1 TB SATA Hard Drive Upgrade Options

[hilts]

i would like to thank the person who started this thread and those that contributed there experiences, made setting up my 2tb that much easier .

After numerous adapters and 2 harddrives later i finally have it working flawlessly.

this is the adapter i ordered on ebay

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...e=STRK:MEWNX:IT

but for some reason i recieved a different one, this had 3 capacitors on it, luckily for me this worked a treat

The harddrive i used was http://www.scan.co.uk/products/2TB-ST3200542AS-SATA-HDD

play back is fine as well.

a note to those that are showing garbled/corrupt images with aid 4.5. i had the same issue. its the adaptor. the adapter i had this problem with was the one from deal extreme.

[Neptune]

I have found that SATA drives never work out in xbox's. They cause the xbox not to work, and then work other times, and kill other components such as the dvd drive. Usually the hard drive dies after a month. It causes needless headaches so I refuse to use another sata HD in an xbox or computer.

Yes I am replying to an old ass post but...

Or computer???? LOL

IDE is removed from new PC's period. SATA IS the future.

[Neptune]

Just ordered up 3 of these:

http://cgi.ebay.com/SYBA-Serial-ATA-SATA-t...=item3359b6d525

Will let you know. $9 and free shipping. Woot.

[bishy]

proper old thread. but still the best!!

i tried this about a year ago, and i failed, tried about 2 crappy ebay sata convers, gave up because of money. now im gona finish what i started. many many thankyou's for posting that Sabrent converter name. Gona get myself a few of them. some people give up on old xbox cos of 360, but imo xbox1 with xbmc is far superior. 2tb full to the brim, its retro heaven ;-D

i got 500 movies waiting to go on, used software called 'Yammm' to autodownload boxart and movie meta data ;-)

[curious_george]

I was a little concerned about the success of this upgrade based on the comments here, but surprise, a complete success.

Firstly, I backed up the C and E partitions of my old drive (a reliable but noisy Seagate 500GB IDE) for later FTP'ing across, to preserve all my save games, dash settings etc. Well worth the effort.

I used one of the more likely converters (http://mediagate.pbworks.com/f/1240855949/SATA_to_ATA_IDE_Converter_Adapter_(1).jpg) after prepping the drive using XboxHDM. I was sure not to let the program set up an F or G drive as it doesn't allow for the larger cluster sizes needed.

After a flawless prep, I dropped the drive into the Xbox with the converter. To my complete amazement, it booted into UnleashX first time. And then I switched off and tried again, same result: booted right up, no error messages. FTP'ed a few files across, RARs, and was able to extract with no corruption, so I then booted the Ndure Toolset (usually found as Default.xbe in E:\NDTS), wiped the C and E partitions of the new drive and transferred my backups across. Once again, after a power on it booted right up, this time directly into XBMC with only a slightly longer delay; the splash screen showed for about a second more. Hardly a lot of lag!

Following advice about the tempremental nature of the XBPartitioner software, I first ran XBPartitioner 1.0 to build my extended partitions. Originally I wanted to have three seperate partitions - F, G and H each formatted with 32k clusters so as not to waste space - but this doesn't seem to be allowed for in any version of NKPatcher so I just chose two partitions, each 711.5 GB or 684.86 GB depending on how you group the bytes. You do this part in XBPartitioner 1.0 because there is a bug in 1.1 that hangs the console if you have partitions of over 1TB, even if it hasn't been allocated yet. When the formatting is done with 1.0, fire up 1.1 and press start to have the two new drives formatted with 64k clusters - this is ESSENTIAL, do NOT skip this step otherwise when you get past the 512 GB point you will start to have invisible data corruption, which could potentially ruin all those hours transferring media files across.

When this is done, you can boot back to the main dashboard. I used the In-Game Reset (Black, Back, Both Triggers all at once) to take me back to XBMC. This time it took about three or four seconds before I saw the splash screen, but it disappeared much more quickly, so not that much longer overall. I'm assuming this is because of the time it takes to read the partition table, which on a larger harddrive is bigger and therefore will take a little longer. For the extra capacity you get, it's worth it!

