I have an XBox with an X3 installed and I recently decided I wanted to go on Live, so I followed instructions for a mod to create a dual HDD switch. I want to switch between the stock hard drive and the 120 GB WD that I installed. Basically, the switch itself works (tested with multimeter, plus it runs the HD it's supposed to). The 120 Gig hard drive works when it's switched to, but the stock hard drive doesn't. Here's the kicker: if I unplug the IDE cable from the 120 Gig, so that it isn't in between the stock HD and the DVD ROM, the stock HD boots fine. I checked and I'm getting the correct voltage to the correct hard drive and no voltage to the other depending on the switch's position. So the only thing that could be happening is that having the 120 Gig on the IDE cable, even if not powered on, causes issues. BTW, the IDE cable works fine...the only connector I added was the one that's on the DVD drive, and it works. Anyone have any suggestions at all? The only thing I can think of is to somehow create a switch to turn off the ide connection to the 120 Gig. However, that's actually 40 connections, so I'm not really sure how to go about that. Any help would be much appreciated.

The mod itself is actually pretty cool, I have an external box with the stock HD, a fan, the switch, and a power on LED.

Well I've attempted this mod a couple times and have not had much luck. Some things to think about.

- Are your hard drives set to master/master? Some people have success doing that.
- I forget which exactly, but i'm pretty sure it needs to be |----dvd----stock hdd-----large hdd|
- You might need to make a switch on the ide cable. I forget what exactly and search sucks right now.
- They also say it helps having 2 of the same brand hard drives to do his mod.

I'll give the Master/Master thing a shot...they are both on CS right now. As for same brands, I'm kinda stuck there. reversing the order of things might be worth a shot too. I have MB-DVD-Big HD-Stock HD right now. Agreed on the search thing....maybe you just have to switch 1 pin of the IDE cable? I hope so. I'll try all that other stuff and post once I see if it works. Any other suggestions from anyone else would be welcome too.

i think you can put a switch on pin 39 of the ide cable. someone please correct me if i am wrong. i myself have never tried the pin 39 switch. and also have had no luck with dual hdd.

I tried Master/Master on the two drives, didn't work. I tried changing the cabling, didn't work. I have another idea to try though. I read that if I were to disable wire 23 on the IDE cable from going into the bigger HDD, the stock HDD should work. Then when I enable it, it'll work like it has been this whole time (with the stock HDD). So this wire 23 is like disconnecting the bigger hard drive, which is what I need. Has anyone tried this with hard drives? There was a tutorial on it for adding a DVD drive, and it looks applicable to this, but I'd like to know if anyone has done this successfully. Thanks again for the help.

That sounds right but I'm not 100%, hopefully someone can re-afirm this.

OK, so before I went out and bought another switch, I tried modding the HDD cable. First I shorted wire 23 across the IDE connector for the big hard drive and turned on the stock one (to simulate a switch on wire 23). No dice. Tried wire one with the same result. Now I'm wondering where people got the idea that those methods worked? I read up about wire 28 being the cable select wire, I'm wondering if that might be what someone meant when they said 23. I'll try it and any other suggestions anyone can come up with, but after that I'm thinking I may just design an ide cable with a male end external to the xbox and just switch the IDE cable by plugging/unplugging. This has been a disaster.

YOU NEED IT SET TO MASTER I THINK AND THE ORIGINAL IS PRESET AT MASTER. YOU CAN ONLY HAVE ONE ON AT A TIME. and i then you wouldnt need the ide mod, and have the stock before the bigger one.

I do only have one on at a time, and I have set both to master, one to master, and every cable configuration imaginable.

ok then you say screw the friggin two hard drives and get a new eeprom and just have the bigger drive. eliminating the reason of having the original. i was goin to do the same mod but i said fuck it and bought the new eeprom. then you can get on live

ditto



However, if you still want to use both hds, this is what I used. I'm using two Western Digital Caviars (320 gig and a 160 gig). My setup uses an ATA133 5 device IDE cable from the llama. I made the switch according to the many tuts out there; however, I didn't combine all the grounds into one (I kept each seperate). Both hds are set to master/master. This setup has worked fine for me. Maybe try the IDE cable that llama makes. Just a thought tho.

GL

Yeah but I got banned using my larger hard drive on xbox live. So not everyone has the luxory of this.

oh ok now that sucks ballz man, well you should have said that in the first place

Yeah, that's my fear too....getting banned from live. Well, I have a solution that should work. I found a male/male 2" IDE cable. I'm going to connect that to the original xbox IDE cable. Then I'm going to run a cable out of each hard drive, and leave those connections outside the xbox. It'll be a bit of a pain to change drives, but it beats opening the case every time.

Yeah, that's my fear too....getting banned from live. Well, I have a solution that should work. I found a male/male 2" IDE cable. I'm going to connect that to the original xbox IDE cable. Then I'm going to run a cable out of each hard drive, and leave those connections outside the xbox. It'll be a bit of a pain to change drives, but it beats opening the case every time.

Man I have a similar problem I have a switch like yours, I switch the grounds also. Funny thing is I can use any combination of 2 manufacturers of drives, I can get my Maxtor 160 to play well with sea gates, WD's, HITachis, but as soon as I put my 200gig Maxtor that I just put on there, incompatibilities out the butt hole.

Really it kinda pains me as I bought the 200 to put into my Xpod with my 160 (Xpod 360 ), and then was going to put the Seagate 160 in my Slim, Looks like it's not going to work out for me like that.

Strange thing is it is only Diamond Max Crapstors that Fuck up like that for me. I have another 40 Gig that is a crap store and it works fine with every thing I throw at it. It's only my Max160 and 200 that don't get along.

As for configs on master, slave, I have cable select set on all my drives previous to this new HD and it worked just fine. I am going to give the jumpers a shot, I mean what the hell but from what I understand it's not going to work. Other people above mention it works for them so I might as well try it.

Best of luck to you, I know how aggrivating this can be,. I have done 4 or 5 dual HD setups, and this is the only one that ever gave me problems.. Oh well $70 200 gig, cant argue with that.

http://xbox-scene.com/articles/3ide-2dvd-1hdd.php

Thats the tutorial I used for my hdd setup, except for instead of switching between dvds, I was switching between hdds.


I had a WD 120 gb hdd, and a Original 8gb Western Digital hdd.

I did the exact same thing at firts. I wonder if yours works because you have two WD's. My stock hard drive is a seagate (v1.6 xbox). Oh well, my cable will be here tomorrow and I think my workaround will work fine.

i have a 120 gb hdd also and i have the x3ce modchip like you i added te original M$ dash so when i hold the power button it boots to the m$ dash and then xbox live updated my dash. adn i play live when ii bot the chip disabled. i dont know y you set up 2 hard drives but thats a option and its easy and fast as hell to switch from m$ dash (with adn play xbox live) and the modded dash its like just hving 2 power buttons.


another option is to build a switch like thats a parralel so u boot to one hard drive at a time and it sconvient to use (but not to make unfortunately)


sorry i cant help n e more im new to hardmodding