Geek Speak.

PLEASE NOTE

This tutorial is provided for informational purposes only and is pretty out-dated. You're really better off using my bootable CD and building your Xbox hard drive with that. This method does work, but there are really easier ways now. So use this tutorial at your own risk!

By Nate Rice

Part 3 (Hard Drive Upgrade)
v1.00 (07/13/04) - Original Release

WARNING! As always, perform this modification at your OWN RISK. We have done our best to ensure that the information in this tutorial is accurate, but we can not guarantee that it is. We will not take any responsibility for any damage to your Xbox, your computer, or yourself by performing this modification.

In this tutorial we will be installing an upgraded hard drive into our Xbox game console. This will be a 100% soft mod upgrade without the need to buy a modchip or any other hardware other than the larger hard drive.

In this tutorial we will also assume that you have completed Parts 1 - 2. We will also assume that you are familiar with the concepts that we established in Parts 1 - 2. Some of these concepts include signing XBEs and unpacking compressed archives. We will do our best to hyperlink to the respective FAQ answers from within the tutorial, so it is your responsibility to follow those links if you have any questions.

This tutorial has only been tested on Xbox versions 1.0-1.4. It has not been tested with versions Xbox's beyond that. If you don't know your Xbox version you can figure it out by visiting the Xbox-Linux website at the following URL: http://www.xbox-linux.org/docs/versionsfinding.html.

This tutorial has not been tested with Xbox Live. There are known issues with modified Xbox's and Xbox Live. Xbox Live has been known to update the dashboard when logged on. Use Xbox Live at your own risk. If you don't plan on using Xbox Live with this Xbox, you can safely continue with this tutorial.

Buttons, icons, menu items, and other things you click or double click on your computer will be formatted like this within the tutorial:

[Okay]

This is simply a visual indicator to you that you should be clicking somewhere on your computer.

This tutorial has been written in such a fashion that it would be easy to skip between steps. Each sub-step is simply detailing how to perform each step. If you know the details of how to perform the individual steps or have performed them in the past, feel free to skip reading the intricate details of the step and simply perform the step. Don't be intimidated, this isn't as complicated as it initially seems.

1) Requirements

Hardware:

• Xbox
• Xbox Power Cable, Video Cable, and One Controller
• Torx Size 10, 15, and 20 Screwdriver(s)
• Computer Running Windows XP (SP-1 is optional)
• Minimum of 10GB of free space
• Lockable IDE Hard Drive (Size of your choosing)
• 1.44 MB Floppy Disk

Optional Hardware (These were helpful for me but are not required):

• Cup (drinking glass)

Software:

• HDD Driver
• Hex Workshop
• LiveInfo
• SperTrick Boot Disk (NOTE: This is a special boot disk created by SuperTrick.net for use with this tutorial.)

If you meet all these requirements you are ready for step 2! Obtain ALL of these requirments before you move on to step 2. Trust me on this. You will save yourself a TON of time by simply meeting all these requirements before you start poking around inside of your xbox.

2) Create SuperTrick Boot Disk

2.1) Extract the SuperTrick boot disk and run the executable contained within it. Follow the prompts and create a bootable 1.44MB floppy disk.

Note: You can create other bootable media if you have it available and know how to format it for booting. For the purposes of this tutorial, figuring out how to do it with other media will be left to the user and is out of the scope of this document.

2.2) Label this disk and set it to the side, we'll be using it later.

3) Obtaining the Backup Directory from Your Already Soft Modded Xbox

3.1) On your Xbox within EvoX, go to the "System Utils" tab and select "Backup". This will create a folder labeled "backup" on your Xbox hard drive in the same directory that EvoX is running from. If you are following this tutorial sequentially from Parts 1 - 2, then this directory will be located in the root of the "E" partition.

3.2) FTP into your Xbox and copy the backup folder to your computer's hard drive. Once you have copied it to your computer, open it and it should contain the following files:

bios.bin
disk.bin
eeprom.bin
hddinfo.txt
hddkey.bin

We will be using these files later in the tutorial to lock your new replacement drive.

4) Opening Your Xbox

Most guides over look this step but I feel that it is important to explain how exactly to open your Xbox without damaging it in anyway.

4.1) Create a work area where you will have enough space to work comfortably with your Xbox.

