well im going to softmod my next xbox, never managed to get a hotswap to work ever on any xbox i had but im wondering if i use the tools here
http://www.llamma.com/xbox/Unlocking%20Sea...ard%20Drive.htm

will it have a side effect of erasing the drive?
its the jacketed seagate, also how can i relock the drive once i get this far?

not sure if it will erase the drive or not, but you wont be able to lock it unless you can get your eeprom, youd probably have to build or buy an eeprom reader since (im assuming) your xbox isnt modded yet

your best bet is probably to look in a gamesave hack to install a softmod

Never used it myself, but people reported that that tool doesn't wipe data off the drive... It just removes the lock.

It does, however, make it impossible to re-lock the drive. Note that a non-hardmodded console won't boot without a locked drive.

so i realised after doing it. going to return it to gamestop tomorrow as the warrantee stickers were broke on the 2 i got, or in the case of one them a random serial number sticker over the old one.

every gamestop[ in the country is selling off there xboxes cheap, preowned for 20 euro (around 12 dollars)