Everything you need to know about hard drives and your xbox
by Jeff Stein(aweirdguy) 5/18/04
Hard drives:
Stock drives:
The xbox comes with either an 8 gig or a 10 gig hard drive. Either way, it is partitioned to only use 8 gigs. This is intended to store the xbox dashboard, gamesaves, ripped music tracks, and downloaded live content. A stock setup will usually have around 5 gigs of freespace, but you should never use all this space or you won't be able to create new gamesaves.
If you have a 10 gig drive, you can use Evox to format the extra 2 gigs to use for freespace. To do this, edit the evox.ini, and add this line to the menu:
Item "Install F drive",@215
Then add this section to the very bottom of the ini:
[Action_15]
Info "Install HDD"
Warning "This will not format all drives"
Warning "But make sure you have a backup of C & E anyway"
Progress "Formatting drive"
ConfigSector "\backup\disk.bin"
Format f:
After you save the changes to the xbox, reboot and choose Install F drive from the menu.
Larger drives:
Most people replace the original with a larger drive after it's been modded. Here are some things to know when you pick one out...
- Speed: A 7200rpm drive will load a game several seconds faster than a 5400rpm drive, but this is mostly insignificant. Remember games are made to load off the game disc, which has a much slower read time. Game play will not affected, so don't spend alot more for a 7200 rpm drive. A 7200rpm will produce slightly more heat, but not much(see cooling below).
- Cache: 2mb or 8mb? This affects access time for data read and writes, with the same significance as rpms. Unless you're measuring miliseconds, don't pay too much extra for this either.
- UATA-133: This is a drive feature that allows a drive to communicate with the drive controller at 133mhz speed. A UATA-133 drive will work fine in an xbox, but it will disable the faster transfer speed as the drive controller on the xbox motherboard only supports ATA-66mhz. Once again, don't waste extra money paying for this.
- Size: Ok ladies, size DOES count here. Xbox game sizes range from 300mb up to 7gig, but average about 2gig overall. Here's the average capacity of some popular size drives:
Original 8gig: 2-3 games
120gig: 50-60 games
160gig: 75-80 games
300gig: 150 games! (I've seen a full 300gig, it's impressive)
- Lockability: Locking a drive is a rarely used security feature that "marries" a drive to a particular motherboard. When a drive is locked, it reads an internal serial number contained in a chip on the motherboard, then saves that code in the boot area on the drive. Once this is done, that hard drive will only boot successfully when attached to that motherboard. The xbox uses this feature, and while a modded box will run fine with an unlocked drive, you cannot boot your xbox with the chip disabled unless the drive is locked. This means that you would not be able to play originals with the chip disabled, which is required to log into xbox live. Locking and unlocking a drive is simple, Evox will do it with the push of a button, and so will the app ConfigMagic. The only catch is that not all hard drives support this feature. If using xbox live is important to you, then you should make sure that the drive you purchase supports locking. There are several lists compiled as to which drives do and don't, check to verify that the drive you want will lock. In my experience, I've installed well over 50 new drives, and the only two that would not lock were both 300gig Maxtors.
Partitions:
C: This is the partition where the xbox stores its original xboxdash, I do not recommend storing anything big here or altering the stock files on this partition, but most people install their dashboard here because it works with the stock settings in most bioses.
D: This is the DVD drive.
E: This is the drive that the xbox uses to store gamesaves, ripped music tracks, and extra game data downloaded from xbox live (extra levels, characters, tracks etc). There is usually about 5 gigs of space available on this drive, depending on how many gamesaves/music tracks you have. You can use some of this space to store files or apps, but make sure to leave almost 1 gig of freespace, or you might not be able to create new gamesaves.
F: This is a partition created when adding a larger hard drive(or formatting the extra 2 gigs on a 10gig original drive). Most of your freespace will be here, this is where you should install games, movies, or whatever. This partition should be equal to the size of your drive, minus 8 gigs(unless your drive is over 200gig, see below). To ensure that your xbox allocates all your freespace to the F partition, use an Executor *.06 bios.
G: This is a partition that should be created when adding a hard drive larger than 200 gigs. There have been stories of the fat table getting corrupted with too many entries if you stuff more than 200gig on one partition. To be safe, with a drive over 200gig I recommend splitting the free space across 2 partitions. If you use an Executor *.67 bios, it will allocate the space from 8gigs to 137gigs to the F drive, and all space above 137 gigs will go to the G drive. All this space can be used to store any games or files you want.
