Upgraded my hard drive

[Ironman273]

I'm not sure if this is an "OK" topic. I just upgraded my Xbox HD from the 20GB I've had since launch to a 120GB Western Digital that I bought for $55. The process wasn't as difficult as I thought and if I get no resistance I was going to post some of the stuff I went through.

Anyways, all my DLC and game saves had me at 1GB free, and that was after deleting all my demos. Now I've installed a couple games and still have about 95GB free. :D

[Draken]

Well done!! I did the same last month (found a WD BEVS at USD $35) was super easy (well, the backup took a lot) and works perfect, but now I want a 250GB :woot:

[Ironman273]

Well done!! I did the same last month (found a WD BEVS at USD $35) was super easy (well, the backup took a lot) and works perfect, but now I want a 250GB :woot:

I should've done a little more homework. The catalyst to my project was buying "The Ballad of Gay Tony" and realizing I was out of space. I checked around for a 120 and found the cheapest at $55 shipped, which I though was acceptable. Only after I was looking for the BIN file did I see there were bins for 250GB :( Oh well, I'm still happy.

[NotChetHanks]

I hate you for your sig Ironman, I really really do. Lol.

*I actually heard his damn voice.*

[witalit]

LOL that is a brilliant sig I did the exact same thing.

[Ironman273]

Well, I started by looking up guides on the internet which gave me the software I needed. I had the bin for the 120GB drive, the hddhackr program, and Xplorer360. Once I removed the 20GB drive from the enclosure I hooked it up to a SATA to USB connector I have. Xplorer360 didn't see it. I kept getting a "No FATX drives found" error. So I hooked it up directly in my laptop (which I found out has 2 HD bays, which is convenient). Didn't work. Took my PC apart and connected it to the SATA there. Didn't work. I started searching online for solutions and then it hit me: I hadn't run Xplorer360 in Administrator mode (I'm running Windows 7).

Started it in Admin mode on my laptop and there was the drive! So now I started backing things up. I used the "create image" to make an image of partition 2 and dragged and dropped the contents of partition 3 onto a folder on the desktop. The Cache folder was taking hours so I did more research online. Apparently it goes into loop mode. I had to go in and select the files themselves and drag them out instead of the whole folder. As a tip, before you take the drive off the Xbox, go to "Drive options" and clear the cache so you have less files to transfer (in my case there was only one left). OK, now I have the 20GB drive backed up.

Next step is to prepare the 120GB. I made a bootable USB key with this method. Disconnected my laptop drive, hooked up the new 120 and booted from the key (I had copied the bin file and hddhackr program onto it). The program didn't see the drive either in the first bay or second bay. Opened up my computer and disconnected all the drives. The PC saw the drive but the program didn't. I had plugged the drive into the Secondary Master so I moved it to the Primary Slave, which then worked. I flashed the drive with the bin file and my Western Digital drive suddenly became a Fujitsu. Put the 120 into the hard drive enclosure and out it in the Xbox. It saw the drive (with 107GB free) so I formatted it and put in the console's serial number.

Now I needed to put all my files back. I started up Xplorer (in admin mode) and restored partition 2. I then tried to drag the files back to partition 3 but it wouldn't let me. After some more online digging I came across the fact that Xplorer won't work properly with UAC enabled, even in admin mode. I disabled UAC and was able to drag the files into partition 3 with no problem.

I put the drive back in the enclosure and onto the 360. The only thing it needed to do was rerun the update, but all my gamertags, game saves, and content was there.

[+InsaneNutter MVC]

I was just going to post about this when i found your topic, yesterday I did this but with a 250gb Western Digital WD2500BEVT Scorpio Blue drive I got for ?30.

Much easier than I expected too, the only real problem I had was restoring partition 2 on the drive as the hacked Xplorer360 for 250gig drives can only read / write to partition 3.

However Xplorer360 extreme2 can write to partition 2 but not partition 3 on a 250gig drive so that was easily sorted out. I didn?t have any of the problems you encountered with UAC and Xplorer360 on Windows 7, it worked ok here with admin rights.

Ive restored all my content fine and am currently installing all my games.