With all these checks done and no problems at any step, it was time to see if the case could be screwed shut without pushing the SATA to IDE converter out of shape. With a little gentle bending of the harddrive power molex, using the IDE cable clipped in place on the cradle to hold it down, I was able to get the case to snap shut as standard. After screwing it all back together, I plugged it in and was delighted to find it still worked, and that the CPU/GPU temps were lower, presumably because there's less heat in the case with this Samsung SATA drive.

FTP performance is standard; I'm using XBMC's built-in Filezilla, and transferring to it with the PC client version of the same. It averages ~5-15 MBPS, which is the same as the drive it replaced and the original 8GB Seagate that came stock with my Xbox. I've had the drive constantly being written to, transferring hundreds of MP3 files for the last couple of hours, and the temperature has yet to get above ~30ºc. In addition, the CPU temp is ~45ºc, the GPU is ~41ºc. - even with the fan on the lowest setting (2% in XBMC). Of course this is with the Xbox out in the open, sitting underneath the television - when I put it back under the bed with all the soundproofing it'll run a bit hotter, but either way this really helps the longevity of both the drive and the Xbox, which by now is eight years old.

Anyway, I'm happy to report that modern SATA drives can work very, very well in the old Xbox consoles if you choose a good one, and couple it with the right converter. Sure you still have the ATA33 bottleneck which increases the amount of time it takes to transfer files, and you are still bound by the 64 character limitation of the FATX filesystem (watch out for this when copying music files which don't have the track numbers at the start, for example!) but overall, this is a good solution for having a lot of standard definition content in one place. I have yet to watch it fail to boot!

[Bomb Bloke]

When the formatting is done with 1.0, fire up 1.1 and press start to have the two new drives formatted with 64k clusters - this is ESSENTIAL, do NOT skip this step otherwise when you get past the 512 GB point you will start to have invisible data corruption, which could potentially ruin all those hours transferring media files across.

Also note that XBPartitioner (any version) will not format a partition unless you're setting a different capacity at the time. For example, if you create a 711.5 GB partition in XBP 1.0, then tell 1.1 to format it again at the same size... Nothing'll happen. You'd need to set a different capacity for each format.

It's well worth confirming the right cluster size has been used before loading data onto the relevant partitions. Load the EvoX dash, check the free space on each, then transfer a single file (10kb or less) onto them. The change in free space, divided by 1024, is the cluster size.

you are still bound by the 64 character limitation of the FATX filesystem (watch out for this when copying music files which don't have the track numbers at the start, for example!)

42 characters. Doesn't really matter all that much with MP3 files, thanks to ID3 tags.

[curious_george]

Also note that XBPartitioner (any version) will not format a partition unless you're setting a different capacity at the time. For example, if you create a 711.5 GB partition in XBP 1.0, then tell 1.1 to format it again at the same size... Nothing'll happen. You'd need to set a different capacity for each format.

It's well worth confirming the right cluster size has been used before loading data onto the relevant partitions. Load the EvoX dash, check the free space on each, then transfer a single file (10kb or less) onto them. The change in free space, divided by 1024, is the cluster size.

You nearly gave me a heart attack!

Then I remembered I originally wanted to run three seperate extended partitions on the new drive. I had used XBPartitioner 1.0 to distribute the space so I could use 32k clusters and get the maximum amount of efficiency out of the FATX system, but then found out you can't make it work like that after I formatted the real C drive because of the way the Ndure Shadow C works (noticed before I powered down so didn't have to do the softmod again), at least, not without faffing about with the softmod and the dashboards.

Of course, knowing that 1.0 can't go above 32k clusters I booted up 1.1 and made two instead, which of course formatted with 64k clusters. I checked with Evox using a 5k text file just to make sure, and yep, 64k clusters on both drives. Which is just as well because I passed the 512GB threshold on the F drive earlier today!

42 characters. Doesn't really matter all that much with MP3 files, thanks to ID3 tags.

So it is. Has been a while since I checked so must have forgotten the exact amount. If you format the MP3 file names as "xx - yy.mp3" where xx is track number and yy is song name, and use folders to store artist/album names, it works out well enough. Most song titles are under 37 characters long unless you're Fall Out Boy, and I don't have any of their records.

