Hack a 250gb, 320gb or 500gb Sata harddrive to work in the Xbox 360 and Xbox 360 Slim

thanks Harcroft!

i have an hitachi 79 so i'm scared to run that systemupdate before i have the lt+.
Can i run the old systemupdate (v.9199) that i already have again?

I have a NON jtag so is this the right update: https://digiex.net/downloads/downlo...board-update-2-0-9199-0-avatars-download.html ?


PERFECT! I could install the 9199 again and now the avatars are shown! Why is this step not mentioned in the tutorial?
Is this systemupdate after installation, stored on the Unknown Partition?

 

Yes that is the right system update for you. It's not mentioned in the tutorial because newer games will update your console anyway. In fact, you said they tried to update the system, they weren't trying to update the console, just the hard drive.
Yes, that "unknown" partition isn't actually unknown. Its a system partition (partition 1) for dashboard and driver data.

 

Noob purchase.

I purchased a Western Digital 250g HDD for my slim(already flashed and in the correct casing). Problem. I didn't check to see if partition 2 had been set properly to run xbox1 games. Tried to play Jade Empire and Halo 1. Fail. Yes, I am a noob for not doing more research.
My questions is what cable would I need to connect the HDD to my laptop. My laptop does have an eSata/USB combo port(I believe it would be able to power the HDD..). If someone could direct me to the correct cable then I can fix the problem myself. I'm pretty good at softmodding.

I should be able to open xplorer and 'restore' partition 2 using the saved partition on the first page.

 

Just wanted to confirm that this worked on a Nov. 7 WD2500BEVT

Thanks to the creator

 

all i did for this was take the enclosure for the xbox 360 hard drive(connected via usb transfer cable) a sata to usb will work also or external enclosure.i booted into windows and restored partition 2 and it worked

It is important you just close Xplorer360 after that, massing about with anything else will corrupt Partition 3.

 

Thanks InsaneNutter for the very detailed tutorial. You have made my Xmas. This tutorial works as of Dec 23 2010. I have a dell workstation at my office i used to flash the drive without issue. Once again, thank you very much!!!!

 

- problem - flashed HDD error

hey guys, im having problem here... i really hope someone could help me, coz for 3 days ive been searching for help, but i dont get anything to help me fix my problem.
I was able to flash my new 250GB Harddisk Scorpio Black WD2500BEKT, then i put it on my xbox360 and i tried to format there (it shown 223GB or something around that amount), i put my serial number, but somehow it wont format, so i tought i put the wrong serial number. I turned off my xbox and took my HDD out and checked the serial number, and the number was not false. I was re-doing these formatting, but i was unable to format it in my xbox. When i put my HDD back to my Laptop (TOSHIBA Satellite L500) and checked with xplorer360 v2, I couldnt dump the partition 2 (backup from my old HDD), the green bar keep going left to right like crazy but nothing copied. Then i did something so the partition is gone, theres only partition 0 now. I tried to use so many programs to get my partition 0/2/3 back, but nothing worked. I dont either get my 250GB-HDD showed up now (in DOS) by using HDDHACKR, so i cant flash back my HDD with the UNDO.BIN.

~ explorer still can access the 250GB (232GB shown)
~ i did reformat so many times the HDD (NTFS, exFAT, FAT32-(using software)), but the best i can get is that my 250GB would be recognized as 15,9GB flash HDD (using USB to XBOX)

i havent tried the manual way (making partition, cos i think its a bit complicated, so is there any ways/software that could help me to recover my 250GB back to its original state/firmware ?? cos i tought i can re-flash it again if it back to original, so hddhackr would see my hdd and re-do all steps. Thanks

 

The serial number the xbox 360 is referring to the one on the xbox 360. and for your drive you might have to get a new one.
How to format an Xbox 360 Hard Drive or Memory Unit <how to format hard drive in xbox 360
When you formatted the drive using windows that erased the hack and messed up the drive.
There are some other advanced ways but i have no clue how to do that.

 

thanx for the advice, really appreciate it, especially for the serial number which referring the serial number on the xbox, i didnt really get this on the tut, i tought i made clear mistake here
hmmm... if my HDD really messed up and cant be recovered, maybe i just try to sell it, coz explorer still read it 232GB. Ive been searching in hddguru, looking for HDD diagnostics and recovery tools, but nothing worked with me

 

...

You don't need to return your HDD, it's perfectly fine. It will never be the full 250GB because the "dead space" is reserved for the system.

 

the harddisk cant be detected with hddhackr anymore, thats the problem, so i cant flash it back to original firmware or use it as xbox main harrdisk (been formatted in windows),,, but im not sure either if they would replace my harddisk with the new one because of my mistake of flashing it,,,

 

First of all, you can use Winhex or Hex workshop to copy those sectors back to your hard drive from within windows.
Secondly 232gb is about right for a 250gb hdd. The miscounting stems from hard drive manufacturers counting kilobytes as 1000 bytes, megabyes as 1 000 000 bytes, gigabytes as 1 000 000 000 bytes etc etc. Anything software related (including your OS) counts differently; kylobytes as 1024 bytes, megabytes as 1 048 576, gigabytes as 1 073 741 824 etc. So all that "lost space" is basically lost to the extra 24 byes leftover from each KB.

If you get really stuck with the hard drive, send it to someone who does repairs or does hddhacker drive creation. I'm sure such a person could figure it out for a small fee

 

I've had my 360 for 4 years and it's had the 20 gig drive in it (only ONE RROD!). Finally had enough and want to be able to install all my games. I never wanted to spend an insane amount of money for the upgrade and wasn't sure about hacking a drive, but after finding your tutorial I decided to go ahead and try it.

I ordered a WD Scorpio Black 250gb drive. Amazon was having a sale so it was 5 bucks more for upgraded 7200 drive (49$ total). Between me and my dad who works in IT, graphic design, and has been using computers a very long time, I think we can figure it out. Hopefully all will go well! Plus this is really awesome if I upgrade my 360 to the Slim I can swap this drive into it and not spend another 100 bucks!

 

trouble

when i go to type in "hddss.bin" it says file not found and i know its there, any help is appreciated

 

Make sure the file name is hddss.bin otherwise it won't find it.If that doesn't work download the .bin file again and replace it on your flash drive/

 

Hey. i have register on this site, just to ask this. will this work with any other 250 hard drive? maybe with wd caviar? or any other? anyone try it?

 

nevermind

thanx, i got it, so you guys don't have to reply

 

Hi guys, I have a really annoying problem with the Xplorer Extreme(first one mentioned in the tutorial). Evertime I let it restore my HDD(250 GB WD-BEVT), the program gets an error at the end of the restore and closes. I already have it formatted in my XBOX, but XBOX Classic games don´t seem to work. I really want to play Conker Live&Reloaded ! And i also tried it with Windows 7 32 Bit and Windows XP 32 Bit. Thanks in advance, Wuigi

 

Hi great guide thanks,

I have only got a laptop, if I swap the HDD I want to hack with the one installed in my laptop, and then boot from the USB, will that work, also this will make it impossible to copy over image from the original 20gb hdd to the 250gb, but I have the transfer cable and disc that Microsoft sent me for free when I purchased the elite 120gb console, would following the instructions from that complete the image transfer

 

after you run hddhackr,you have to format the new drive in the xbox 360(DO NOT format using USB transfer cable) when that's done put the 20gb drive in the xbox and run the disk and follow the instructions.use your transfer cable with the 250gb drive and it should copy the files from the 20gb