4.2) Grab a cup (yes I mean a cup you drink out of). We will use this to store our screws so that we don't lose them. Grab your Xbox and unplug anything that you have plugged into it (Power, Video, or Controllers). Turn it over so that you are looking at the bottom of it. We are going to remove 6 torx size 20 screws from the bottom. Four are located under the rubber feet located in the corners of the Xbox. Two more are located under stickers closer to the middle of the Xbox. Feeling around the stickers will reveal their locations. Peel back the feet and the stickers and remove the 6 screws. Toss them in the cup so you don't lose them.

4.3) Carefully turn over the Xbox and you should be able to remove the top cover.

4.4) Now we will remove the hard drive from the mounting bracket.

4.4.1) Now we will unscrew the hard drive mounting tray from the Xbox case. We will need a torx size 10 screw driver to perform this step. Looking down on the open case of your Xbox you should see 1 small screw near the center of your Xbox. This is the only screw holding the hard drive mounting tray in place. Remove this screw and place it in your cup.

4.4.2) Remove the tray from the case and unplug the IDE cable and the power cable from the back of the hard drive.

4.4.3) Now remove the 4 torx 15 mounting screws that are securing the hard drive to the mounting tray (can be done with a torx 10 but might mess up the bit) and place them in your cup. Now set the mounting tray to the side and reconnect the hard drive to the IDE and Power cables on the Xbox (NOT THE COMPTUER!).

5) Open Your Computer

I won't go into details on this step. If you can't do this step you should take your Xbox to someone with more computer experience. Or have someone assist you with this mod.

5.1) Setup your computer so that you have your hard drive on the PRIMARY IDE channel and have the SECONDARY channel available for your Xbox hard drive. You will be plugging your Xbox hard drive into this channel later while both your Xbox and your computer are powered on. So, make sure it is long enough that it will reach your Xbox with out coming unplugged from your system board.

(Note: You can put a CD-Rom on your primary slave if you feel that you may need it during this process but that is not necessary. Your only requirements are that you can boot to Windows XP and that you can connect your Xbox hard drive later on in this tutorial.)

6) Hot Swapping (Also known as the Swap Trick) and Xbox Hard Drive Backup

Note: We did this in Part 1 but for the sake of completeness it has been included here. If you have done the hot swap before feel free to just do it and skip reading this part. We are also making a backup of our Xbox hard drive so that we can restore it to our new replacement drive. This is a required step and cannot be skipped.

This process has caused a lot of problems for people as it is foreign to most. I, personally, have been repairing computers for nearly 7 years and have never run into anything like it. So I can definitely see how people could have problems. It took me 2 days to figure out how to successfully complete this step, probably for 2 reasons. The main reason being that all of the tutorials I read SUCKED ASS. Hopefully this will be a less painful process for you.

INFO: A little background information on the "swap trick". You may be asking yourself. Why you have to do this step in this particular order. And why you can't just simply plug your Xbox hard drive into the IDE channel and boot up your computer like normal. Well, there is a good reason for this. Microsoft has taken advantage of a little used feature of the IDE standard that allows them to "lock" read and write requests to the hard drive. This is locked with a password that is located within the hard drive firmware. Without providing the proper password to the hard drive when it requests it we will be unable to perform any read or write operations. This password is known only to the Xbox and the hard drive so we are unable to read information directly from the hard drive in the typical manner until we have completed PART 1 of this guide, hence, the need for the "swap trick". You cannot take a hard drive from one xbox and place it into another xbox without updating the password.

6.1) Position the Xbox and the Computer so that you are close enough to connect the Xbox hard drive to the computer IDE cable.

6.2) Plug in the Xbox power and video cables. Note that the video cable is REQUIRED to be in the back of the Xbox but it does not have to be plugged into a TV or other video device. I would, however, recommend that it is, as this will make this process a lot easier.

6.3) Boot up your computer, when you get to Windows, open the Device Manager. This is located in [Start] -> [Settings] -> [Control Panel] -> [System] -> [Hardware] -> [Device Manger]. Close any other open windows.

6.4) Now boot your Xbox without a disc in the DVD drive and wait for the dashboard to appear (Note: your Xbox hard drive should be plugged into your Xbox IDE and power cable). As soon as the dashboard appears your drive will be unlocked and ready for the swap. Some tutorials say to wait for 5 or 10 or even 20 minutes but I found that this is NOT necessary. Once it gets to the dashboard you will be ready for the swap.

6.5) Quickly remove the IDE cable from the back of the Xbox, DO NOT REMOVE THE POWER CABLE. Now plug the IDE cable from your computer into the Xbox hard drive.

