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[litspliff]

in the past i've always used a 06 bios and evox to format partitions.

i know that this will not work for a 1TB HD, so i need to know what to use to change cluster size and hopefully set this up as one big F: partition. i have a couple friends that could help me with this over PM, but i thought this subject needs some more publicity, so i'm doing it on the forum.

okay,

so i have the 1TB SATA HD.
i also have 2 different SATA converters (in case one is problematic).

i'm now installing the HD and converter into the XBOX.

what's the next step?

[ldotsfan]

Use xbpartitioner for any partition bigger than 256Gb.

[litspliff]

thanks Idots.
i'm off to xbins to grab it.

any words of warning?

i'm assuming 128KB clusters for a 1TB F: drive.... any good reason to split it to G: (64KB clusters)?
should i be careful which bios i use? X2-4981 is what it has, but i planned on using iND-5003. will this be okay?

the HD model number is:
WD10EACS

it is a western digital caviar 1TB, 16MB buffer, 7200RPM
it says "green power" which concerns me a bit...

some pics



here's the converter (IDE side)


here's the SATA side....



as you can see, the form factor is ideal.

[litspliff]

well, here's the update.

cromwell and flashbios immediately and reliably recognized the 1TB drive after several minutes of powering on and off. i had heard that the SATA adapters can be flaky, to i wanted to make sure.

i flashed my chip with iND-BIOS-5035-06, and attempted to boot xbpartitioner.

strangely, i kept getting an error 21, so i popped in my slayer's disc.

slayer's booted, and i used the "restore retail HD to factory" option to get the M$ dash on the C:\, and to see if it would hold files with 16KB clusters. it automatically formatted partition 6 at 941GB (or something like that), which i was surprised to see. it took like 5 minutes to format it.

i then took out the slayer's disk, and booted the XBpartitioner disc from the M$ dashboard. it booted right up, and immediately i wiped out the partitions on the disc, and wrote the partition table using the XBP'er recommendations (64KB clusters on a huge partition 6, and 16KB clusters on the other few partitions).

i then booted back to slayers to get an FTP server running and put evox on it. after rebooting evox off of the huge F: partition, i started moving XBMC to the XBMC boot location (F:\XBMC) and after copying default.xbe, the evox FTP server crashed. when i rebooted, i got the XBMC "failure" FTP screen, and the server held steady for 20GB of transfer.

after that, i rebooted to XBMC with a 1TB (almost) F:\ partition.

killer.

i've copied 200GB of random stuff to it already. i'm waiting for it to pass the 512GB mark so i know i'm in the clear.

it's so easy, that i know why nobody's pinned a tutorial on it.

well, if anyone was wondering, yeah it works, and it works well so far.
the only problem is that XBE's take about 20 seconds to launch. i'm not sure why, but it's a small price to pay for having 1TB on a freakin' xbox!

i hear some of the SATA converters can be flaky, but i ordered two, and they both work flawless so far.
if anyone wants a link to the shop, they were 6$/pc shipped.

nooge!

[GoTeamScotch]

Dude, 1 Terabyte of space? that makes me sick!  

congrats on your new space. Can't say i dont envy you. sometimes 160gb just doesn't cut it for me.

I have a Q- It looks like your Hdd has an IDE connector, so why are you messing with SATA at all?

[Maaaaarc]

I'm doing this exact project, RIGHT NOW.

Actually came online to see what people are doing, mine won't boot up.
(Chipped + AID 4.x) (Maybe I'll try Slayers next)

Anyways, from what I read, you need to split the HDD to TWO big partitions.

F & G drive.

512gb @ 32kb Clusters.

cause apparently the xbox can handle only so much, once it reaches that point, it'll start OVERWRITING the earlier files.

That's what I read anyways.

[lordvader129]

QUOTE(Maaaaarc @ Jan 8 2009, 07:18 PM)

cause apparently the xbox can handle only so much, once it reaches that point, it'll start OVERWRITING the earlier files.

That's what I read anyways.

thats due to cluster sizes, by default the xbox uses 16k clusters, which will start to overwrite (and corrupt) at 256gb

then xbpartitioner 1.0 was made which used 32k clusters, allowing 512gb before corrupting

eventually, even that wasnt enough, so xbpartitioner 1.1 was made, which will use 64k clusters for partitions up to 1024gb

[litspliff]

QUOTE

Anyways, from what I read, you need to split the HDD to TWO big partitions.

F & G drive.

