "Only I need to know all this, so people will depend on me 
for my help"

And, yes, IFF you want someone to re-write, maintain the docs, I'm happy to 
help.

Original comment by slcho...@gmail.com on 28 Sep 2011 at 8:30

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Nothing is stopping you from submitting better doc. we alway say "patches 
welcome" and that applies to both source code and docs. What I will not do is 
open up this project for a free-for-all commit/change by anyone that passes 
along. I've had major issues in the past with wiki/issue vandalism and it just 
takes too much time to keep after and revert. That goes same for the mailing 
lists, you must apply for access. I grant when I get the email request. It 
keeps out the spammers.

Original comment by sdavi...@gmail.com on 28 Sep 2011 at 9:21