{"id":192,"date":"2009-06-19T20:11:08","date_gmt":"2009-06-20T01:11:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.redrecondite.com\/blog\/?p=192"},"modified":"2013-04-30T16:58:49","modified_gmt":"2013-04-30T21:58:49","slug":"xbox-360-120-gb-hard-drive-hack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.redrecondite.com\/blog\/2009\/06\/19\/xbox-360-120-gb-hard-drive-hack\/","title":{"rendered":"Xbox 360 120 GB Hard Drive Hack"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Even though I don&#8217;t care for the Playstation 3 all that much, Sony did do one thing right: you can plug in a wide-variety of 3.5&#8243; hard disks.<\/p>\n<p>Microsoft, in their endless, dirty pursuit of money by introducing hoops for consumers to crawl through, decided to create a proprietary interface for the Xbox 360 hard drive.\u00a0 The result?\u00a0 The Xbox 360 120GB hard drive retails for $159.99 (though you can find it for $119.99 and less elsewhere), whereas the same 2.5&#8243; hard drive is $49.99 on <a href=\"\/\/www.newegg.com\/Product\/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136072\">Newegg<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Even if you open up the Xbox 360 hard drive enclosure, the Xbox 360 will only communicate with a hard drive with specific firmware.<\/p>\n<p>Thankfully, intelligent hackers have created tools to update said firmware on several Western Digital hard drives.\u00a0 We&#8217;re still stuck with 120 GB (Microsoft doesn&#8217;t support larger hard drives), but at least we can get it cheaper.<\/p>\n<p>Everything you need to perform this upgrade is written about amongst the internets, but (not surprisingly), the information is often scattered and incomplete.\u00a0 Here are the complete steps I took to update my hard drive.<\/p>\n<h4>Physical Requirements<\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li>Compatible hard drive.<br \/>\n<em>I used the <a href=\"\/\/www.newegg.com\/Product\/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136072\">WD1200BEVS<\/a> ($49.99 from Newegg)<\/em><\/li>\n<li>T5 and T10 Torx screwdriver ends.<br \/>\n<em> I bought the Husky 36-Piece Precision Screwdriver Set ($4.99 from Home Depot).<\/em><\/li>\n<li>USB Flash Drive<\/li>\n<li>Computer with SATA ports and ability to boot from USB Flash Drive.<\/li>\n<li>Xbox 360 Hard Drive Enclosure.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h4>Software Requirements<\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"\/\/www.google.com\/search?q=hddss.bin\">Hddss.bin<\/a> &#8211; the new firmware you&#8217;ll be using.<br \/>\n<em>Google for it, and download it using a torrent<\/em>, <em>or dump it from your existing hard drive.<\/em><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"\/\/forums.xbox-scene.com\/index.php?showtopic=601813\">hddhackr 0.91<\/a> &#8211; tool that dumps\/flashes\/restores Xbox 360 hard drive firmware.<br \/>\n<em>There is a 1.0 version available, but it didn&#8217;t work for me, and several others reported issues.<\/em><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"\/\/www.allbootdisks.com\/download\/dos.html\">DOS 6.22 Boot Image<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"\/\/chitchat.at.infoseek.co.jp\/vmware\/vfd.html\">Virtual Floppy Drive 2.1<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"\/\/www.bootdisk.com\/pendrive.htm\">HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool 2.06<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h4>Create USB Flash Drive DOS Boot Disk<\/h4>\n<ol>\n<li>Run Virtual Floppy Drive, install and start the drive.<\/li>\n<li>Load the DOS 6.22 Boot Image into the fake floppy drive.<\/li>\n<li>Plug in your USB Flash Drive (backup any files you wish to save).<\/li>\n<li>Run HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool<\/li>\n<li>Create a DOS Startup Disk using DOS System Files located at the fake floppy drive (click Start).<\/li>\n<li>Twiddle your thumbs for a bit.<\/li>\n<li>Copy the contents of the fake floppy drive to the flash drive.<\/li>\n<li>Copy hddss.bin to the flash drive.<\/li>\n<li>Copy hddhackr to the flash drive.