Xbox 360 USB HDD Connectivity Options

[XanTium]

Xbox 360 USB HDD Connectivity -- Posted by XanTium on November 29 22:49 EST
From MomDad on allxboxskins.com:
[QUOTE]
Just to further the information mentioned in Llama's recent 360 "mod" (see the 11/29/05 news) of attaching a second HDD, and clear up any misconceptions people might have, it should be noted that generally any IDE->USB and/or SATA->USB adapter can be used on both regular 3.5" and 2.5" IDE/SATA drives.

In the referenced photos, you'll see I have an old 3.5" HDD hooked up to the 360 with a Bytecc BT-200 adapter (which works for 3.5"/5.25"/2.5" drives). Similarly, SATA->USB devices should also work.
Contrary to what some have already started to speculate, sadly you cannot play back video files from the HDD, nor any other formats/codecs that aren't already allowed by the 360's dashboard by accessing the "Portable Device" option. The dashboard limits you to viewing photos and playing music. This is however a nice alternative for those who do not wish to/can't install the Windows Media Connect application or MCE.
[/QUOTE]

Read More: allxboxskins.com.

[thejt]

Unfortunately it is true.. after being up for 30 hours working on the thing I didnt eve try loading video to the drive.. figured it was just the same as music and pictures. Then I read some peoples other comments about it not working for them and figured it might have been a bitrate / transfer rate issue. Now that I try it I realize it simply cant happen because the video's applet doesnt even allow browsing of the portable device.

Im hoping this will be one of the first Live delivered upgrades to the 360 dashboard. I cant say it enough; the 360 is great but the media capabilities are nothing to write home about. For now the USB drive support makes me at least almost content with having all of my music.. but in the near future we need to see support for localized media and more media formats. Hopefully Im not the only one that realizes the importance of this or feels the same way. Streaming is a cool feature and all but my 360 is the center of my media experience that I can bring with me wherever I go.

[SpaceBuddha]

Ok, one question... Is it possible to connect a normal USB-HDD, the ones you can buy in stores, an external USB Harddrive (like 300GB ones) and if so, will my Xbox 360 recognice it as a Portable Device without any problems?

I wouldn't want an unprotected HDD layin around collecting dust and stuff like that.

Just curious.

[HSDEMONZ]

We've all been there. Long hours.. bad coffee.. can't think..



You still did a rocking good mod. As for the dash.. we'll see more.. count it on. It'll never be XBMC though.

[xboxhackern00b]

i agree! come on MS everyone wants to watch porn on their box

[troyBORG]

Ok, one question... Is it possible to connect a normal USB-HDD, the ones you can buy in stores, an external USB Harddrive (like 300GB ones) and if so, will my Xbox 360 recognice it as a Portable Device without any problems?

Yeah. Also the music can it play Mp3's we have on it?

[Himura]

i agree! come on MS everyone wants to watch porn on their box

lol. Many have already been able to do that with their modded xboxs

But I'm not sure if M$ will really let us stream video from Windows Media Connect. Seems that they would want ppl to buy a Media Center PC.

[pholly]

Is it possible to install WMC on a regular pc or does it do some sort of hardware checks?

[azninvasion]

Now someone needs to figure out how to make a sata adaptor for the regular xb360 hd and hook it up to their computer and see if they can view the contents of the drive. Next step would be to see if we could hook up our own hard drives to the expandable hd port and then use it to turn it into a premie system. That would be great.

[thejt]

we'll see more.. count it on. It'll never be XBMC though.

I hope so.. It is unfortunate that it is so true. I will pray for day when homebrew is reality and XBMC could possibly grace my 360.. I wont be holding my breath for m$ to deliver a whole lot via live any time soon.

[xboxjojo]

Is it possible to install WMC on a regular pc or does it do some sort of hardware checks?

I reformatted my pc witha clean Windows XP media center copy on it and had no issues. I have a p4 3.2 with 6800 gt vid card on it.

[bozo8787]

The down side to this for now is that they way 360's are crashing. Many may want to keep it intact untill M$ fixes/exchanges box, if necessary. M$ is famous for denial and rarely admitting and instead quietly releases patches. Maybe they should have made the 360 with the ability for auto-update on its much needed patches.

[Cthulhu32]

now that we can get an external drive onto this thing, which also means flash drives are totally legit on this hardware (correct me if I'm wrong.) Now if we can figure out a format that contains code that can be exploited, such as the Mp3 exploits in Winamp, we can create some Xbox 360 exploits and run homebrew code.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=mp3+e...G=Google+Search shows the mp3 exploits they have already, applying this to the 360 hardware would be difficult but feasible.

- there is always a pinhole no matter how secure a piece of hardware is.

[thejt]

btw. You dont need a SATA adapter to hook the 360 drive up to your PC. All you need is a SATA connection and a SATA power connector. Some newer PC's from dell already have the SATA power connector inside. Then you just plug in the SATA cable and power cable and it should work. Theres no hardware locking going on. The drive is funtional and appears to be operating completely. I dont have the desire to re-partition it to prove it works.

I dont think it will be any time soon that we see a "real" replacement hard drive hack for the 360. I think there is a whole lot of encryption and hypervisor bla bla sha boing boing goin on which is probably multi-level and dificult to circumvent.. though I dont want to underestimate Maybe its just a fatx partition and it would just work in a xbox 1.. doubt it.. After seeing that m$ gives us absolutely NO option to store our stuff on it I dont see a reason to buy the sata to ide adapter to find out or spend any more time at all to find that I cant do anything with it anyways.

Im sure one day we will have what we want... mod or not. I was just hoping ms would come through on the media capabilities.

[TSOPrano]

Might I ask, why is this news?

This is just the same as plugging in a USB key or any other sort of USB mass storage device.