Goal:

To hook up a 2TB eSata hard drive (or any size) to the 360 and have it work in the NXE dash on a jtagged console without soldering the cable to the board. (NOTE: USB drives cannot be used to install games from NXE, only sata)

Required:

• Any size eSata HDD (I bought this 2TB drive back when it was $139. Shop around)
• Adapter from an Xbox 360 HDD case (pulled out from an empty case i ordered here)
• eSata Panel Mount to Male Sata Adapter (or similar)
• eSata to eSata cable
• Torx Screwdriver

1. You need to take apart a Xbox 360 HDD case to get the adapter cable out. You'll need 2 different size Torx bits to do this. Not sure which sizes exactly, you'll have to search for that information. This adapter will let you plug a male sata adapter into it.
   
2. Next you'll need a male sata to eSata adapter cable such as this. You will plug that into the adapter you took out of the hard drive case.
   
3. Next you'll need an eSata to eSata cable to plug your external drive in. Connect it to your eSata drive and plug the external power cord that came with your eSata hdd to the wall and turn it on. When you have everything connected it should look like the picture below.
   
   
   
   
4. Finally you will go to the Memory settings on your jtagged console, and you should see the drive. It will say "unformated". Format it, your console will ask you to enter your serial number. Enter it. Done! Now you can use an external eSata drive on your XBox 360 just like you would an official drive!

Ideally you would find a eSata to male 7 pin sata cable, then you wouldnt need the middle adapter. I was unable to find such a cable. Please post below if you find one.

This the cable you're wanting: 7-pin Male sata to Esata cable, 12".

nice find! you would have to cut off one of the plastic sides on the 7 pin end, but it would work for sure! i already had a eSata to eSata cable, so the adapter i talked about above worked fine, plus its a little cheaper.

also with the adapter you could potentially put it inside of the 360 hdd case, dremel out the back, and screw the female esata (did i just say screw the female esata?) to the back. would look a little cleaner that way. i doubt ill bother though.

The main problem I see with the cable I linked, it's only 12" long (looks like they have a 20" as well), but that's not a problem if you're putting the drive next to, or on top of the xbox. I also had the idea of basiclly using the cable like you showed, and mounting it to the back of the OEM hd chassis. I'm betting we'll see something like a Blaster 360 that has an esata port on it somewhere for jtagged units.

I just opted to put a 640g 2.5" I had laying around in my HD chassis, I'll keep the games we plan on playing frequently on the drive, and any DLC I come across as well. I suspect that if you take the metal shell inside of the HD chassis out, you could probably retrofit it to hold one of the 13mm 750g or 1tb 2.5's that have just been released in it... I'm just wondering how many of the people using large 3.5" sata drives (1.5tb+) actually PLAY the games they have loaded on them .

I thought I had seen a thread with a similar mod, and here it is.

i too put a 640gb 2.5 in the hdd shell, only after buying the 2TB drive and failing when I tried to solder the cable directly to the board. The 360 would reboot when i attached the drive, just like it would any other hdd, but i would get an e64 error. probably interference. now that i got the 2TB working with the adapter, im busy transferring everything from the 640 to the 2TB. A real PITA, as I've been copying data from the 640 via ftp back to my laptop, and then back to the 2TB, in 50gb chunks as that's all the free space i have! Im now returning the 640.. or perhaps ill list it in the B/S/T already placed in a 360 hdd shell for some other jtagger to use.

Your right though, I very rarely play games. I have more fun collecting them, and just messing around with the system in general. Kinda weird like that, but I know im not alone

I saw that link as well, basically how i got the idea to do what i did. I probably should of mentioned that:

Thanks to jgsieve for his thread on "hdd shell converted to esata adapter" which gave me the idea for this "mod".

You could leave the Esata cable in the 360 HDD enclosure on cut a hole in the back. Then mount the cable facing out the back.

One question . What's the speed when copying? Like orginal sata ? Need to know before i do this mod myself

I would think the speed would be the same, as it's not any type of conversion to get it working (just extending a cable out so you can use it with another drive). Might even be a tiny bit faster, as you'd most likely be using a 7200 RPM drive..

damn... just bought a few broken 360 drives for this type of conversion...

thx i didnt know they had these

oh well 1 of the "broken" drives actually ended up working =p

Does hooking it up and formatting it this way make all 3 partitions correctly?

I was hoping I could backup my current 20GB drive and use this process to hook up a 2TB drive. Restore my data and be good to go.

Am I on the right track that there is nothing else involved?

Thanks in advance and excuse my ignorance.

faster, as your external sata drive will probably be faster then an internal 2.5

It only makes 2 Partitions, you'll need this handy little app to finish the job:

HDD Compatibility Partition Fixer v1 (available on xbins aka "the usual places")

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Release Notes
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

XeDev proudly presents a Xbox1-Compatibility-Partition Fixer. It will create
a proper Partition2 on a X360-HDD that was formatted via XBReboot. Be sure that
you reboot your console after executing this program. XeXMenu's FTP won't see
the Partition until there's a file on it, so copy a file via XeXMenu on it and
it will be shown via FTP too.

This Patcher does NOT include the XBox1-Emulator files!

