xbox hard drive upgrade

[Justin]

hi all,

i have an original xbox with an Exector2, would someone be so kind as to list a step by step guide to upgrading the hard drive?


thanks in advance, Justin

 

[Mendel]

Do you need help for hardware or software installation or both?

I think I used something called slayers´ evox auto install dvd. But it´s been awhile.

 

[scrappysphinx]

What size hdd are you wanting to install Justin?

Basically though the steps are download a copy of Hexen or AID and burn to dvd-r.

Install the blank 3.5" ide drive into the xbox
boot the xbox with the hexen or aid disc in the drive
follow the on screen instructions to setup the new drive.

pretty simple really bud, only time it will get a little more difficult is if you go over a certain size hdd (think its 120gb?) then you need to use xbpartitioner to set the cluster size

 

[ShambleS1980]

paritions equal to or over 123Gb need to be formated proeprly with xbpartitioner "its on hexen"

if you have a 250Gb hard disk.. and you partition it 50/50 with the space going to F and G equaly you wont have any issues with data coruption. you will still need to make xbpartitioner format the drive to the 2 equal partitions though..

But as both partitions will be using 16k clusters you wont have any problems from then on..

if you wanted one big partition then you could end with some issues as xbpartitioner has a bug.
It will state that its writing 32Kb clusters but may simply write 16Kb clusters..

so generally what you do is..

Tell xbpartitioner you want a partition of a size you do not wnat to use, and tell it to write the partition table data. then you change the partition to a size you do want to use, and tell it to write the partition table data..

when its done FTP a text file to your newly made partition "f or g" and check the free space..
if xbpartitioner said it was writing 32kb clusters but the free space only lowers by 16kb when you ftp the text file over.. then you need to re format using xbpartitioner..

If it actualy goes down by 32kb then your good to go..

if you need better instructions ask and il see what i can do in regards to pictures..
"im helping test a new version of the app right now so i have a 1.5tb drive set up just for testing it, Its not working well yet. but ldotsfan has gone back to figure out what went wrong. so mean while the test bed is just sitting there, and could be use to make a tut"

 

[Justin]

cool guys, thanks i have just ordered a 120GB hard drive and will let you know how i get on once it arrives

 

[ShambleS1980]

120Gb will be no trouble at all dont even need to use xbpartitiooner on it.

 

[Justin]

ok so hard drive has arrived, ordered a 120gb but got a 160gb

so this makes it a little more complicated right?

 

[Amigafanboi]

Thought you didn't need Xboxpartitioner if you had a bios that supported 137+

 

[ShambleS1980]

re read what i said and the limit is 250Gb "more like 256gb" per partition.
The old lba supprt was 123Gb per partition..

so your ok with 160Gb also..
you will need to use xbpartitioner to allocate all the free space to one partition as it will default to 123gb but you wont need to worry about the cluster sizes.

to explain xbpartitioner.

the xbox as default had 16K clusters..
The older bioses/softmods were limited to 123Gb Whic is also 16kb clusters.
so generaly any program that makes a hard disk for the xbox will by default use 16k clusters..

if you have a larger hard disk. and a partition equal to or over 256Gb then you need 32K clusters..
if you use 16k clusters after you start to fill up the space on the hard disk you will get data corruption.
"lots of people find this out the hard way"

to use a larger partition you have to use xbpartitioner to re write the partition table data "it has no probs doing that" and then set the cluster sizes. "that part has a stupid bug"
after you have done that you have to test to see what size clusters you are using by FTPing a 1kb file to the xbox..
due to one file occupying a whole cluster. a 1kb file should take up 32kb 64kb or 16kb depending on the cluser size.
if it is not occupying the correct ammount then you have to do it again untill it does..

ldotsfan is currently working on a new xbpartitioner that should work better with larger drives and fix the cluster size issue..
I have been helipng him test, and the cluster sizes now look promising. and they do actually write what it says it was writing.
But now the partition table data gets lost..
So ldotsfan has taken the app and is looking over the whole code again to see what went wrong where.

i really hope he gets it working.
i was using it on a 1.5tb drive. and it would state it was able to write 128kb clusters. "which it did"
this would make 2tb drives very easy to manage. i believe that the max partition size would still be about 1.2tb. with a maximum of a 2tb drive fully utilizable. although 128Kb clusters would imply that 1.5+ Tb partitions are being looked at as a viable option. I also think the current LBA support of the bios's and softmods available now should be able to handle it so who knows 3tb possibly 4tb could be possible but thats just me speculating.
for all i know 128k clusters may get droped totaly in favour of a fully functional xbpartitioner that can easily handle the 2tb limit we currently have.

but if he gets it working well it will be really easy to use them with only people who did not use xbpartitioner ever suffering any issues..

 

[Amigafanboi]

Ahh yes i see what you mean.

 

[joe384]

I've never heard of this xbpartitioner bug?

I never had any problems with a 300GB F: drive although I think I just used it to do the format, it was a while ago. I may try the "test" though as I'm a bit worried now.

 

[Justin]

yay!! thanks guys

160gb hard drive installed and all seems to be working well