Nevermind--> Are Xbox Hard Drives Swappable?

[nightrnr]

Here's a hypothetical situation:

Let's say you soft modded an original Xbox. Then upgraded to a bigger Hard Drive (I've found tutorials for that, so don't need help there).
Let's say that Xbox's motherboard decides to die one day... but you have another Xbox.

Can you take out the HDD from the dead Xbox and put it in the good one. Would it still be modded?, Would you have to soft-mod the good system right before the swap?, Are there any additional steps that must be taken.

For that matter, can Xbox hard drives be easily swapped anyways (modded or not), from one system to the next.

This all assumes you have the HDD formatted properly (works in the Xbox it came from).

I tried to find info on this, but had no luck (it's either so fundamental, it's not mentioned, or it just doesn't really come up).

Thanks in advance...

[Valkyrie-Favor]

Never heard of this problem, although I did mod some xboxes a while back. I'd just try it and see if it works.

[nightrnr]

Okay, I found some info on the matter:

http://www.llamma.com/xbox/Repairs/hard_drive.htm

So it seems that Xbox hard drives need to be unlocked with a password stored on the "EPROM chip" on the motherboard (and I'm not interested in de-soldering anything unless the pins are a respectable size, which I doubt).

I was serious when I said "hypothetical situation". However, I do have a broken Xbox in which the motherboard died (cap exploded charring a whole section of the board).
Unfortunately, I never modded this Xbox, so I never even got the eeprom backed up.
However, I navigating the Xbox dashboard when it happened.

I wonder if it's possible that the Hard Drive was "unlocked" at the time of the system's demise?
But even if it was, I'm not sure if it could still be used. Or if it is, I'd have to reformat it to use in another system.

I may try to see if it's at least unlocked (via PC and software), but I'll have to read up a bit more on how to do that.

Anyways, I'm just scared it'll happen again one day. I'll just have to be diligent about saving the eeprom and password info.

I think I answered my own questions here for now, but if someone else thinks they have more useful info, feel free to share.

[Vkins]

Sorry for bumping this thread.

It should, actually, pose no problem to desolder the eeprom from the dead mobo to put it onto the new one. The pins are kinda small, yes, but they're not as small as those of, let's say, a PS2 CPU. (I modded PS2s for a living in the past until Sony "killed" my shop. )

Check the guide here: http://www.xbox-scene.com/articles/reco ... ked-hd.php

Question: In the process of softmodding, did you, at any point, format the hdd using xboxhdm (or whatever the eff it was called)? If you did, try unlocking it on your PC using the password "xbox-scene". xboxhdm usually overwrites the master password with that one. There are lotsa guides on the net regarding the use of these ATA utilities that can be used to lock/unlock an HDD.

[barronwaffles]

Most PATA hard drives also have a manufacturer unlock code - googling the model number + unlock code might do the trick.

[nightrnr]

Thanks for the response guys.

Yes, I have some links to Master passwords for some of the Hard Drives used in Xbox systems. That's definitely what I'm going to do when I have some extra time and motivation to bring some of my dead systems (bought that way used) back to life.

Vkins, that's what I ended up doing with that particular Xbox. I desoldered/resoldered the eeprom onto another system (along with using the matching HDD). Worked like a charm. You're right, the pins have just enough space for me to work with.
I basically have my old system back... well, I can retrieve all my old saves anyways. The DVD drive was finicky before, but is now just dead until I can find a replacement. I might just use it solely for emulation and such.

Also, I did a lot of homework since I created this topic. I now know about the programs needed to reformat the drives (essential because I want to upgrade to a bigger one at some point).

I even gathered materials to build a simple eeprom reader to retrieve them from my mismatched systems (also crucial if you want to install ANY hard drive). I just haven't gotten to it yet.