Thats very odd.I used that method in a dev kit and it worked fine.I know debug kits are region free.You can try to download the Hack-devkit-v2 from a different source,but I dont think it will do a whole lot.Also what version of the xdk dashboard are you using.And also you can upgrade the HDD on a debug kit but it will only read up to 137gb of space.You cant use another bios to go pass the 137gb limit.
Even when using the Hack-devkit-v2.