How to increase your 20Gb HDD to a 120Gb HDD

[Turel]

This tutorial is here for those who...

1. can't afford a 120 Gb HDD
2. hate microsoft, yet own a 360

Either way this tutorial will teach you how get a better drive at a better price

You will need:

• An xbox360
• A 20Gb Xbox360 HDD
• A Western Digital Scorpio BEVS LAT 120Gb HDD
• An image of an official 120Gb Xbox360 HDD (HDDSS.bin)
• A computer with sata plugs
• A size 6 and 10 torque screwdriver
• Patience
• hands, eye's and a brain (all your own preferably)
• A windows boot disk (any will do, 98,ME or XP. Just as long as it boots into DOS
• And most importantly The Specialist's HDDhackr

You can get the drives & sata adapters from the shops, but ebay is better
HDDhackr can be found [Only registered and activated users can see links. ]
Image can be gotten be taken from an official HDD (or just do what everyone normal does...download)
Startup disks can be a problem if you're running XP, If you have ME or lower you can make one witha floppy disk and sytem panel

-[Please note that the finished drive needs to be Xbox formatted before you can use xplorer360 to backup the first drive and transfer the contents to the second.]-
-[Also do note that this WILL void the warrantee on your 360 Drive]-

Anyway...On with the tutorial

step 1: Once you have all of the above start by taking apart the 360 HDD (tutorials can be found with google, Xboxscene has a good guide.).
Gently prise the Xbox360's Seagate 2.5" SATA HDD out of its HDD casing
Place the HDDhackr executable on the root of your C drive (that is unless it's a sata drive)
-[You must unplug any SATA devices your PC already has]-


(skip this step if you already have an image of the drive)
step 2: Plug the 120Gb 360 drive into your PC and Boot into DOS using the Boot disk
type:
C:
HDDHACKR -d
Hddhackr will then make a HDDSS.BIN file
Unplug the 120Gb 360 drive



step 3: Plug in the WD Scorpio Drive
Ensure that the HDDSS.BIN file is on the root of your C drive
You will need to ensure that there are 3 partitions on the drive.(you can run it with less partions, but the content can't be
Use the Fdisk command in Dos to do this
(I will post an explanation soon)


(here is where you make the 120 Gb compatible with your Xbox360)
Step 4: Boot into DOS
Then type:
C:
HDDHACKR -f
It will ask if you want to make an undo file before flashing the disk
Type: Y
if you want to check it worked repeat step 3 and will tell you your disk is ready

Step 5: place the WD Scorpio drive in the 360 HDD case
plug the HDD into the 360's sata&power plug.


Step 6: plug the HDD into the 360
The 360 should read it as unformatted, dont panic, just try to open it and the 360 will ask to format it
enter your 360's serial number when it asks for it (SN is found in System settings if you didn't know)
it should read as having something like 107Gb free (yeah well their 20Gb is only 13Gb, so what can ya expect)

Now What happens to what to the contents of your old Drive you say?

well you can Either leave it where it is, transfer it via Memory unit (VERY longwinded) or use Xplorer360 to backup your drive to your C drive where you can transfer it to the 120Gb

Step 7:Reassemble and enjoy your extra space


enjoy your new 360 HDD

It worked for me

[coolie]

Cool but too much work. How much does this all cost?

[samJRulz]

thats pretty cool, but is that the most you can expand it by or can it be made even bigger??

[Turel]

The price is variable
but since I didn't look for a deal on a 360 Hard drive online
It only saved me £49
the WD scorpio drive is bout £30 on ebay
so in total it costs round £70-£80 as opposed to the £129.99 in the shops

and it can't be made bigger, until microsoft makes any bigger 360 drives

Ahhhh, worth looking into me thinks

I need a bigger HDD for my 360, but dont wanna fork out for a 120gb one. I got £80 in xmas money so i could try n do this instead with ma money

[Gallardo123]

this is great an all, but im too lazy to get the money and spend the time to do it
is there a complete retard version that requires no work and little money?

[coolie]

I really have no need for an hd upgrade. I don't download games or movies from xbox live so all I really use it for is for game save. If I want movie, then I just put it on a portable hard drive.

[Turel]

It's possible to skip the buying & disassembling of the 360 HDD if you can find the correct adapter

I would have done that, but I didn't for two reasons:
1:The connector is not easy to come by (not yet anyhow)
2:A caseless HDD strapped to the top of the 360 would look real naff

Thats the only way it could be made easier at the mo

[Nick]

that is cool but i dont think that i am smart enough to do it even with a guide lol

[Turel]

Ah-ha
Now I know what went wrong
It needs three partitions
I formatted it to two
wondered why the compatibility update didn't work
(and xplorer360 DOES work)