Xbox Slim 4gb Model - Hard Drive Question.

jenno86

I'm just wondering is it possible to but a 2.5' Hard Drive and put it into the new 360s? Like what you can do at the moment with the PS3s.

RobertFoster

Nope, they're still propriety HDDs unfortunately, just a different shape to the old ones.

jenno86

Ghey

docdolittle

You can still break open the hard drives from the pro/elite 360's and use them

spooky donkey

so if i was to get them ones with the 4 gig drive, i could not insert my 120 gig drive into it from my old xbox? Just the CD rom on my old console stoped working.

Adamcp898

As a matter of interest could you buy the 4GB Slim model but, instead of waiting until they release the 250GB Slim drive to buy on its own here, could you just buy the data transfer kit and use it to hook up your old Elite 120GB hard drive to the slim and use it that way? or is the data transfer kit able to support that type of functionality?

bennyc

spooky donkey wrote: »

so if i was to get them ones with the 4 gig drive, i could not insert my 120 gig drive into it from my old xbox? Just the CD rom on my old console stoped working.

You could get a RROD console on adverts for 20e these days and swap out the DVD Drive or would that deem your console modded and get a ban ?

docdolittle

spooky donkey wrote: »

so if i was to get them ones with the 4 gig drive, i could not insert my 120 gig drive into it from my old xbox? Just the CD rom on my old console stoped working.

Here's a vid on saying how to put the old hard drives in. As he says though, don't break open the old hard drive case with a hammer :pac:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKnaixPCsns

spooky donkey

bennyc wrote: »

You could get a RROD console on adverts for 20e these days and swap out the DVD Drive or would that deem your console modded and get a ban ?

true but the DVD drives die so often i think I would be better off getting a new one. I know there is a place in town that does it for 60 quid.

But my old HD wont go into the new stelth box with out some modding then?

Myrddin

bennyc wrote: »

You could get a RROD console on adverts for 20e these days and swap out the DVD Drive or would that deem your console modded and get a ban ?

It would result in a ban, as you'd have to spoof the firmware to imitate the firmware of the older drive. This is very soon going to be detectable, even with the LT firmware.

Your best bet would be to buy a replacement laser unit for the existing drive...assuming it's not the motor that's gone.

irish_stevo815

Why are they even selling a 4gb Model anyway? Well apart from the obvious - Microsoft ripping people off again.

docdolittle

irish_stevo815 wrote: »

Why are they even selling a 4gb Model anyway? Well apart from the obvious - Microsoft ripping people off again.

How is it "ripping people off" If you looked at bargain alerts, you'd see this 4gb model was available for €140 in Argos up until today and if you already have an old xbox hard drive you can just put that in. So for me, I'd have 120gb HDD with this... €140 is a very good deal for a brand new 360 model console, so where is the ripping off being done?

irish_stevo815

docdolittle wrote: »

How is it "ripping people off" If you looked at bargain alerts, you'd see this 4gb model was available for €140 in Argos up until today and if you already have an old xbox hard drive you can just put that in. So for me, I'd have 120gb HDD with this... €140 is a very good deal for a brand new 360 model console, so where is the ripping off being done?

Ripping off, as in filling up 4gb on the hard drive will take no time at all. and when it's full, people who down have a previous Xbox will have do splash out the cash for a newer bigger hard drive. Maybe i'm wrong, but thats how i see it anyway.

And no, i'm not not trying to diss the Xbox, just Microsoft's greedy ways.

TouchingVirus

The 4GB model is akin to the old "Arcade" model of the 360. That one came with 256MB/512MB of memory built in. It was released at a lower price point to rival the Wii, for the casual gamer. Of course if you buy games and choose to install them to the hard drive or buy full titles off Xbox Live you'll be no time filling the hard drive up, that is why you could purchase drives of increased capacity new or second hand, it was a straight swap.

With the release of Dashboard 2.0.9199 this year and the ability to store xbox data on a regular flashdrive/memory stick you can even have loads of arcade games on a few sticks which might be cheaper than getting the increased hard drives which are very pricy.

The original xbox 360 and the slim both use 2.5" SATA hard drives. If you can open your enclosure from your old xbox (20GB/60GB/120GB or even 250GB Elite) and can open your 4GB enclosure then you can swap the drives and it will work. It will void your warranty on the slim console though, because you'll most likely have to break a seal on the 4GB enclosure to open it, and you definitely have to break a seal on the older drive enclosure to open that.

