I just finished successfully installing X2_4981.06 to my onboard TSOP and went to upgrade the harddrive only to see that the 300gb were showing up as 33gb.

After much tooling around withit (jumpers, utilities, etc), I am going to exchange it for a new one and partition/format it with the new flashed box.

A few questions though.
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x2_4981.06 doesnt support LBA48 Version 2 does it?

Am I able to partition/format all 300 gb using tools I can use from the xbox?

Will I be able to use F as one big partition?

What tools would be the best for partitioning/formatting my new drive through the box?

Are you absolutely sure that the hard drive's jumpers are set correctly? A member, just the other day, was experiencing the same problem that you are, because the jumpers on his hard drive were in the incorrect locations.

Your BIOS should allocate all of its free space to the F drive. Because of it being over 256 GB in size, you'll need to reformat the F drive with XBPartitioner to prevent corruption from occurring in the future.

As I said above, make sure that the drive's jumpers are in the correct locations.

Yes, all '.06' BIOSes move a drive's free space into a large F drive.

A Slayer's EvoX auto-installer disc is usually what's preferred by most people.

I am absolutely positive that my hard drive jumpers are set correctly. I'm thinking I could have screwed the HDD mbr or something up when i was f'ing around with xboxhdm unlocking/partitioning/locking before i decided to flash the tsop. I was trying to put the drive in teh computer put a fat32 partition table on it, format it, and delete the partition table to see if the xbox would recognize all 300gb.

Now about the bios...

I have AID 3.03 and tried to use XBPartitioner yesterday and it said my bios does not support LBA48 version 2 and that I could screw shit up.

I decided not to use that.

I will download Slayers Evox Auto-Installer..... that will allow me to partition all 300gb and format them correct?

Also, I am thinking I should put the HDD in teh xbox straight out of the package,.... correct?

Yes, you're right. Since your Xbox has its TSOP flashed, it can boot an unlocked and unformatted hard drive.

With your AID disc, have you run the option to bring your hard drive to stock?

Yeah I tried that "prepare new harddrive" but it only detects 33 gig like my computer did. Thats why i think it was the harddrive.

I'm not trying to insult your intelligence, but I really think that you should check your hard drive jumper settings again.

I'm almost certain that the setting that the drive is on is limiting it to 33 GB.

Dude,... it's cool.

I built my computer from scratch:

Asus A8N-SLI Premium (update bios to latest non-beta)
AMD skt939 X2 4200+
2gb Corsair pc3200 DDR
WD 74gb Raptor / SATA - Primary
WD 250gb 7200 / SATA - Storage
Nvidia PCIe 7800GTX 256mb
Sound Blaster Audigy2
Silverstone 600W PSU


I tried the jumper on the new drive at MASTER, CABLE SELECT and SLAVE (no jumpers). None of those worked.

I tried changing the interface (CHS/LBA/Large/Auto) in the bios.

I screwed with the PIO/UDMA settings in the bios.

I have spent two days troubleshooting this drive. Either I'm delusional and missing something stupid, or the drive is bad.

You haven't heard any stories of Asus A8N Mobos getting weird detecting hard drives have you?

No, I haven't, and I'm fairly sure that my cousin has that same motherboard in his computer.

Your computer can correctly recognize the free space on your other hard drives, can it?

Yeah, but those are SATA and not IDE.

I know, I'm aware of that.

Right now, I really wouldn't know what would be causing the drive's problems (besides wrong jumper settings).

But, if you do decide to get a new hard drive, try installing it in your Xbox exactly how it comes out of the box.

Will do, I just got back from CC with a new drive. Same model and make. I will try it out when i get home tonight.

And THANKS for your prmpt response. It's so damn hard to get help these days, especially on things like this when you have no history on the forums.

No problem!

Just reply again if you need more help.

Like an F'in charm. It was the harddrive. Popped the new in and was partitioned/formatted/and dashboarded within 5 minutes. All 300gb usable.

Thanks again man!