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[thejt]

Ok.  I'm trying to get a larger hard drive option working with the 360.  I want to start a thread that has ONLY good information from people who know what they are doing.  Ive seen quite a few totally retarded posts already.


Please stick to the topic and have some idea of what you are talking about before blabbing a bunch of speculation.  Thanks!

On with it!

Here's what I know so far:

SATA 20GB Stock 360 Drive.
The stock drive appears to not have any hardware locking system.  The drive is recognized by a PC controller and functions normally.

The filesystem is unknown.. It would be a miracle but not impossible that it is still the old fatx and not encrypted to death  (much doubt).  I am trying to find a SATA to IDE converter so I can stick the stock 360 drive in a modded xbox.  I bought the IDE to SATA.. and that doesnt get my anywhere  I wont have the other adapter till later.  Anyone else tried this?

Norton Ghost recognizes the 20gb 360 drive but cannot clone or work with the partition.  

Replacing the stock 20gb SATA with another larger SATA drive definately does NOT "just" work.  I had false hopes that the 360 would format and prepare any new drive.  


USB 2.0 Drives
This is at least a bone thrown to us from MS I guess.  USB removable devices DO work; though its not the ultimate solution.

FAT32 is recognized by the 360 for USB devices.

I have formatted a IDE drive FAT32 and connected it to the 360 with a USB 2.0 adapter with sucess.  Now we just need to know how large of a formatted FAT32 partition it will support.  

Windows XP and 2000 only support partitions up to 32GB with FAT32.  Not enough.

The maximum FAT32 volume size that Windows 98 can create is 127.53 GB.  So if the 360 supports it we could have up to 127GB of our own content.. We will need to have a 98 machine to load anything new to the drive but its a start.

It seems like some partition level encryption going on and it may be a futile effort to try to replace the stock drive with a larger drive.. at least without paying MS some rediculous dollar per megabyte.  Then we still wont have the ability to load our own content to it.  If MS was smart they would enable copying to the local drive and sell me a 400GB drive for some retarded price that I would actually pay if I could get MY data on it.

Well Im off to try more stuff.  I just wanted to get this thread started.  If you have any info, ideas or suggestions please speak up.  The 360 is cool and all but IMO we need OUR content before it lives up to any of my expectations.  Streaming is just not good enough.

[Alkane]

Hey,

Dump the hard drive image to your computer and see how well it compresses using maximum compression level.

As far as writing support for Xbox 360 hard drives, we'll first need to know if any encryption/compression is being used.  Grab the listing of files on the Xbox 360 hard drive (or maybe it was a DVD disc, I haven't been able to relocate it, I know it was posted on Xbox-scene at one point) posted on the web some time ago.  See if you can locate any entries using a hex editing app.

QUOTE

Windows XP and 2000 only support partitions up to 32GB with FAT32. Not enough.

The maximum FAT32 volume size that Windows 98 can create is 127.53 GB. So if the 360 supports it we could have up to 127GB of our own content.. We will need to have a 98 machine to load anything new to the drive but its a start.

Windows XP can read and write to FAT32 partitions over 32GB, it just can't natively format the paritions over 32 GB in size.  I'd say try a program like PartitionMagic and see how that works out.

QUOTE

In theory, FAT32 volumes can be about 8 terabytes; however, the maximum FAT32 volume size that Windows XP Professional can format is 32 GB. Therefore, you must use NTFS to format volumes larger than 32 GB. However, Windows XP Professional can read and write to larger FAT32 volumes formatted by other operating systems.

Windows XP Professional can format FAT32 volumes up to 32 GB, but it can mount larger FAT32 volumes created by other operating systems.

http://www.MS.com/resources/documen...kc_fil_tdrn.asp
(duh) Change MS.com to Micro$oft.com -- Xbox-scene replaces micro$oft with ms

This post has been edited by Alkane: Nov 24 2005, 07:55 AM

[KiemRaekerm]

QUOTE

This is at least a bone thrown to us from MS I guess. USB removable devices DO work; though its not the ultimate solution.

So that means I can use my PNY flash drives and shit?  I'm guessing that means I can use an external drive too?  Don't have my 360 yet, so I can't really test it, ha.

[Sord_Fish]

What about trying to load the hdd up in linux with a pc and use the fatx drivers from one of the linux ports to see if is even fatx.