You cannot use any old 2.5" SATA hard drive either. What makes the drive recognisable to the 360 is the firmware that operates on the drive. The console refuses to read from drives without that firmware/device signature (i.e. The console wants to see a drive ID like [XBOX360_120GB_ELITE_BLAH] but sees [SEAGATE_GENERIC_HARD_DRIVE_1TB]).

There are ways around this if you're willing to invest in some time and effort. Microsoft drives are made by the big manufacturers of hard drives (e.g. Western Digital). The only difference is that firmware/device signature. If you can procure the same make/model as an official xbox 360 drive from Amazon or whoever, then there are tools out there that can replace the firmware/device ID with one from an existing drive.

The only downside to this is you are limited to buying the same make & model [and thus, size] of hard drive - i.e. there will be no way to stick a 1TB drive into a console until Microsoft release an official 1TB hard drive. If they never do then there is no way to get that official firmware so it'll never work.

It usually still works out cheaper to buy the run of the mill drive and flash it's firmware though. Microsoft's € per GB was €1/GB at one stage, a 120GB drive cost you €120. The same drive from Amazon was €55 including postage. And the flashing took all of 5 minutes

docdolittle

irish_stevo815 wrote: »

Ripping off, as in filling up 4gb on the hard drive will take no time at all. and when it's full, people who down have a previous Xbox will have do splash out the cash for a newer bigger hard drive. Maybe i'm wrong, but thats how i see it anyway.

And no, i'm not not trying to diss the Xbox, just Microsoft's greedy ways.

Splashing out on a hard drive... even though Microsoft now allows external HD's to save info on now and run your profile off... Maybe it's just because I have external hard drives lying around, but I don't think it ends up that expensive at all...

TouchingVirus

docdolittle wrote: »

Splashing out on a hard drive... even though Microsoft now allows external HD's to save info on now and run your profile off... Maybe it's just because I have external hard drives lying around, but I don't think it ends up that expensive at all...

In fairness doc, the prices for the official hard drives are a rip off. They're not even proprietry drives, they just have a special firmware on them. For this privilege you're forced to pay around double the price.


Official MS 250GB hard drive (for old 360) - £63.71


Western Digital 250GB SATA 2.5" hard drive you can flash - £31.28

The 4GB stick only gets you so far, you can't install most retail games on them for one thing as most games are more than 4GB in size. Maybe if Microsoft increased that 4GB limit to 16GB they might get somewhere.

And to be honest, it's only a matter of time before unofficial enclosures compatible with the Slim are released. There are plenty of enclosures for the old-style hard drives out there, so buying one of those and a hard drive is around £35 and you don't void a warranty on your existing hard drive.

Myrddin

Olden is golden lads

docdolittle

TouchingVirus wrote: »

In fairness doc, the prices for the official hard drives are a rip off. They're not even proprietry drives, they just have a special firmware on them. For this privilege you're forced to pay around double the price.


Official MS 250GB hard drive (for old 360) - £63.71


Western Digital 250GB SATA 2.5" hard drive you can flash - £31.28

The 4GB stick only gets you so far, you can't install most retail games on them for one thing as most games are more than 4GB in size. Maybe if Microsoft increased that 4GB limit to 16GB they might get somewhere.

And to be honest, it's only a matter of time before unofficial enclosures compatible with the Slim are released. There are plenty of enclosures for the old-style hard drives out there, so buying one of those and a hard drive is around £35 and you don't void a warranty on your existing hard drive.

I know about the mad prices of xbox hard drives :P I got my 120gb one last year for €39 though, even look at my bargain alert right here :P Wasn't that bad

I feel like I'm becoming a fanboy... I want to defend their reasoning for the pricing and proprietry drives

wotzgoingon

EnterNow wrote: »

Olden is golden lads

Ah yea Jtag xbox FTW!!

i like the extra precations with the little fans. u cant b 2 carefull with them precious jtags.

Myrddin

wotzgoingon wrote: »

Ah yea Jtag xbox FTW!!

i like the extra precations with the little fans. u cant b 2 carefull with them precious jtags.

My thoughts exactly, I pillaged a little ram cooler that was lying around...does the job quite well.