512gb @ 32kb Clusters.

it's a trade off. to save space you face the possibility of running out of room on one, and spilling your junk across two partitions and having to constantly mess with your "sources" in XBMC. there is a downside to going all F:, however...

you have to remember any file, no matter how small will take up (at least) a whole cluster.

say you have 64KB clusters (which is the path i took), a file that's only 1KB will take up 64KB of space.
say you have 64KB clusters, and a bunch of 65KB files. the extra KB will demand another cluster, so your 65KB file is taking up 128KB of space.

QUOTE

        Dude, 1 Terabyte of space? that makes me sick!  

congrats on your new space. Can't say i dont envy you. sometimes 160gb just doesn't cut it for me.

just to diffuse any jealousy ..
i did this mod for a friend.
i ordered a 1/2TB drive for myself, but ended up trading it for two 250GB IDE drives for two xboxes that needed them, so ....long story short... i'm still just as lame, probably more so judging by my life choices.

i guess having 5TB on my SMB network sweetens the bitterness a little bit.

QUOTE

I have a Q- It looks like your Hdd has an IDE connector, so why are you messing with SATA at all?

that is not an IDE HD, it is the converter attached to the HD. if you look closely, it attaches directly to the business-end of the HD, so it effectively makes it an IDE HD. like i said..."the form factor is ideal".

with that said, the HD reads 0GB on all partitions with the lid on, so i guess i still have a bit of a "form-factor" issue.

[litspliff]

okay...something to watch out for...

when i hit ~620 remaining i started getting junk data all over the drive and files started disappearing. what this means is that the "messing around" format i did with slayers stuck at 16KB clusters.

when you use XBpartitioner, make sure you write the changes to the partition table, or you'll spend 15 hours copying files to find out you need to junk the whole setup and re-partition/re-format.

i think this concludes my adventure.
i hope you all found it helpful.

-spliffed out

[ninmario4life]

why are you messing with a sata 1tb when you can get a 1tb ide drive from: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001BP99PU?smid=A...mp;linkCode=asn that way you dont have to convert it and mess with converters witch can be flacky.by the way total micro are the only company that makes 1tb ide hard drives.so hope this helps if not hey at least you know there is at least 1 company that makes 1tb ide drives....

[ILLusions0fGrander]

QUOTE(ninmario4life @ Jan 10 2009, 12:30 AM)

why are you messing with a sata 1tb when you can get a 1tb ide drive from: http://www.amazon.co...mp;linkCode=asn that way you dont have to convert it and mess with converters witch can be flacky.by the way total micro are the only company that makes 1tb ide hard drives.so hope this helps if not hey at least you know there is at least 1 company that makes 1tb ide drives....

your link is to a sata drive.. largest IDE drive is 750GB.

[ninmario4life]

Actually it is ide and not sata,1000HDGI3S-TM is the model number for the serial ata version,1000HDGI3I-TM is the ide version.so have a open mind and stop thinking 750gb is the limit for ide for most hard drive makers it is everyone thinks 750gb is the limit for ide cuz thats where it ends for all of the popular manafactures like i said total micro is the only company that makes a ide 1tb drive and isnt well known like everyone else.so yes in a way you are right there are no other drives that are 1tb that are ide and yes the max is 750gb for ide BUT TOTAL MICRO is the ONLY company that makes a 1tb like i said so i am also right one company makes a 1tb ide!heres another link for ya http://www.directlycheap.com/1000hdgi3itm.html but anyways peace

This post has been edited by ninmario4life: Jan 10 2009, 06:00 AM

[Maaaaarc]

Dude, that HDD is nearly $400.

...when you can have a SATA HDD for less than half that price.

[run088]

That is what I was thinking when I saw this list before.I been picking up 1.5 tb sata drives for cheap for months now.I have seen them as cheap as 120 shipped and 1tb's for less than 100.From the leading hdd companies in the business.With 3 to 5 year warranties to boot.Outside that you just got to buy a little plug and play 5 to 10 dollar sata adapter

There is one thing that sucks.If your booting linux it will not read your partitions correctly.If F is over 137 you are not going to see anything atleast with xdsl.G has some limitation as well but I dont know exactly what the cut off is yet.I am thinking when I looked threw the stats or logs there was a mention of like 354 but I could be wrong.I know it cuts off at a point where a 500gig hdd is to much to handle.It will run fine but the directories for F & G will be fubared..This is not limited to regular ide hdds either.I have the same problem with them

This post has been edited by run088: Jan 10 2009, 02:13 PM

[litspliff]

yeah, dude. you can waste your money on a 1TB IDE if you want. maybe you've got a lot of money to waste...i don't know.

i paid under 100$ for both parts (HD, and SATA converter) that you see in the picture.