help upgrading a softmodded xbox's hard drive

[JustinBeaird]

GREAT are you and jinn willing to help me mod an xbox when i get one?
and are you planning to use xbmc4xbox as dash?
have a look at this

ok, here's the moment most of you have been waiting for. With the generous help of Jinn, i was able to get my 2TB SATA drive successfully installed and running like a champ! I couldn't have done it without him since i kept running into wall after wall after wall. It seems SATA drives are pretty finicky when upgrading. I tried xboxhdm 2.2 which was pretty easy to build on a linux bootable USB drive, the upgrade went very easy, but i always got the vague error 21 message when slapping the new HDD in, so i tried heimdalls's HeXEn disk, which was even more easier, but my drive would just sit formatting the X drive for days on end. Jinn suggested i flash my TSOP and run AID to upgrade the drive, which was even easier than the first two methods for getting the 2TB drive installed and running. All it involved was a circuitwriter pen and an AID disk.

It was alot of reading and re-reading and trial and error to get this project to where it's at. I'm glad that my IDE>SATA adapter works and didn't have to order 5 to see which one would work and which don't like so many have. I took a pic of my dash this morning, but will have to take another since my G drive had so much space and too many digits to display, you can't tell from my pic the available space, all it says is 1. So after everything booted up fine, jinn helped me figure out how to set up my cluster sizes in xboxpartitioner 1.0 and 1.1 for Xmugen to run, i ftp'd over my skins for unleashx, some custom mp3's to listen to on my dash screen, and my save files. i just ftp'd the TDATA & UDATA folders into my new E drive, but when i tested whether one of my saved files would load (I was playing XIII just last week) it didn't find the save file, so i have to sort that out, but overall, i'm pretty happy how easy it was to flash the TSOP, and load up a different BIOS. Again, many MANY thanks to Jinn who really helped me get this project to where it is, i couldn't have done it without him.

[alexis524]

i'd be more than glad to help. what size HDD are you looking at? i can even point you to the SATA>IDE adapter i bought off of ebay that works for me first try, no issues. Drop me a line when you're ready to go!

P.S. that youtubed xbmc set up is sick. i love how each emulator/system has the large banner. As far as i know, that's the only dash that you can do that on. I love unleashx and it's skins, but i may run with xbmc since of the customization (i.e. bannners) and the ability to create mulitple system folders for one emulator. For example, mednafenx runs NES, fami, and FDS. Ordinarily, in unleashx, i cannot split (at least to my knowledge) or create NES, Famicom, FDS and have that populated that way on the dashboard, but in xbmc you can complete with pretty little system icons if you wish!

[JustinBeaird]

not sure was thinking 2tb so i have plenty of space and newegg newsletter are always advertising 2tb's for $50-$70
my plan is to load it down with every emulator and game i can find. a game time machine

also my music, xbmc4xbox with icefilms and hulu adons

anyways what softmod method do you use?
there are an abundance of old outdated info

i'd be more than glad to help. what size HDD are you looking at? i can even point you to the SATA>IDE adapter i bought off of ebay that works for me first try, no issues. Drop me a line when you're ready to go!

P.S. that youtubed xbmc set up is sick. i love how each emulator/system has the large banner. As far as i know, that's the only dash that you can do that on. I love unleashx and it's skins, but i may run with xbmc since of the customization (i.e. bannners) and the ability to create mulitple system folders for one emulator. For example, mednafenx runs NES, fami, and FDS. Ordinarily, in unleashx, i cannot split (at least to my knowledge) or create NES, Famicom, FDS and have that populated that way on the dashboard, but in xbmc you can complete with pretty little system icons if you wish!

[alexis524]

tell me about it... that was the single most difficult part about the process, sorting thru what was up to date and what wasn't. I would recommend a TSOP flash, but that depends on your motherboard. I was able to without any soldering, and just involved a trip to radio shack for a circuit writer pen ($20) Jinn pointed out which points i needed to bridge on the top and bottom of the MOBO. It took longet to dissassemble everything than connecting the two points. Afterthat, it was just a matter of burning the actual BIOS onto a dvd, cold booting it, installing, swapping in my larger HDD, booting AID, and following some instructions. But it's different strokes for different folks. I would also recommend Heimdall's HeXEn disk that gets cold booted and is very VERY easy to follow (all on screen instructions). It may take a few methods but is not impossible by any means. If you need any files or tutorials, just ask. If i hadn't wiped my USB flash, i would have mailed it to you that has xboxhdm 2.2 on it to upgrade that way.