OK…A guy that I work with, his son’s X-Box’s hard drive took a crap. Microsoft wants $90 for him to send it in and have it replaced. I know some of you out there have swapped HD’s in your X-Box’s so here’s what I need to know. Is it a regular 3.5" PC HD or one for a laptop? And, is there a special formatting that it needs for the X-Box to recognize it? Plus is the dashboard on the HD? Anyway, I told the guy I would help him if I could so any information anyone has would be most helpful…Thanks
when i had an xbox, it wouldnt read games, so i bought a dvd rom drive off of ebay for like 25 bones. you should check on ebay to see what the hard drive looks like. im sure there are some for sale on there
http://www.copying-xbox-games.com/upgrade-xbox-hard-drive.php
you will probably need to lock the hd as well.
i have no idea about puting in a replacement to work like a regualr xbox i only have the modded one, i never thought about putting it back to stock. THe dashboard is on the hard drive though.
either send it in or part out the other one and buy another. the board and hdd have to match or it won’t work. (that is unless you plan on modding it). and yes there is a special format to the drive. there is like ~9 partitions…
my xbox with 80gig drive boots up fine with the mod chip turned off. you just need to lock the drive.
http://www.xbox-scene.com/articles/lock-hdd.php
but you still need a mod chip to get the drive setup right in the first place
yeah basically unlesss at some point he backed up the hddinfo and hddkey.bin, he’s up a creek in that department…
how did the drive “die”
i might be able to pull info from it and restore that info to another drive. the x box wont know hte difference… i think…
that is a good question… but anyway is it really worth the time it would take to get the drive back up for a few game saves?
i mean honestly these are the options available to you:
- part out the xbox you have now and buy another new one.
- send it to Micro$oft for service
- edit: :snky: pm me for details on the last option… i decided against posting it publicly eeeeehhehehehehe
not true
“If you wanted to install a replacement drive into a console with a bad drive (CCS 07 error) you would first need to install a modchip that has a bios that supports unlocked drives. Then you could lock the drive using disk utilities (LiveInfo, ConfigMagic, Slayers disk etc) and remove the modchip… or leave it in for that matter.”
thats it. like i said, my drive boots up fine with everything off. my xbox thinks its using the oem drive. as for dashboard, you can get that crap on irc.
if it was the mainboard or eprom that took a shit, then he would be screwed.
right what i’m saying is that everything you just mentioned is beyond the his scope of knowledge… so i say walmart-mod that shit. 
not that those are the only options for anyone, but for him that’s basically it…
buy a new xbox for $149 and sell yours on ebay.
ah
i say if its broke, buy a mod chip and a hd. cost you 100 dollars.
then his shit will be better than new.
all he has to do is read the links i posted, and maybe surf those sites for an afternoon. he should find everything he needs right there.
<thank god he saved his original xbox hdd 
i let him in on the :snky: 3rd option… we’ll see what he ends up doing…
Well since it’s not my X-Box, I think SilencingMachine’s :snky: option is the way to go…so simple it eluded me…
word just call me sneak-a-leek, super-sneak, sneak-masta-flex, etc.
or don’t. 
enjoy though.
pour gasoline on it and set it on fire?
then call microsoft and tell them you never got the power cord recall letter and it started a fire?
then demand a new xbox?
no no much easier… 
and sneakier too… :snky:
lol