Could someone please provide a bit of guidance on the installation of a new 500Gb Hardrive? I have been messing with this for 3 days solid now with no luck.

Here is some additional info from another post I made on the subject
http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?s=&...t&p=4739501

What I have at the moment is

1no Xbox (hard modded with cloned Xenium) ... I think.
EvoX M8 Bios
1 no Retail Hardrive
1 no Back-Up on Laptop (no desktop PC)
1 no. 500GB WD Hardrive
1 no. crossover cable (I can FTP to the Hdd)
FlashFXP
Auto-installer Deluxe v4.52
Auto-Installer Deluxe v2.1

Relevant screwdrivers to suit

Is this everything that would be needed to install the new hardrive, I have read something regarding LBA48 Support but I have no idea what this is and suspect my Xbox does not have it.

Can someone help us out on this before I mess this new harddrive up like my trial 120gb one.

do you have your backup of c drive and eeprom?

i would load up xboxhdm on a pc (might need a desktop though. never tried on a laptop) and build a new hard drive with your c and eeprom. since you have a hard modded xbox i dont think you need to lock the hard drive.

sounds like you might have formatted your drive with the wrong cluster size when messing with xbpartitioner. and are now getting data loss.

if you need help using xboxhdm (xbox hard drive maker) let me know.

If you have a chip (hard) modded xbox, all you need is the slayers rescue iso.
Burn that to a medium that can be read by your xbox dvd drive.
Boot the xbox with the new blank harddisk connected, and the slayers disk in the drive.
Once you have set up your C and E partition, you will need the xbpartionner program to partition and format your F and G partition with a 32KB cluster size. You can ftp that over to the xbox harddisk.

The LBA48 is a bios (software feature). Without it, harddisks are limited to a size of 137GB.
So you should simply check the bios in your modchip to see if it's LBA48 compatible.
(Most modern modchip biosses are.)

You don't need xboxhdm, and you don't need the eeprom as a chip modded xbox will also boot an unlocked harddisk.

Every partition with a size bigger than 256GB needs to be partitionned with xbpartionner. There are simple tricks to check the cluster size of a partition.

regards.

I've had a look at the XboxHDM application and you're correct in what you are saying, that the problem is I have a laptop and no desktop, so I don't think this route is available to me.

Thanks for the info on the xbpartitioner, that might be what I have done here.

Thanks for all this info OBCD!

This might seem like a dumb question but how do I check the BIOS?

I had a look at the settings under "system configuration" on my old HDD with the EvolutionX dash, it says something like..

Bios Version - (256)EvoX M8
Kernel Version - 1.00.5853.01
Xbox Hardware Info - 00000200 A3 D4

What I do know is that when I boot up XBpartitioner on my old HDD, it tells me that LBA48 is not found on my BIOS. So I guess the real question is, what BIOS do I need for this xbox and how do I flash my Bios?

Before I even think about an upgraded hardrive, right? (although that doesn't explain why my 120Gb one isn't working)

One other point which I don't know if it's relevant, if I go to Launch Applications and select the "Xenium" application, a black screen appears with the message "you have a cloned fake Xenium" ... do you think this might be an issue?

I notice this version of AID has BIOS Flashing Menu that contains the options...

Flash with 256K BIOS
Flash with 512K BIOS
Flash with 1mb BIOS

with a list of bios in each including

EvoX M8+
EvoX M8+ 137gb+
EvoX M8+ FC
EvoxX M8+ FC 137gb+

Then ones for version 1.6, etc


All of this means nothing to me but would it be too simplestic to think that I can just select one of these and AID will flash my BIOS without anything else needed.

Or am I about to create a fancy plastic paper weight?

A picture of your modchip might help a lot. Most modern modchips have multiple bios banks.
If you flash the wrong bios in a bank, you can choose to boot from the bios of another bank.
This minimises the possibilities to create a paper weight.
It's hard to say if your AID is capable of flashing your modchip. The updating of the bios of a modchip is very modchip specific. You also need to know if you need a 256MB bios or a 512MB one.

regards.