X: This partition is used during gameplay by the xbox. Leave it alone.
Y: This partition is used during gameplay by the xbox. Leave it alone.
Z: This partition is used during gameplay by the xbox. Leave it alone.
Upgrading:
Preparing to remove the stock drive:
There are a few things I recommend doing with your stock drive BEFORE removing it from the xbox. First, unlock it. That way, you can install the drive in any pc or other xbox. To unlock the drive, simply choose Unlock Drive from the menu in Evox, or use the app ConfigMagic. Second, you NEED to BACK IT UP. Network your xbox to your pc (lots of tuts for that) and copy the entire contents of your C and E drives to a folder on your pc. This will ensure that you will have an xboxdash and gamesaves after the swap. Last, make sure your chip is running the right bios for your new drive. Any drive up to 200gig should be using an Executer *.06 bios, and drives over 200gig should use an Executer *.67 bios. (Evox bioses work fine, but I prefer Executer)
Swapping drives:
To swap the drives, open the xbox and disconnect the wires from the hard drive. Either of the wires may be stuck tightly in the drive, just pull them carefully one side at a time until they come out. Next, remove the hard drive tray. There are 4 torx screws holding the drive into the tray, remove those. You now have a shiny (but small) drive for your pc. Before putting in the new drive, check the jumper by the power plugin to make sure it's set to Cable Select (often marked CS). There is usually a picture of the jumper settings printed on the top of the drive. Stuff the new one in the same way the old one came out. Plug the wires back in, and re-assemble the xbox.
Installing the new drive:
Ok, since you have no bootable files on the hard drive, you will need to have some type of boot disc to get going. There are several different "autoinstallers" available that will automate the installation of your new drive. Slayers, Xavier, and LittleJohhnys will all do this, but I like doing things manually with an Evox boot disc. If you want to use an autoinstaller, skip this part and look for directions that come with it. If you're ready to try the Evox method, lets get started. Grab your current version of Evox, and edit the evox.ini file. Somewhere in your menu, add the entries:
Item "Install New drive",@212
Item "Install New drive with G",@213
And add this to the bottom of the ini file:
[Action_12]
Info "Install HDD"
Warning "This will format all drives"
Warning "Make sure you have a backup of C & E"
Progress "Formatting drives"
ConfigSector "\backup\disk.bin"
Format c:
Format e:
Format f:
Format x:
Format y:
Format z:
[Action_13]
Info "Install HDD"
Warning "This will format all drives"
Warning "Make sure you have a backup of C & E"
Progress "Formatting drives"
ConfigSector "\backup\disk.bin"
Format c:
Format e:
Format f:
Format g:
Format x:
Format y:
Format z:
Make sure that the ip settings are correct, save the file. Rename the evoxdash.xbe file to default.xbe, and find a dummy file. A dummy file is any file over 100mb, it is used to push the data away from the edge of the disc(easier for xbox dvd drive to read it). Put the default.xbe, the evox.ini, and the dummy file in a folder and use Quix to make an xbox iso of the folder. Burn the iso and feed it to the xbox. When Evox boots, choose Install New drive or Install New drive with G from the menu, depending on the size of your new drive (use G drive if over 200gig). It will format the partitions for you, and return to the menu. I recommend locking the drive at some point, you could either use the Lock drive option in the Evox menu, or use ConfigMagic later. You are now ready to copy data to the drive from your pc. Ftp the contents of the C and E drives back to the xbox(you backed those up earlier, right?), then install your dashboard, apps, and anything else you want. Your upgrade is now complete!
Hard drive mods:
Cooling:
When considering cooling mods, keep in mind that M$ designed the xbox to operate with minimum problems, they don't want to be replacing parts on boxes that are played for hours and hours(you think maybe they expected that?). As a stock xbox, it runs the exhaust fan at 20% speed and works fine. Any changes made to the system may affect temperature though. A 7200rpm hard drive does run hotter than the stock 8gig 5400rpm drive, and you will be asking it to work harder if you are playing games off the drive. A hotter drive will statistically die faster than a cool drive, so possibly increasing the cooling is a good idea. Here are some sensible and easy mods to cool things down a bit:
- Speed up the stock fan with the bios. The bios can be modified(using xbtool) to run the fan at any percent speed you want. I personally set my bios to run the fan at 40%, as that seems to be enough to compensate for the extra heat of a larger drive.
