Modding 360 Hard Drive

[Spookie]

To be clear, this doesn't void my 360 warranty right?

To void your warranty you need to take the silver sticker off the front of your 360.

[Kushan]

Might need to try that.

I don't have anything as small as a T6.

Smallest I have looks like it will fit, but it's just a tiny bit too big I think.

You might be worth picking up a small screwdriver set, I got a "console modding kit" that came with all the various bits different consoles use for $15 I think. But yeah, just be careful, the screws aren't terribly tight or anything.

To void your warranty you need to take the silver sticker off the front of your 360.

Correct, but some people get away with doing this and Microsoft not noticing or caring. However, should anything bad happen, DON'T tell MS you modded your hard drive, they will get ****y =P

[Snakehn]

the faith of my 20GB Drive depends on you now LOL, so keep us updated and i might try to do mine too ;)

[Brad.]

Might need to try that.

I don't have anything as small as a T6.

Smallest I have looks like it will fit, but it's just a tiny bit too big I think.

I bought a T6 to open my Sidekick 3, bought it off ebay for 50p with ?1 postage:pp

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

I just purposely chewed up the screws a bit, then opened with what I think is a T7 (if it exists) :p

Backing up my 20GB now.

Question for Kushan though, when doing the hddhackr -f part in DOS, should I unplug all my other PC drives? Don't want the wrong drive getting flashed :laugh:

Or does the program look for the WD Scorpio?

[Pheee]

Ok, I gonna watch this thread, as I might do this at some point.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

Damn extracting partition 3 is taking ages :/

[Pheee]

Wow I was looking at official 120GB drive, that go around ?100, then saw the link to CCL, a drive for around ?33, um I think I know what I might do this weekend...

AB: did you get an adapter or whatever it is, or will you take the 120gb out of the drive, to put all data back?

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

Wow I was looking at official 120GB drive, that go around ?100, then saw the link to CCL, a drive for around ?33, um I think I know what I might do this weekend...

AB: did you get an adapter or whatever it is, or will you take the 120gb out of the drive, to put all data back?

Taking it back out.

However backing up the 20GB drive seems to be taking too long.

Partition 3 anyway, it's been running for like 45 minutes no:/:/ Something must be up. From the progress bar/file names, it's like it's constantly backing up the same thing over and over.

Partition 2 dumped okay.edit:b> Just cancelled the backup, and it had only backed up 28mb of partition :/:/

[Pheee]

AB: you know somewhere cheap for the drive that is in stock. CCL dont have stock, Ebuyer has 300 but is ?46 for next day delivery.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

Okay got it working, seems like my cache folder is causing a hickup, so I extracted everything but it.

Games can make their cache again.

AB: you know somewhere cheap for the drive that is in stock. CCL dont have stock, Ebuyer has 300 but is ?46 for next day delivery.

I'll have a look for you:))

[Pheee]

Okay got it working, seems like my cache folder is causing a hickup, so I extracted everything but it.

Games can make their cache again.

I'll have a look for you :)

Any luck on finding anything, I have checked all my usual sites, Scan are cheaper, but how are their delivery?

[Pheee]

i didnt want to seem pushy, I was gonna see if I could order today for delivery tomorrow, but im gonna wait and check out prices.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

Hey sorry, that's me just backing up data back to drive.

Little tip for everyone to avoid having a heart attack.

Check your other SATA drives and see if any are WD, or better yet just unplug them all.

I didn't know, but my 500GB is a WD, and first time around I ended up flashing it. Put the 120GB in the 360 and it was saying no hard drive, so I was like "What's wrong? Bios said flash ok".

Turned my PC on and it was asking if I wanted to format my 500GB drive, as it was unusable.

Thank god hddhackr makes a backup when it flashes :laugh:

Once the data is backed up, I'll make sure it works okay in the 360. It was for format, said 107GB free which is correct.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

Everything's working fine I think :)

I'll go do some price searching for you now Pheee!

[nomis_nehc]

Yikes! Flashed your other hdd huh? How dangerous! My OS hdd is WD, so I guess I really have to unplug it, otherwise it might be a sad day, lol.

So how long did the backup process take total? And how much data did you backup?

[Snakehn]

Ao let's say, i don't give a $#@@ what on my 20GB Drive, i could just take it apart, flash a new 120GB and swap it? without the need of the 20GB Drive?

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

Yikes! Flashed your other hdd huh? How dangerous! My OS hdd is WD, so I guess I really have to unplug it, otherwise it might be a sad day, lol.

So how long did the backup process take total? And how much data did you backup?

Backup took about 10 minutes once I done it properly.

Ao let's say, i don't give a $#@@ what on my 20GB Drive, i could just take it apart, flash a new 120GB and swap it? without the need of the 20GB Drive?

If you don't care about backing up, all you need to do is flash your new 120GB, take out the 20GB from the casing, pop the 120GB in and you're good to go.

[t0mbi]

ok so is this What u need to do? very roughly tho lol

1 backup 2gb to PC (backup partition 2, drag and copy partition 3?)

2 flash 120gb and format in 360

3 plug 120gb into PC and restore partition 2 and copy over partition 3, from the files u saved from your old 20gb?

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

ok so is this What u need to do? very roughly tho lol

1 backup 2gb to PC (backup partition 2, drag and copy partition 3?)

2 flash 120gb and format in 360

3 plug 120gb into PC and restore partition 2 and copy over partition 3, from the files u saved from your old 20gb?

Pretty much, yeah.

[Brad.]

Im so interested in doing this, once i get my 120gb drive i'll ask around for some help :blush:

[Pheee]

@AB: have you seen any nice place to purchase a drive ;)

[Dysphoria]

I just got one yesterday from www.jnr.com I get 10% corporate discount from there , and it does make a difference. I played GoW 2 and Devil Cry 4 and I ran both games first from the DVD and then I installed them and played them off the hard drive. YOu can definitely see the difference. Faster loading time and less lagg. I love it, I just wish they did not require for the disk to be in the DVD drive so you can play the game. That way I can install all of them and shuffle through games without getting up and switching the disk.

Cheers

[t0mbi]

so did you mod a 120gb HDD or buy a OEM one?

[Kushan]

Just a hint: When copying partition 3, it's best to do it in little chunks (i.e to it one or two folders at a time). I know it's a pain, but it's the best way to do it. Same with copying it all back.

As AB pointed out, it's highly advisable to unplug any other SATA devices before you flash the drive, just in case it gets confused as to which is which. It's also worth noting (I forgot about this, but that's just reminded me) that SOME SATA controllers have difficulty with it, but a good work around is go to into your BIOS and switch to "native IDE" mode (This just makes the drive appear to be a good ol' IDE drive, sometimes HDDHackr works better like this, sometimes it prefers native SATA);