Bengel129

Q: Restore from AppleTV

I sufferd a software-crash on my iMac and had to restore the OS-software with losing al of my content on the harddrive. Can eneybody tell me how I can copy my movies from the AppleTV back to my iMac?

Apple TV, Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Oct 11, 2011 6:17 PM

Close

Q: Restore from AppleTV

  • All replies
  • Helpful answers

  • by Winston Churchill,

    Winston Churchill Winston Churchill Oct 12, 2011 4:19 AM in response to Bengel129
    Level 10 (103,368 points)
    Apple TV
    Oct 12, 2011 4:19 AM in response to Bengel129

    Welcome to the Apple Community.

     

    You can't, use Time Machine or your preferred back up software to recover content lost from your main drive.

  • by Alley_Cat,

    Alley_Cat Alley_Cat Oct 12, 2011 4:27 AM in response to Bengel129
    Level 6 (19,578 points)
    Oct 12, 2011 4:27 AM in response to Bengel129

    Be aware that if you try to or have set up a new sync connection to the AppleTV from a new itunes (which it will be even on same computer), you will wipe the media from AppleTV.  Consider setting up a streaming only connection to still allow viewing of the movies on AppleTV and newer content from itunes by streaming as needed.

     

    Your only other options are to hack AppleTV1 to allow command line access and network transfers or to dismantle it and stick the 2.5" drive in a caddy and connect to computer then browse the partitions in the hope of finding youyr media.  The drive is a 2.5" PATA drive.  Doing either of these things would not be endorsed by Apple, cannot be discussed in detail here and might brick the AppleTV.

     

    I guess you could also appeal to Apple via iTunes store support to see if they'd allow a one-off redownload of content but they well decline - no harm trying.

     

    If iCloud redownloads of purchases also encompasses movies in teh future that might be another avenue but you can't do it now - some items eg certain music and TV shows can be downloaded from the cloud in the US - it would make sense for them to include movies in this but I suspect negotiations with the content providers are going nowhere or not complete yet.

     

    If AppleTV purchased content has never synced back to iTunes from AppleTV some suggest it will survive setting up a new 'sync' connection to a new iTunes library.

     

    AC