I think doing your own drive is the way to go as Microsoft charge ?89.99 just for the 120gig drive here in the uk! At that price I could make 3x 250gig drives for the same price:ninja:nja:

[acnpt]

I was just going to post about this when i found your topic, yesterday I did this but with a 250gb Western Digital WD2500BEVT Scorpio Blue drive I got for ?30.

Where from?

I've been thinking of doing it too, they are about ?37 on amazon.

[+InsaneNutter MVC]

CCL Computers - the price looks to have changed slightly, its ?34 inc vat now.

Still the cheapest place on the web though.

[spenser.d]

Heh. I might have to look into this soon. I've got about a gig free on my 20 and I don't think that will last much longer.

-Spenser

[dontocsata]

Can I use the hddss.bin file from my 20gb Xbox HDD on a 120gb WD BEV drive and get full functionality? Or will the 360 recognize my 120gb as a 20gb?

[Neztea]

Can I use the hddss.bin file from my 20gb Xbox HDD on a 120gb WD BEV drive and get full functionality? Or will the 360 recognize my 120gb as a 20gb?

Nope, have to use the HDDSS.bin from a 120gb official xbox hard drive to use on the WD BEV. But, you can find the required HDDSS.bin from the internet from various sources.

But, if you want, you can get a 320GB bevt drive to use it with the 250GB HDDSS.bin.... Thats what I did. Use to have 120GB on it and now its 250GB.

Hope that helps.

Neztea

[Ironman273]

Nope, have to use the HDDSS.bin from a 120gb official xbox hard drive to use on the WD BEV. But, you can find the required HDDSS.bin from the internet from various sources.

But, if you want, you can get a 320GB bevt drive to use it with the 250GB HDDSS.bin.... Thats what I did. Use to have 120GB on it and now its 250GB.

Hope that helps.

Neztea

And if the Xbox ever comes with a 320Gb drive option, free upgrade! :D

Heh. I might have to look into this soon. I've got about a gig free on my 20 and I don't think that will last much longer.

-Spenser

You will not regret it. I'm just sorry I waited as long as I did, shuffling my DLC and demos, etc.

[DrunknMunky Veteran]

I was looking to do this with the new 250GB drives but seeing as I had to buy a new console I opted for an Elite this time.

20GB was always enough for me until now, so 120GB should be fine for the foreseeable future too :)

[+InsaneNutter MVC]

I have 26 games installed now, all my arcade games, dlc / saves on the 250gig drive and I still have over 90gigs free! :)

My 360 is practically silent now, I recommend anyone thinking about it to go for it! You carnt really go wrong from less than the price of one Xbox 360 game.

[DrunknMunky Veteran]

Yeah I'm enjoying that actually. My Elite is a Jasper/Lite-on or BenQ (haven't bothered checking), so it's already really quiet as it is, but I've installed MW2 and it's so nice not having to listen to the disc seeking. Even my past 360's weren't too bad, I've been lucky, but it's even better now (Y)

[George P Global Moderator]

This is probably agenst the rules, maybe, but if anyone has a simple guide for this process can they PM me the link to it? If that's ok that is.

[iconboy]

If I upgrade my hdd won't I get banned from live?

[Neztea]

If I upgrade my hdd won't I get banned from live?

Haven't been banned yet. I don't think MS can figure out if they can ban you for using a different Hard drive... or else they would have done it yet.

Neztea

[Ironman273]

This is probably agenst the rules, maybe, but if anyone has a simple guide for this process can they PM me the link to it? If that's ok that is.

Ask me why you need an I'll tell you. I put my experience here because I did waste some time following a guide. At the end of the day it's really simple.

[Death Proof]

I have a question guys , Lets say i upgrade My HDD to a 120 GB one or i purchase a Chinese 120 GB Xbox 360 HDD for real cheap ( 65$) wont the forthcoming Update ( the one which makes Datel Products incompatible with Xbox 360 ) render this HDD useless ?

[Ironman273]

I have a question guys , Lets say i upgrade My HDD to a 120 GB one or i purchase a Chinese 120 GB Xbox 360 HDD for real cheap ( 65$) wont the forthcoming Update ( the one which makes Datel Products incompatible with Xbox 360 ) render this HDD useless ?

The update in question only cuts out 3rd party memory cards, not HDDs. With the flashed HDD there is no way for the Xbox to tell it isn't a genuine one.

[Death Proof]

Thanks for the reply, BTW is the update officially out ?