Update:

I used the Slayer Disc to prep and install EvolutionX on my 120Gb hard drive. It seems to be a very basic older version of Evolution X, not like the one AID installs and has the bare basic apps with it.

Partitions
C: 500mb
E:5Gb
F: 110Gb

It installed the apps and emulators on the F drive which is a first and I've been able to play Super Mario World on ZSNES.

I ftp'd over a copy of SSX On Tour which I have, the only game file I have at the moment, I'm using this for testing because I know that it ran fine on my retail HDD. However, it just hangs at a black screen when I try to run it on this install.

I also managed to install UnleashX and Avalaunch using the AID disc, the same game file had a black screen with a faint loading icon from the game in the bottom corner but hung like that.

I'm at a loss now, only hoping that my new 500gb drive will be different or I the BIOS flash will make the difference when I do that.

My chip must have been installed a good 4-5 years ago, I never kew what type was installed and tbh, I have no idea what I'm looking for but I took some pics of some bits inside my xbox, you can have a look and see if you recognise anything.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/51053465@N06/...in/photostream/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/51053465@N06/...07774/lightbox/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/51053465@N06/...in/photostream/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/51053465@N06/...in/photostream/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/51053465@N06/...in/photostream/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/51053465@N06/...in/photostream/

Probably taking pics of the completely wrong thing.

Almost everything I've checked has told me my BIOS is (256)EvoX M8 ... I was assuming the 256 meant 256k and the logical upgrade was M8+ ... thank you for the warning.

Another quick question, what does the FC stand for in the BIOS file names?

It means it looks for its dash (evoxdash.xbe) first on F:\ then on C:\.

Second photo, over on the LHS just below the IDE connector, the small PCB with the green wire leading to it is your chip. Take a close-up.

Ahh bugger it, I got fed up and hit the Flash Bios button and opted for 256k Evox M8+ FC.137+

Looks like it went OK, my system settings show that as my BIOS now (phew ... lol)

Anyway, does that mean I now have LBA48 support with my BIOS?

XBPartitioner no longer moans at me for not having it!!

Yes, you now have LBA48.

Heimdall, you must have posted this just as I did the update ... I know you're pretty much a legend when it comes to these things.

Have I done the right thing by flashing?

Yes, you're fine. Evox M8+ is a good BIOS.

Just make sure you format the new disk with XBPartitioner 1.1, and check the cluster size with Evox once it's done. You can format it as you wish - just run it, then press A to cycle between the standard layouts:

- F up to 137GB - no G
- All F
- F up to 137GB - remainder in G
- F:G 50:50.

Once you have selected your preferred layout, press Start to write the partition table to the disk, or press Back twice to quit. Note that you'll lose all data on F and G.

Once you've done that you'll need to check the cluster size - you need 16kB for partitions up to 256GB, 32kB for 256-512GB, and 64kB for partitions 512-1024GB. Fire up Evox as an application, edit the skin / config so you can see the free space on F and G, then FTP a 1 byte file to the F and G partitions. The drop in free space is the cluster size.

There is a small glitch with the way XBPartioner 1.1 works. Because the drive was previously formatted and was the same size then XBPartitioner 1.1 sometimes doesn't reformat with the right cluster size. So, if the cluster size is too low then then you need to run XBPartitioner 1.1 and reformat the problem partition again twice. Make the problem partition smaller (press D-pad left, or right, can't remember which), reformat, then start XBPartitioner again and make the partition bigger again, and reformat. Check again with the 1 byte file, just to be certain that you now have 32k clusters.

Wow, thanks for all the help, I now have EvolutionX Dash booting up from C, now to add my apps and emulators, check they work ... after that stick a game on the HDD on F and check it works, that'll be the acid test.

After that I get to do it all again on a 500GB drive and get stuck in to the XBpartitioner bit, no doubt I'll be back to this thread lol.

Thanks again for helping me keep the old box alive.

Time for sleep now.