- Max out the speed of the stock fan. This can be easily done with the "12v fan mod". Just cut the black wire going from the fan to the motherboard, and extend the wire a couple inches so it can be stuck under a motherboard screw. This bypasses the bios speed setting, and runs the fan at 100%.
- Hack the hard drive tray. If you use a dremel to hack a large hole either underneath the drive, and/or hack off the back of the tray by the fan, it will allow more airflow past the drive.
- There are many other cooling mods, most more extreme. I have found that extreme cooling mods, like adding larger fans, extra fans, etc is completely unneccessary. Don't let that stop you from modding the hell out of your box, fan mods can be neat, just don't do it because you think you need to.
HDD Activity LED:
A common mod is to install a hard drive activity LED. This works just like the activity LED on your pc, it flashes when the drive is doing something. Wire 39 in the ide cable connects to ground during activity. Wire 1 is the one with the red stripe, so wire 39 is the 2nd to farthest from the red(there are 40 wires total). You need to STRIP (NOT CUT) wire 39, and connect the LED like this:
+power --> resistor --> LED --> wire39
The value of the resistor varies depending on your power source and the specs of the LED.
Installing multiple drives:
An xbox motherboard will only recognize one hard drive. Therefore, you can install more than one hard drive in an xbox, you just cannot have more than one running at a time. This is fairly easy, space is your biggest issue. Some people add external drives, or rearrange the inside of their xbox to make room for a 2nd drive, but I installed a 2nd drive in one of my boxes when the dvd crapped out. I pulled out the dvd drive, hot-glued the faceplate in place, and stuck an extra drive in there. No matter where you put it, the wiring is the same. Hook the ide cable to all the drives. In my case this was easy, I plugged it in where the dvd used to be. If you're using the dvd plus 2 drives, you will need to get a 3 plug ide cable, or add a plug to one. You will need to put a switch in the power lines to determine which drive gets power. Use a DPDT switch, that means Double Pole, Double Throw. In simple English, it has an up position and a down position, and it switches two wires at once. It should have 6 posts on the back, and preferably no center (off) position. To wire in the switch, follow these steps:
- Split the two black wires from the harness directly to both drives.
- Connect (solder) the yellow and red wires from the harness to the CENTER posts on the switch.
- Connect the LEFT two posts to the yellow and red for drive1, keeping the yellow and red on the same sides as the center posts.
- Connect the RIGHT two posts to the yellow and red for drive2.
Now when you flip the switch left and boot the xbox, it should run drive1, and (power off the xbox first!!!) after you flip the switch right and boot, it should run drive2. You will have to install your dashboard, apps, etc on both drives, but it's worth it.
Window mod:
Some people get extreme, and decide to cut a window in the cover of their hard drive. This allows them to see the platters spin, and the heads wiggle back and forth. I have seen a couple people complete this and have a successfully running drive, but I have also heard MANY tragic stories of how some guy trashed his nice new 120gig drive trying it. Most of the success stories were done on older smaller drives, and even they recommend not trying this with a drive you care about. The heads travel so close to the platters that tiny specks of dust and even smoke particles(damn small) are big enough to mess up the heads and scratch the platters. Attempting this mod is best done in a "clean room" meaning an expensive labratory. There are several other methods, but most likely if you attempt this you will have a pretty window in a pretty paperweight. I do not recommend you try this, unless you're a real pro, and using a drive you don't mind trashing.
Summary:
In my opinion, the ability to put a large hard drive into an xbox is the biggest, most significant thing that's ever happened to console gaming. Never before (and likely never again) has there been a console that has the ability to load in all your games and toss the discs aside. Thank Mr Bill Gates for assuming his product was hack-proof and designing it like a media-pc. Just remember that hard drives DO fail for many reasons, at any time. They can overheat, they can just wear out, and they can be easily damaged if banged around too hard(especially when spinning). For this reason, it is strongly suggested that you keep a hard copy (like the original game disc for example!) of all your games and files in case tragedy strikes your drive.
Tutorial by Jeff Stein (aweirdguy)
Contact for questions/comments: im_in_cyber_hell@hotmail.com