<\/li>\n<li>Reboot the PC with the flash drive plugged in, and see if it boots into DOS (you may have to fiddle with the BIOS startup order).<\/li>\n<li>If you see a DOS prompt, congratulations.\u00a0 Don&#8217;t do anything yet!<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<h4>Disassemble Xbox 360 Hard Drive Enclosure<\/h4>\n<ol>\n<li>Use T5 Torx to remove 4 external screws.\u00a0 Remember the one under the security label&#8230; I forgot about it, and almost tore the enclosure apart.<\/li>\n<li>Use T10 Torx to remove aluminum hard drive shield.<\/li>\n<li>Disconnect cables by holding them with your thumb while sliding drive forward.<\/li>\n<li>&#8216;Bend&#8217; the plastic bit at the end so you can get the drive out.\u00a0 It is attached loosely to the rest of the enclosure, and can tilt easily.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<h4>Backup 20 GB Hard Drive<\/h4>\n<p>If you have a memory card, copy your profile and any save games to it (you can always download things again later).\u00a0 I forgot to do this, and I&#8217;ll have to swap the 20 GB drive back in later.<\/p>\n<h4>Flash Xbox 360 Firmware<\/h4>\n<ol>\n<li>Shut down your computer.<\/li>\n<li>Disconnect all SATA drives (so the software has no chance of screwing up).<\/li>\n<li>Connect your new 120 GB hard drive.<\/li>\n<li>Plug in the USB Flash Drive.<\/li>\n<li>Start the computer.<\/li>\n<li>Enter BIOS.\u00a0 If there is an option for &#8216;Extended&#8217; or &#8216;Enhanced&#8217; SATA configuration, you&#8217;ll want to choose &#8216;Compatible&#8217; instead.\u00a0 I got stuck on this point, with my ASUS P5B Deluxe motherboard.<\/li>\n<li>Boot into DOS.<\/li>\n<li>Enter the command: hddhackr -f<\/li>\n<li>hddhackr should display your Western Digital hard drive in a list.\u00a0 If it does not, try another SATA port, or double-check your SATA configuration in your BIOS.<\/li>\n<li>Enter the number associated with your hard drive, and follow the prompts.<\/li>\n<li>Shut down your computer for 10 seconds.<\/li>\n<li>Start up, boot into DOS.<\/li>\n<li>Enter the command: hddhackr -f<\/li>\n<li>hddhackr will display something a different hard drive name, something with &#8216;Hitachi&#8217; in it, if successful.<\/li>\n<li>Shut down the computer.<\/li>\n<li>Disconnect your new Xbox 360 120GB drive.<\/li>\n<li>Re-connect your old drives.<\/li>\n<li>Unplug the USB Flash Drive.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<h4>Final Steps<\/h4>\n<p>Re-assemble the hard drive enclosure.\u00a0 This is pretty simple, just plug the new drive in, screw things together, re-assemble the latch mechanism, and you should be all set.<\/p>\n<p>Startup your 360 with the new hard drive.\u00a0 Once you&#8217;re booted up, go to System Settings, and your hard drive should be listed as &#8216;Unformatted&#8217;.\u00a0 Select it, and select Format.<\/p>\n<p>Tada!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Even though I don&#8217;t care for the Playstation 3 all that much, Sony did do one thing right: you can plug in a wide-variety of 3.5&#8243; hard disks. Microsoft, in their endless, dirty pursuit of money by introducing hoops for consumers to crawl through, decided to create a proprietary interface for the Xbox 360 hard [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-15","category-gaming"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.redrecondite.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.redrecondite.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.redrecondite.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.redrecondite.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.redrecondite.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.redrecondite.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":256,"href":"https:\/\/www.redrecondite.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192\/revisions\/256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.redrecondite.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.redrecondite.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.redrecondite.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}