6.6) On your computer, click the [+] (plus sign) beside [Disk drives]. It should show your computer hard drive. Right click on [Disk drives] and then [Scan for hardware changes]. If you successfully unlocked your hard drive it will now appear in device manager. If not go back to step 4.4 and repeat the process.

6.7) If you are on this step then you have successfully completed the hard drive swap trick. Congratulations, this took me 2 days to figure out, and probably took you less than 30 minutes. Next we will back up your Xbox hard drive.

*WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING*

DO NOT SKIP THIS NEXT STEP! IF YOU SKIPPED EVERY OTHER STEP IN THIS PROCESS DO NOT SKIP THIS STEP. TRUST ME WHEN I SAY DO NOT ATTEMPT TO MODIFY YOUR XBOX HARD DISK WITHOUT A BACKUP. YOU WILL BE SORRY. ODDS ARE YOU WILL SCREW IT UP AT LEAST ONCE AND WILL HAVE NO WAY TO RESTORE IT AND YOU WILL HAVE EARNED YOURSELF A FANCY $150 PAPERWEIGHT.

*WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING*

Note that the HDD Driver is really buggy, so when it crashes, just reopen it and finish the step you're working on or verify that it completed properly.

Launch HDD Driver and perform a backup of the hard disk. Providing you completed all the previous steps, HDD Driver should start and recognize your drive. You will probably get some errors when starting HDD Driver. This is fine, simply ignore them and use the application in the background. Backup your hard drive. This will take approximately 30 minutes. After this is finished, remove the original Xbox hard drive and set it aside.

7) Hex and Image the Replace Xbox Hard Drive

Remove the Xbox hard drive if it is still connected to the machine and connect the replacement drive. Boot the machine into Windows and continue to the next step.

7.1) Start Hex Workshop. Click [Disk] -> [Open Drive]. In the [Select] field select [Physical Disks] (NOT LOGICAL!). Then select your replacement drive.

7.2) Click the [->] button on the tool bar exactly 3 times.

7.3) On the right hand side of the screen on the first line type the letters "BRFR" they must be in capitol letters. On the left hand side you should see the values change to "4252 4652".

7.4) Close Hex Workshop and open HDDdriver. You should get a message saying that the HDDdriver has successfully detected an Xbox hard drive. Click [OK].

7.5) Restore the Xbox hard drive image you created step 6.7. After it has finished we will have a bootable Xbox drive that looks exactly like your old Xbox hard drive. Well, almost bootable, we'll have to lock the drive so that the Xbox doesn't complain. So lets lock it.

8) Retrieving the Locking Password for Your Replacement Hard Drive

8.1) Way back in step 3 we recovered the backup directory from your Xbox hard drive. Well start LiveInfo and click the [Load EEPROM] button. Browse to the location of your backup directory and select the "eeprom.bin" file.

8.2) On the bottom half of the LiveInfo screen in the "HDD Info" section, change the "IDE Device" to your replacement hard drive.

8.3) The LiveInfo program will create a locking password in the "Calculated Password:" field. Print this key or write it down EXACTLY on a piece of paper as we will need this to lock the replacement drive. It is absolutely critical that this is accurate. So double and triple check it.

9) Lock the Replacement Hard Drive

9.1) Shutdown your computer and disconnect your Windows drive. This is so that you don't accidentally lock the wrong drive. This would be disastrous turn of events and would almost certainly be unrecoverable, rendering your computer useless.

9.2) AFTER you disconnect your Windows hard drive. Reboot your computer with the boot disk created in step 2.

9.3) After it has finished booting. Type "hdlock". A menu should appear. Type the number corresponding do your replacement drive.

9.4) When prompted, enter the locking password created by LiveInfo that we recorded in step 7. Enter it EXACTLY as we recorded earlier, a mistake here could render the drive useless. Double and triple check that we typed it in correctly here. Once you are absolutely POSITIVE that you entered it in correctly, press enter. You should receive a message stating "Done" if it completed successfully.

9.5) Shutdown the computer. Replace the cables to your computer and remove the newly prepared Xbox drive.

10) Install and Format the Replacement Drive

10.1) Install the replacement drive into the Xbox exactly as the original was. Reboot the Xbox and you EvoX should start and boot just like your old hard drive.

10.2) FTP to your Xbox. With Flash FTP send the following raw commands to format your new hard disk space:

Formatpath \Device\Harddisk0\Partition6

(EvoX will respond with a password to perform the format)

FormatDrive <password that EvoX returned>

10.3) Reboot your Xbox and a new F partition with all of your newfound hard disk space

Congratulations! You're done!