And by bare, I mean could I do the following:

1)Compile the xboxhdm iso without ANY Xbox-necessary files (ie no Slayer's, etc.)

2)Hotswap my Xbox HDD

3)Ignore all options on xboxhdm except for xbrowser

4)Use xbrowser to copy the contents of the Xbox HDD to a secondary HDD

5)Finally, use the copied files to compile a new xboxhdm iso

It seems like it should work in theory - anyone have any experience doing this or comments?

Thanks in advance.

yes
but you still need to get the EEPROM data from the xbox if you trying to
make a new HDD

I'm thinking of doing the same thing. if you just copy all the files from a softmodded xbox HD onto a new HD then lock it and plug it in xbox and should work yes?

thats what i did. i used clone hd, though because xbrowser never found the secondary drive. but be warned, clone hd will take a VERY, VERY long time. ive read posts where it took days for clone hd to finish. mine took only 3 hours, i guess i was lucky

Yeah, I would still need the EEPROM to upgrade to a new hard drive. But I don't need the EEPROM when hotswapping, correct? Then I can keep a set of "virgin" files intact in case I ever need to restore it.

Then I would add the exploits and the newly-copied files to the xboxhdm iso, install them onto the hotswapped original drive, then run evox backup to get the eeprom info. I think from there I would be good.

Does that make sense at all?

Did you use the UDE package for the xploits? I think it uses the font exploits which I believe are stored in the C drive. As far the eeprom goes, in evox goto system utils select backup and that should store eeprom.bin somewhere in E:\dashboard I think or somewhere in there. Thing is I want to install a new HD but am having problems myself. All I basically did was copy the C, E drives and eeprom.bin into the xboxhdm directory respectively, then run make isowin.bat which creates the iso, then burn to disk. So doesn't the font xploits is already contained in the C drive? so that you don't have to implement the UDE package before you build the ISO? ALthought I could be wrong?