help upgrading a softmodded xbox's hard drive

[alexis524]

this may sound very elementary, but can't i simply just "ghost" my existing 250GB drive that is softmodded to my new drive? In other words, can i just copy over the contents from the smaller drive onto the larger drive and install into my oxbox???

You really should try using google more. You can get most of your questions answered that way. Take me, 3 years ago I knew nothing about consoles having been out of gaming for a number of years. Using Google, I was able to install ViperExtreme into my Gamecube, install a modchip into my original xbox, upgrade the drive, install xbmc, etc. I also installed CFW onto my PSP.

I knew nothing. I googled and found lots of information which I studied. Yes, there's a lot of information and yes, some of it can be confusing. But like I said, I read things carefully and then was able to do everything on my own.

So to answer your question, I just typed in "can you ghost xbox drive" and one of the first hits was:

http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=559737

just looking for trusted advice here, but point taken.

[alexis524]

update*** made a boot disk with my eeprom, am able to boot into xboxhdm, but upon typing "xboxhd" at the appropriate spot, i get the message that the linux cd cannot be found. i've scoured the net and haven't turned up much help. I have a sneaky suspicion that my new SATA drive is not being detected when in xboxhdm and not sure what else i'm supposed to be doing. The PC tower i'm working from is already set up with SATA drives (dvd & HDD) so no master/slave settings neccesary. I'm fairly positive that my boot cd was structured right and i burned it slow. I've compiled numerous xboxhdm tutorials and seem to have a grasp on things, but am stuck. Can anyone help?

[Hatta]

I don't think xboxhdm supports SATA natively. You might have luck going into your bios and native SATA mode to IDE emulation, it might be called "legacy" mode or "compatibility" mode.

There is also a newer version of xboxhdm that boots from USB.

[JustinBeaird]

How are you coming along? i would really like to do this would you consider helping me i have a few questions

[alexis524]

it's coming along very slow. Hatta, thanks for the reply. I've followed the tutorial on making a bootable USB into xboxhdm 2.1 and am able to to boot up into linux/slax, but i'm getting stuck again when it asks which drive do i want to activate xboxhdm on. I keep getting the message : warning no DNS servers found qemu couldn't open the disk image. I'm looking into how to force IDE legacy mode, but unsure if that is the issue since the existing HD in the tower is SATA. When i am in BIOS with the new larger HD, it is recognized under the boot sequence, but once i'm in xboxhdm, it doesn't seem to recognize it. another wall to climb...

P.S. minor update. It seems i may have found a solution to the above error message once in slax. I came across a line of code to try when receiving the error. I'll get a chance to try a bit later and will reply back afterwards. Here's hoping it works...

update to the update. good lord this is insane..... for some effing reason i decided to go off and follow the xboxhdm 2.2 tutorial which now involves RMprepUSB, which i d'l and installed and halfway thru the tut, got scared and cancelled out whatever it was doing to my flash drive. Well, whatever that was doing, now affects any USB flash drive i try to boot from. When booting from a flash drive, i now get the message "boot error" right when it tries to boot. i'm trying to search out the net to see what i can do to undo whatever i did, this is turning into quite a project...

[alexis524]

Ok, back on track with a bootable USB drive into linux/slax and back at where i was, linux.iso can't be found. the code i came across, didn't work either, but could be that my paths are wrong. Will have to play with it. However, it seems like XboxHDM 2.2 USB Edition may be the route i am forced to go which bypasses the search for the .iso file, but involves RMprepUSB again. there are a one or two tutorials available, but isn't quite clear what gets built first XboxHDM 2.2 or RMprepUSB. I may have to walk away for a bit since this has consumed most of the last few days already...

[Hatta]

How are you loading the iso onto the USB key?

[alexis524]

i've copied the linux iso to the root of my USB drive. should i be copying the files and folders inside the iso themselves onto the root?

[alexis524]

another update. i also now have a separate USB that boots into linux that has xboxhdm 2.2 that eliminates the need for the linux .iso to be placed on the root since the C&E folders get populated from within the hdm folder from the xboxhdm2.2 gui itself. Everything boots just fine into the blue GUI/slax screen with all the tools, program finds my hdm file that contains the m$ dash files, my eeprom.bin is there, but my attached SATA cannot be found. I've tried all 4 possible settings primary master, primary slave, secondary master, secondary slave. no dice.

i can't understand it since the stock hard drive with windows 7 is an SATA with no IDE ports. It's almost like hdm won't recognize my hard drive...

[irixith]

The software you're using does not work with a SATA controller, it needs an IDE controller present to function. AKA you need to be using it on a machine that still has IDE ports on it.

You can upgrade your hard drive on a softmodded Xbox via CHIMP -- which involves some cable swapping while the Xbox is on, and following a variety of prompts. I find it to be by far the easiest way -- as all you need is your Xbox, and either a Y power cable (to power both drives at once), or simply a power source for the second drive.

I can walk you through doing it if you want, it's not terribly complicated, but it does require you to follow the steps carefully. I've done it hundreds of times, and it beats the shit out of using XboxHDM in 2011 if you don't have the appropriate computer hardware to run it with.