Yep, the evox dashboard that comes with slayers is old.
As a dashboard is just an application, you can get a recent one on the usual places and just ftp it over to your xbox harddisk.
I prefer Unleashx if the main purpose is gaming and xbmc if the main purpose is a media center.
xbmc boots a little slower as it has more features than unleashx. They both have a nice file explorer.
Your modchip looks like a cheapmod. It's a flash romchip with a buildin LPC interface.
Since you managed to update the bios, you probably don't care anymore.

regards.

I think you're right about the cheap mod, when I first got into modding my Xbox, it was sent to a friend of a friend to have the work done. Whether he realised they were cheap knock-offs (if that's what it is) I don't know.

Now that the BIOS is updated, it removes my main problem which was "what to do when my 500Gb arrives", I may indeed switch to UnleashX tho, I seemed to be having more luck with that anyway but on testing the EvolutionX dashboard I installed last night ... I now realise that although it looks fine on the face of it and the evoX.ini has all the paths correctly noted, none of the applications, emulators or Game on HDD gets past the loading screen.

Guess I'll have another go tonight at re-installing EvoX, UnleashX and Avalaunch and maybe have a tinker with XBPartitioner to see if that's been my problem.

My main use for this box will be to install emulators, roms and my old Xbox games all on hard drive, that way I can clear the clutter and just have one tidy box with all my stuff on it. I find my PS3 does a good enough job for my needs as a Media Centre these days, it lacks a lot of the functionality of XBMC but oh well, suits my needs.

You were a big help tho mate, thanks a lot.

I have edited your post Heimdall to show what my prefered option would be, basically 500mb to 'C', 5Gb to 'E' and all the rest to 'F', with no 'G' partion.

Is that feasible or does partitions of this size cause problems?

My HDD just arrived so I will use the above a basic tutorial for my install. On my last HDD, I set the jumper settings to Cable Select, I assume this was correct?



I'll need to do my homework on the above as it's a bit like Double Dutch at the moment, I'll look for some guides.

Thanks,
Broxi

All F is a perfectly sensible option. Cable select should work (but if not, set it to master).

XBPartitioner 1.1 is trivial to use once you've got it in front of you and you're looking at the screen.

remember to format F with 32 clusters.

Thanks, I used XBpartitioner and noticed it had Drive F to use 32k clusters.

Happy to report my 500gb HDD seems to be and running, I installed all my applications to E as they dont take up too much space, also installed SNES/Genesis/NES emulators to E .... all of these are running as expected ... woot

I installed my MAME emulator to 'F', mainly because my rom pack for mame is huge (about 8gb) and I wanted something to test that things were running OK on the F partition. This seems to run fine, I had a quick go of Street Fighter II ... awesome.

Only problem is my game ISO (SSX on Tour) isn't running from 'F', I just get a black screen. I didn't understand this as it worked perfectly from the 10gb HDD, so I decided to test that again ... I ftp'd the files over to the Game folder on my retail HDD and this time it froze at a black screen with a loading graphic in the bottom right.

Possibly something wrong with my ISO or any other ideas what it may be?

I'll try to rip Halo using DVD2Xbox app later to test this.

Halo ripped fine, as did Halo 2.

Seems to be an issue with that ISO ... hmmm

I know gamesaves can give issues as well.
If a gamesave for that specific game is corrupt, it can cause issues when the game is loading.

regards.

Good advice, thanks. I gave up on the ISO and ripped it from disc and it seems fine now, also every other game I've tried so far has been OK.

I now have about 7 games on the hdd ... this is awesome, soon I'll can put away all of these discs that have been cluttering my place up.

Why didn't I do this sooner?

Hi,
So I just successfully hotswapped and softmodded my Xbox using Kingroach's Ndure 3.1 and Xboxhdm 1.9 and Slayer's 2.7 stock c files, with Heimdall's guide. My dash is Unleash.

Now, I'd like to upgrade the HD.

Is there a preferred method of doing this, which is compatible Heimdall's softmod method?

I tried searching, however there seems to be so many methods in which I'm not sure if compatible.

Thanks.

There's a link in my signature ......