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

It should work internally.

 

I have a white (fat) Xbox 360 with 60GB HDD. And I am going to install a WD2500BEVT from my notebook. I don't care about original xbox compatibility and I also have the official Xbox 360 Data transfer cable to transfer my stuff in 60GB HDD. So my questions are..
From the 1st page tutorial,
1) Should i stop at hacking the HDDSS.BIN using HddHackr_v1.40? Replace 250GB HDD into enclosure, transfer data from 60GB to 250GB using MS Data transfer cable.
2) Do i need to do the Hoffmans partition 2 step?
3) Do i need to do the whole Xplorer360 steps?

I am sorry if similar questions are already asked, but I don't want to go thru the whole 60pg of thread to find it out.

Thanks in advance...

 

You will need to transfer partition 2 if you want to play original xbox games.
You can use the transfer cable to transfer your data. It won't transfer partition 2 though.

 

Thanks for the quick reply. So in the other word, if i don't need to play original xbox games, I can do without partition 2 and will free up more space for xbox360 game...

 

It won't free up any space.

 

So xbox 360 just create a partition 2 with nothing in it?

 

Hddhackr does that, but official drives already have partition 2 installed.

 

Wondering if anybody can help me. I have a Xbox 360 S 4GB and I just purchased a WD3200BVPT. I followed all the steps in the original post to create the USB boot tool, downloaded HddHackr 1.4, downloaded the hddss.bin for the 320GB hard drive, and attempted to flash the firmware. I followed the steps, got the "Turn off computer.. everything should be fine", but when I put the drive in the Xbox 360, the drive doesn't appear.

I tried flashing/undoing this on 3 different computers and got the same results after subsequent flashes. For additional troubleshooting, I unflashed the drive (using the undo.bin), used the WD tool to write zeros to the drive (full pass, waited 90 minutes for this task to finish), then I tried again. Got the same results.

I then, did everything a 5th and 6th time, this time choosing F to flash, then when completed, instead of turning off the computer, I ran hddhackr again, and ran C to create the partitions (which wasn't showing up as being completed, but I read that it is automatic in 1.4).

No matter what, I can't seem to figure out why the drive ins't showing in the Xbox 360. The drive appears in Windows as a 320 (298GB) drive. I even plugged the drive in the front of the Xbox and it shows up, but says I have to prepare for use of 32GB. So, the drive is working, just not as an internal 320GB drive.

The Xbox has the latest firmware (2.0.26547.0), so I'm not sure if the problem is that the latest Xbox firmware prevents this from working or what. I do know the drive is installed in the Xbox correctly because I have the aftermarket drive enclosure, and I tried inserting the drive without the enclosure to confirm it was seated correctly.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

 

I also ran the diag tool before writing zeros and the drive passed.

 

Here's an additional update. I tried using free dos this time, still no luck. The Xbox still won't see the drive.

I then tried using the 250GB bin (which was from a Hitachi drive), the 320 appears to be from a Seagate drive. Tried hacking with both 1.3 and 1.4 (and both MS Dos and Free Dos), both was successful on the computer, but still no HD recognized in the Xbox.

Anybody know if Microsoft has gotten smart and decided to block all these hard drives that have the same model, serial, etc? (block the console from recognizing the drive, not banning anything).

I don't know what else to try.

Thanks for any input.

 

I also tried previously with a different drive (WD3200LPVX), but thought the drive wasn't supported and had the same results.

 

After the drive is hacked what does the bios display for that hard drive?

 

The Bios displays the model number of the flashed drive, and size. I confirmed that the bios did pickup that it wasn't a WD drive after flashing. Also, I confirmed that the xbox is reading hard drives as I tried with an Official XBox drive and my Xbox picked that up.

I'm really stuck, not knowing what the problem is.

Thanks.

 

Try using a different usb flash drive. You could also look for any ahci or sata modes you can change. It might make a difference.Make sure to undo.

 

Ok. I'll try that, but for the AHCI/SATA modes, I tried with two different Dell laptops and a custom built desktop with an Intel motherboard. I changed all settings to either ATA (dell) and Legacy (desktop). Could that be the issue or could hddhackr appear to be completing successfully, but the firmware flash really isn't taking place?

Thanks.

 

Tried with a different flash drive, sitll no luck. Flashed successfully with hddhackr. Turned off, removed hard drive from laptop, placed in Xbox 360s, still no internal drive shows up in the Xbox.

I'm gonna try with an old Compaq laptop from 2010. This will be the 4th computer.

One other thing I can add. I have tried flashing the drive, testing in the Xbox, but when it didn't appear, I did try to see if the Bios picked up the drive as a WD or Seagate, and it appeared as a Seagate. I then plugged the drive back into a Windows 7 computer to see if it recognized the drive, and it still picks up the drive as a NTFS drive with 298GB free. (even after I manually created the 0/2/3 partitions with hddhackr).

I'll report back in a few how I made out with the Compaq laptop.

 

Ok, so my 4th computer was a Toshiba laptop, not a Compaq laptop. I tried with the second flash drive first (which is a Corsair Survivor 32GB) on the Toshiba. Initially, I had the flash drive setup with MS DOS, tried to boot and it didn't work (started DOS, the when I tried to run hddhackr, the cursor just blinked). I then tried using Free DOS and it didn't even boot into the flash drive (drive not valid). This flash drive only supports Fat32 and NTFS.

Next I went back to my original flash drive (Scandisk 2GB). I tried with MS DOS, but the cursor just blinked when I started hddhackr. So, I try with Free DOS, tried the hack, hddhackr completed successfully, tried the drive in the Xbox, but still not showing up.

Then, I put the drive back in the computer, ran the command to manually create partition 0/2/3, it got to the end and said partitions created successfully, but then I got some errors about DOS, panic, halted, etc. I turned off the computer, tried in the Xbox, and still nothing. Put the drive back in the computer, verified BIOS sees the drive as a Seagate, and performed the undo flash.

I'm still nowhere.

 

Gonna try again with the Toshiba, Free DOS and try 1.3 to see if I have any different luck.

 

Ok. I finally got it to work. This whole time, I was trying the drive with the cheap amazon enclosure case I got. I decided that all of this can't be a failure, so I took the drive out the case, seated inside the Xbox 360 and Voila!!! Working!!!. Xbox sees 292GB free (about to format).

I feel silly, but i'm gonna see what the problem is with the aftermarket case not allowing the drive to set correctly.

Thanks for your willingness and assistance with troubleshooting, but my problem is now solved.

 

Hi all, Thanks for all the support and guide .. i had successfully hacked a WD5000LPVT - 500GB using hddhackr 1.40 with hdss320gb(some hd with STprefix i guess its seagate) but for some reason.. its not getting detected by my xbox 360 slim.. is it bcoz of the microsoft update which block such driver or i have dome something wrong... Please help