Swapping hard drive from modded Xbox

Post by **philipofmacedon** » Sun Jun 15, 2008 9:37 pm

Hey guys,

I don't have experience with softmods so I thought I'd ask here.

I'm getting ready to mod an xbox for a friend and I want to do it as cheaply as possible. I already have an Xbox with a SmartXX v3 in it, but no softmod tools. Is there any reason I can't swap his HD into my Xbox, install XBMC as the dashboard, and then put the drive back into his Xbox? I was thinking about using the Slayer's install disc as I've had good luck with it.

Post by **selfdestroyer** » Mon Jun 16, 2008 2:23 am

I dont thik that is possible since the HDD has a "key" on it. When you softmod your Xbox it will ask you to back it up. It needs to be from the xbox that you are softmoding. This is a link I send to many friends.

http://www.techfreaks.org/articles/modxbox.shtml

and one for the HDD

http://www.techfreaks.org/articles/modxbox2.shtml

Hope it helps.

Post by **philipofmacedon** » Mon Jun 16, 2008 8:28 pm

I'm thinking that all a softmod does is change files on your hard drive correct? It's not changing the bios at all?

What if I took a clean hard drive, installed the basic xbox hard drive files and XBMC as my dashboard, and then just threw it in my friend's box? Would it not able able to load to XBMC because the drive isn't locked?

Post by **selfdestroyer** » Tue Jun 17, 2008 2:40 am

I would still just softmod the xbox in question and then download auto installer and just install XBMC from there.

http://www.aidtracker.com/

Seems like a lot of work when there are good tools out there to do it for you.

Just my opinion.

Post by **vlame** » Tue Jun 17, 2008 4:11 am

i rent a softmod kit for $8 including shipping all you have to do is send it back.

Post by **link343** » Thu Jul 10, 2008 7:58 am

I would recommend using chimp. its a great program and its very simple to use. I won't get into the specifics, but basically, you use the DVD drive's ribbon cable to connect a second hd to your Xbox. All you have to do from there is select a few selections in the program and it copies your old drive to a newer drive. I used this method on my xbox to put a 80 gig in and its only took about 10-15 minutes to copy an 8 gig drive. The only down side to the whole thing is that if you have a xbox version 1.6, then you will need to telnet into your xbox because the graphics become messed up.

Here are a couple of links to look at:

http://xguides.xbox-scene.com/tikiwiki/ ... ps+hd+tool - has a good guide on using the program.
http://xboxdrives.x-pec.com/ - good site for upgrading your xbox hard drive. It provides information on various hard drives. A MUST!!!!!

Post by **executioner** » Thu Jul 10, 2008 9:07 pm

haven't they invented something new to replace hdd, those hot swaps methods seem like archaic.

Post by **link343** » Sun Jul 13, 2008 6:00 am

executioner wrote:haven't they invented something new to replace hdd, those hot swaps methods seem like archaic.

Not really. There is no way around hot swapping. There is provably a way to make a dvd with the old drive information and then have a program on that same dvd to copy the information and lock the hard drive. The method I stated above is all hypothetical. It could happen, but I know know what program that could do that (the locking and the copying of data).