!!! WARNING !!!
This application will wipe your maybe existing Partition2
!!! WARNING !!!

After you do that, you'll just copy the "Compatability" folder from Partition 2 on your 20GB to the new Partition 2 on your 2TB. Or alternatively you can just download the new hacked xbox 1 emulator (xb1_5805_april 2007-hacked-FIXED) and copy that to Partition 2 instead (this would be the recommended method).

There is actually a more recent update

Look for "xb1_5829_nov_2007-hacked"

Here are the details

"The following hacks were done to the emulator:

* Xbe signature checks removed (lets you run unsigned code)
* Xbe section hash checks removed (lets u run hacked xbes)
* Game region checks removed (region free baby!)
* Game media checks removed (play games from your hard drive)
* Debug/Devkit xbes supported (run your own xbox1 code)
* Attempt to play unsupported games (doesn't mean it will work hehe)

To install this, copy the Compatibilty folder to your devkits Y drive.

If you have a Jtag hacked console you want to copy this to Partition 2, it might be advisable to backup the original files first."

Hey, just wondering if you guys can help me out at all;

I've followed this guide to the T (Thanks btw, was a simple and effective guide), and i'm now having an issue with formatting the drive. It shows up in the memory option as "unformatted", but after putting in the console serial number, and watching the "formatting..." bar, the drive is still showing up as unformatted.

Anyone have any idea why the 360 won't format my drive?

Thanks

yarevo

i had the same problem with mine. my issue was the cable.........are you using a custom spliced/soldered one or untouched male sata to female esata? i was using a male sata connector i soldered on, and a shortened esata cable. once i replaced those with the proper cables, it worked perfectly, until i hit the partition issue, that slowed me down another day, but now all is well.

hiya,
I'm having a question. Went to the store today and only could order a estata to sata female, could that be a problem? so it will be like: hdd->esata to esata->esata to sata female->sata to sata male->xbox. lol, getting little bit long but hope this will work.

Having issues now that I've moved from a genuine Microsoft HDD cable to the one from dealextreme, I've got http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.25939. Everything worked great as per the OP using the eSata Panel Mount to Male Sata Adapter from cpustuff on the official cable but the dealextreme cable just shows unformatted with no info on size. It works with 2.5" drives connected directly and I've retested on the official cable to make sure things didn't die and all is well there. I am thinking they skimped somewhere and assume something will be connected to the power... Any ideas? Thinking I might just get my friend to use the DX cable while I use his official one

Cheers!

it's the DX cable. i had the exact same problem. i ripped open my original, and swapped the connectors, and they both work now. seems the extra couple of feet coupled with the shitty build quality of the DX cable makes the xbox not detect it properly.

yup, its the DealExtreme cable. I had problems with it as well, I kept getting Dirty Disc Errors when playing games from the hdd. Switching to an official cable fixed the problem. I can no longer recommend ordering the dealextreme hdd case. Just get a 20GB hdd off eBay. Even a broken one should work, as long as its not broken because the cable is damaged.

Im also now using the cable below, instead of the adapter from cpustuff:


http://www.esatacables.com/detail/index.cfm?nPID=72687

you will have to break off one of the plastic tabs around the internal sata connector on this cable, but thats no biggie.



this is what i ultimately ended up doing. i used my dremel to cut a hole in the back of a 360 hdd enclosure that I got from dealextreme. it looks much cleaner.

Would there be any way to do this without eSATA? Because I have an external HDD that I would love to do this with, but it doesn't have eSATA and I don't really feel like buying another external HDD.

Thanks for sharing.

I found the exact same cable here for about the same price but with cheaper shipping options plus they accept Google checkout which made it even easier. Was able to get the cable shipped for cheaper than shipping alone was on your link.
www.cooldrives.com/esexcaitolex.html

if you dont wanna hack-up an microsoft cabinet to get the sata connector i have created one



http://www.dragonslayer.se/shop/index.php?...ils&prod=36

I created a SATA adaptor for use with any SATA HDD on jtag-hacked xbox360
Solderless installation

not included: powersource for your drive, SATA-cable

This can also be used with an external eSATA harddrive ... use an eSATA to SATA cable

8€ including shipment WorldWide
PayPal only, for non swedish customers.



Please look at the top link before ordering (availibility)

Wouldn't you just be able to open an empty 360 HDD case and put in a 2tb, connect it to the adapter, close it and plug in into the top of your JTAG like you would an official HDD?

sorry to revive the topic but l gor no answer on the other topic:(




2 questions only:)
l'm planning to do this mod on my hdd enclosure but lm not in the states and cpustuff.com wants 16 bucks just for shipping the sata to esata bracket l decided to buy this cable : http://cgi.ebay.com/SATA-Male-eSATA-Cable-...=item3cafe0d87a

Question no.1: My external hdd is 1tb and l would like to use only 500gb for the xbox and the rest for pc storage, is this possible with this mod?

Question no.2:If yes, how?

Regards from Sweden!

ps. yes its jtagged!

http://www.kjell.com/content/templates/sho...aspx?item=98427
for example in sweden

Id like to buy one (if you still make them?)but my internet security won't let me onto your site
could you let me know if you have any left please
cheers