This post has been edited by curious_george: Apr 24 2010, 10:43 PM

[Harryt223]

Some good info here.

I got a rare Xbox Crystal Version.

Someone was saying since it was newer it allowed larger hard drives?

Don't know, but anyways...

I am looking to get a 1TB Hitachi Deskstar HD31000 SATA

And, I'm not sure about the adapter for the sata/ide.. seen some on ebay, but they are fairly cheap priced.

I hope the Hard drive will work with this upgrade?

[Harryt223]

hmmm after reading all the pages... I'm a bit double minded...

I just got a new 1TB SATA drive mainly for the xbox. It was on sale!

I don't really need one for my PC, could use it but I'm not desperate on space right now.

So, I'm wondering if it's worth it or not. I'd hate to get the adapter and then open the HD and find nothing works properly. I guess if I had a spare drive.. it would be neat to try it out.

I'm slowly getting to the point of returning/canceling my order for the new HD.

I wish IDE drives were much cheaper....

[Endymion_]

Some good info here.

I got a rare Xbox Crystal Version.

It's not that rare. These things were everywhere in Canada. They're pretty damn spiffy though, I've got two.

Someone was saying since it was newer it allowed larger hard drives?

This was someone's belief, but while it is correct, it isn't the only one that will work with large drives. I have a version 1 softmodded with a 750GB Seagate (PATA) that has worked flawlessly for over a year now. Also, I just completed another softmod with one of my Crystal Edition XBoxes and a 1.5TB Seagate SATA. I followed curious george's instructions here--after initially having some big issues with XBPartitioner 1.1 freezing almost as soon as it started, need to make sure you do a stupid-format with 1.0 first--and everything has worked out perfectly. All I need to do now is rework the power cable so that I can close the lid without mashing everything in and I'm good to go. I will be changing out the 750GB in my version 1 box for another 1.5 or possibly 2TB, works a treat.

I only have one issue, and it is an issue that I can completely live with. Cold boots, are completely fine. I can cold boot all day long. I can also perform an in-game-reset softboot at any time via the control pad, and that restarts perfectly. But if I use any menu item that initiates a Reboot, from UnleashX, from Evox, etc., once the XBox logo comes up during this warm reboot my system WILL freeze with an error 7. At this point I have to turn off the power button manually--or I can better yet just avoid rebooting from a menu and use the controller. When booting the system for the first time, there is a delay of approximately 15 seconds. However, once a game starts to load from the dashboard? Or anywhere else in the course of playing it? Holy shit is it fast.

The Halo loading screen is literally 1 second, you just hear the guy chant so quick it sounds like "Ha!"

This post has been edited by Endymion_: May 16 2010, 12:52 PM

[Harryt223]

It's not that rare. These things were everywhere in Canada. They're pretty damn spiffy though, I've got two.
This was someone's belief, but while it is correct, it isn't the only one that will work with large drives. I have a version 1 softmodded with a 750GB Seagate (PATA) that has worked flawlessly for over a year now. Also, I just completed another softmod with one of my Crystal Edition XBoxes and a 1.5TB Seagate SATA. I followed curious george's instructions here--after initially having some big issues with XBPartitioner 1.1 freezing almost as soon as it started, need to make sure you do a stupid-format with 1.0 first--and everything has worked out perfectly. All I need to do now is rework the power cable so that I can close the lid without mashing everything in and I'm good to go. I will be changing out the 750GB in my version 1 box for another 1.5 or possibly 2TB, works a treat.


The Halo loading screen is literally 1 second, you just hear the guy chant so quick it sounds like "Ha!"

Yeah, I bet games load fast. I know without Sata my games load fairly faster on the hard drive. I bet a SATA drive would only increase it LOL.

I do have a question.

I'm new to modding so bare with me here. I've done the Krazy Ndure xboxhdm soft mod.

Basically with the hot swapping. This is for the default hard drive. This allows me to get the eeprom.

The question is how do I create a new xbox disk on to the SATA drive? Do I reuse the xboxhdm program to create a new disk with the eeprom and then run the create a new disk setup?

I guess that means I have to connect the adapter to my PC's IDE to get the SATA connected and the hard drive created, and then move the adapter to the xbox?

