Print

[joe_]

Hi,
I posted my question in the hardware forum, but after a few posts I realized I was in the wrong place! I didn't want to cross post, and it seems like this is the best place to ask my question, my original post is here:
http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=330422

Anyways, I am interested in replacing my xbox drive with a small compact flash card (64 - 128 MB) via an IDE adapter. It would look to the machine just like a regular IDE device. The only problem is partitioning it. I was told the xbox requires a minimum of 8GB but if the topology can be modified to allow bigger drives then surely it could be changed to allow smaller right?

I don't plan on playing games so the cache drives can go or be changed to 1MB etc. I currently am using evox M8 bios, xbmc as the dash on a 1.1 xbox. I have flashed the TSOP and mount everything over the network on smb shares. I would happily change the xbmc cache to 0 to save the life on the cf card.

It seems like the only thing stopping this is that it hasn't been done yet. Is it possible to easily modify what the bios expects the partitions to look like? The result would be an xbox that runs dramatically cooler and much much quiter.

Also I have definitely looked around but if this has already been covered before please let me know. If there is a better place to ask this question I'll happily head there.

Thanks!
Joe

[badmonkey]

If you want the Xbox to still function as an Xbox (play xbox games and such), then you can NOT have smaller than an 8GB drive.


You have your boot partition C, which has the MS dashboard on it.
You have E, which is the partition for all the saving and custom soundtracks.
Then you have X, Y & Z, which are used for game caching.

All of these partition have a set amount of space, which is the exact same for ALL xboxes. Developers program expecting to have these drives, and their available space, so I imagine you would run into problems, when that space is not there.



If you are NOT going to be running the Xbox as an Xbox (will not be playing Xbox games), then I am sure you could get something like what you want. You could prolly do it quite easily using one of the legal bioses used for running linux on the Xbox.

This post has been edited by badmonkey: Dec 28 2004, 07:36 PM

[joe_]

Yeah I definitely didn't have much hope that I would be able to run xbox games. The problem is that I would like to run xbox apps such as xbmc which is my current dash/media player.

I've checked out the xbox-linux pages and it seems like the cromwell bios can support drives that are not FATX formatted (so presumably it can handle drives not using standard partitions.) The only problem is that it's my understanding that I cannot run xbe's etc with the cromwell.

I suppose I want my cake and I want to eat it too. It would be great if I could change my drive size / partition table as easily as I change color schemes etc in XBTool and still be able to utilize xbmc.

Joe