[cryptblood1986]

I know this a crazy idea but give them a try. Take a 60gb ipod into the usb then try uploading a game. Another one I thought of was maybe you could try uploading a game from a modded xbox into 360.

[JoBlo69]

ok i do have a 40gb segate usb drive... i got it at wal-mart, if this helps anyone out with what it looks like...

i do not have a 360... yet to try a bunch of stuff, a friend of mine has a core. Suck but at least its a start...

try this... i guess at xbox.com there is an executible that you can dl and burn to a disk to get the backwards compadibility of the orig xbox games...

i put this .xex file on my 512mb usb drive and have not had the ability to try it, need to go to my buddys house...

i wonder if you can load this .xex file from a usb divice... or if M$ has it setup to only load .xex files from the dvd drive...

if you are able to dl this file and do a basic data disk to burn this and your xbox 360 can read it... this lets me know that the fileing sstem cant be all that different from a xp pc..

[Arakon]

the 360 will only read mp3 and pictures off USB devices connected to it, everything else is simply ignored.

[cyd0g]

QUOTE(Arakon @ Nov 24 2005, 12:59 PM)

the 360 will only read mp3 and pictures off USB devices connected to it, everything else is simply ignored.

so perhaps we need a modified mp3 file oder picture to force the xbox to

crash...


  @ arakon  grützi alter evo-x ler  

[Strigy]

If the Xbox 360 only looks at the file extention then maybe you can just rename your files to .mp3 or .jpg or something and then copy it over and rename it once it is copied.  works for e-mail blockers, why not this?  Just a suggestion.  I have don't have one yet eiter so  I can't test.  Any shouldn't linux be able to autodetect how the HD is formatted?  Unless M$ did something new.  And can you rename files on the Xbox after we get them on there.  Is there any FTP ability yet?  Does the Xbox allow you to move or rename files once they are on the drive??  Can't wait to get my own so I can play with it.  Hope this helps!

This post has been edited by Strigy: Nov 24 2005, 04:18 PM

[BlueCELL]

Does anyone know if the hard drive in the 360 is specially manufactured for MS or if its just a standard SATA laptop hard drive??

If its a standard one we could buy the same hard drive in stores and swap the boards on  the hard drive and then use the 360's hard drive in our pc and view whats on it.  Then we should be able to see whats on it.  From there we can try to make minor modifications and see if we can "confuse" the X360.

Just a thought!

BlueCELL

[The_Truth]

Alright. Since there is a core system and a premium system... that means that originally... the hard drive is not locked to the xbox. So that leaves only a few possibilities.
1. all hard drives are locked with a generic "xbox" key... which would mean all are interchangeable... which would be a good move for MS in the way of repairs...(a person can get a new hard drive instead of going to service center).
2. all hard drives are unlocked until attached... once attached they lock to a specific xbox. this should be no problem since there is no dashboard on the hard drive(or else the core system would not work).
3. all hard drives are completely unlocked(slim chance).

so... if there are 2 brave soles with premiums... try swapping one of the hard drives.... if it works... then theory 1 is correct!

[Schismatized]

wow. i do not understand much of this. all i want to know is can i use a thumb drive in place of a mem card?

[Jonolche]

You can use a Serial ATA to IDE Cable Converter: http://www.crazypc.c...oduct_Code=9210

I was thinking about the thumb drive to, could you rename the files on the thumb drive to a  .XBE. See if it reads it as a old game.

You also could try what JBlo said with buring a game like "Halo 2" to it with modded maps. If it reads it then we could put a modded Default.xbe that will crash the OS and install an alternitave dashboard.

I have priemium, and swapted HD's with a friends. It reads it fine.

   Try useing a old mod. Like playing 007AUF, Save the game. See where it is saved. And replace it with the modded game save. Put the modded game save on a USB Drive,  but name them .mp3, or .jpg, then copy them onto the hard drive, then rename them to there origionals.

Also dose anyone know what the DVD drive is in the 360? Like samsung, or sony.

[deadparrot]

It's a Hitatchi/LG.

Hahaha!  A Sony drive in the Xbox!  Now, that would be funny!

It's also something I might expect from MS.

[copper7op]

We do know that the hard drives are NOT locked. They work fine in a PC under norton Ghost. We could probably clone them. The DVD drive in mine is a Samsung DVD drive last I checked ... i could be mistaken on that though