And When would I run the xbox partition program?

[ldotsfan]

The question is how do I create a new xbox disk on to the SATA drive? Do I reuse the xboxhdm program to create a new disk with the eeprom and then run the create a new disk setup?

I guess that means I have to connect the adapter to my PC's IDE to get the SATA connected and the hard drive created, and then move the adapter to the xbox?

And When would I run the xbox partition program?

Yes to first 3 questions and you run xbpartitioner in the xbox after the SATA hdd is installed.

[Mousxaros]

Hi, first of all thnx to everyone who contributed in this thread. The information gathered is most useful even for noobs like me .
Anyway I would like to share my experience in the matter:
I have a softmodded xbox (v1.6) running XBMC as a dashboard, with this HDD:
http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?name...0001a48090aRCRD ,
and this adaptor which ibought from a local store: http://www.equip-info.de/fyrom/index.php?m...0&prod=1608
I totally filled the drive, having installed pretty much in it, emulators, 370 xbox games, movies etc etc...., everything runs smooth with no errors until now (I have been using the upgraded console for about four months with no problems). My default Dashboard is XBMC installed from XBMC Installer Deluxe boot disk.
However there seems to be a problem with the video output when i run the game: Equinox, or the psxe emulator. The problem is that the picture is totally garbled/distorted, although the sound is ok. More over when i run the same two applications with DVD2XBOX or EVOX, (which I have installed as apps) they run fine. All the games have been installed correctly (I believe) with DVD2XBOX. Also I didn' t have the time to test every game yet but as far as i have tested, everything else runs ok through xbmc. I reinstalled equinox but the situation remained the same. Maybe some more games might have the same prob.
Another strange thing is that I softmodded my friends xbox, upgraded hdd with an 750 gb Seagate (ATAPI) and both equinox and psxe run fine. I used the same softmod, the same softmod method (mechassault gamesave) and the same XBMC version. The only two differences are the hard discs and that his xbox is v1.4. Could the cause be my SATA to IDE adapter?
Also there is another thing that worries me. The adaptor is not powered directly from the xbox's psu molex. It has its own small cable (about 5cm) in which I plug the xbox power cable. As a result there is too much power cable at the back of the hdd. So, Althought the drive fits comfortably with the adaptor in the box, I had to tape the cable on the case, to make some room. In the end I managed to fit everything and successfully close the top cover without trouble or using force. As I said no temperature or performance problem has appeared so far, but I'm worried about the tight squeeze of cables at the back of the hdd. Is there a reason for me to worry? If "yes" what would be a good solution? I read before in this thread some people modded the case to earn some room inside the xbox. Could someone plz give more details about what they did (or even a picture). Thnx in advance.

[Harryt223]

Well guys here is some news.

I am going to make a push for this now.

I don't have 1 TB drive.. but I have a spare 160GB SATA.

So I will try and see if I can get it working.

I have a new idea, and I don't think anyone has tried it. I think it will fix the issue with the drive not running early off. It won't really fix the power consumption issue though... but I can't see how it would be a issue with a smaller size drive.

My plan is to use a Y splitter molex from the power, which will power the SATA card AND the hard drive separately. I am also going to run a SATA cable from the hard drive to the card instead of having the card stick right into the hard drive. I haven't figured out which cable I will need. I assume a male to female type, as the card has the opposite connection.

Anyways.. I don't know if it will work for sure or not. But I won't know unless I try it and see.

PS: im using a converter off ebay a cheap one and I'm using a WD 160GB SATA drive.

Wish me luck!

[ldotsfan]

oz_paulb's post stating the largest possible hdd size supported by xbox kernel with LBA48.

Q: Is that a result of the BIOS accepting a long as a parameter in it's disk functions?

Could it possibly accept a structure that is 48-bits in total? That would allow drives up to 144,115 TB or 144 PB.
Throughout the kernel, a 32bit sector number is used for low-level access.

To change it to use something larger would make it incompatible with existing apps.

If we start filling up 2.2TB drives, and it becomes a problem, I'll take another look at expanding it past 32bits.

- Paulb

This post has been edited by ldotsfan: Jun 27 2010, 01:38 PM