So you want a big 360 Slim hard drive on the cheap?

TouchingVirus

Fair enough So you can't stretch to the 250GB, or you bought the 4 and the price for the 250GB is ridiculous

Grab yourself a 250GB Western Digital Hard Drive 2.5" SATA - they can be had for £30 ex delivery from Amazon.co.uk (Model WD2500BEVT, some others will work)

Grab a third-party enclosure from DealExtreme for the Slim for $9.90 with free delivery (usually 2 weeks).

Acquire a 250GB SS file. You can get it from your friend who has the 250GB hard drive but you'll have to open his enclosure to hook the hard drive up to your computer and dump the hddss.bin file to your computer. There are other ways to get it.

Download HDDHackr, and flash your new drive with the hddss.bin, making sure to dump the original hddss.bin off the drive in case something goes terribly wrong. Once the flashing is done, put the hard drive in the enclosure, put that into the slim and enjoy 250GB hard drive on the cheap (€40 or so).

I'm obviously not responsible for things if you muck up your hard drive and brick it :pac:


Edit: This can be used for the old 360s - that enclosure is available on dealextreme too

drunkmonkey

Would one of these also work, not bad for 29.99 http://go.iomega.com/en/products/factory-outlet/desktop-hard-drives/external-hard-drive-desktop-silver/?partner=4735

Gooch2k4

Id be wary about this sort of stuff, the new dashboard has alot of protection from this sort of stuff built in

TouchingVirus

No, afraid not. The only models you can have are the ones that correspond to official 360 hard drives - so 20GB, 60GB, 120GB and 250GB. No 320s, no 500s and no 1TBS - at least not until Microsoft release official hard drives of those sizes so that the hddss.bin can be dumped and tested.

I'm also fairly sure you've to stick to drives by the same manufacturer as Microsoft, usually you're safe with Western Digital hard drives.

TouchingVirus

Gooch2k4 wrote: »

Id be wary about this sort of stuff, the new dashboard has alot of protection from this sort of stuff built in

The SS file isn't unique to each drive, it's a universal file, the same on all drives. I've used my 120GB WD drive as an official hard drive for several years on Live, no sign of a ban for me at all. It's just like a regular 120GB hard drive only I didn't pay out the ass for it.

Microsoft are more concerned with the JTAG and piracy than people not using their hard drive. This method just allows you use the drive properly, it doesn't allow you pirate stuff or anything :pac:

garv123

http://www.argos.ie/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Search?storeId=30001&catalogId=1500002451&langId=-1&searchTerms=xbox

how is that cheaper?
including postage it would prob be dearer?











see the old arcade. its a 10er dearer than the elite. wtf?

TouchingVirus

garv123 wrote: »

http://www.argos.ie/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Search?storeId=30001&catalogId=1500002451&langId=-1&searchTerms=xbox

how is that cheaper?
including postage it would prob be dearer?

You don't happen to have the price of a standalone 250GB for the slim do you? Here's a price for the 250GB hard drive standalone for the original 360 - €90. Even on Amazon.co.uk it's £65 from them with free delivery but you can add on a small bit for the difference in VAT rates. I'd imagine the Slim 250GB standalone hard drive would be the same price if not more.

So the people who would be most interested in this would be those who bought the 4GB. It might also be of interest to people with 250GB drives in the old enclosures, now they know they can get a new enclosure for $9.90 for their new slim from Dealextreme. Or the people with spare 250GB hard drives from old laptops like me.

savemejebus

Thanks for (another) great post TouchingVirus, didn't even know the enclosures were for sale.

creativedrinker

If u have a old xbox lying around, if you take the casing off the hard drive you can use that too

Korvanica

TouchingVirus wrote: »

Fair enough So you can't stretch to the 250GB, or you bought the 4 and the price for the 250GB is ridiculous

No its not

TouchingVirus wrote: »

You don't happen to have the price of a standalone 250GB for the slim do you?

250GB SLim is 249.99 in Smyths
4gb is 199.99 in Smyths

its €50 more,

thats a small price to pay to not have to bother swapping the hard drives and ordering off dealextreme....

SO the hard drive is about €40 and the case is ($9.90) €7.22... so you're saving yourself a grand total of €2.78


Edit:

TouchingVirus wrote: »

So the people who would be most interested in this would be those who bought the 4GB.

Yea true.. only read this after i posted the above...

GarH

Sorry if it's off topic slghtly, but why did Microsoft make it so difficult to change hdds?

docentore

GarH wrote: »

Sorry if it's off topic slghtly, but why did Microsoft make it so difficult to change hdds?

to charge poor people 200% of RRP for standard hard drive.

TouchingVirus

docentore wrote: »

to charge poor people 200% of RRP for standard hard drive.

This.

Korvanica - "the price for the 250GB is ridiculous" was meant to say "the price of the 250GB hard drive is ridiculous" (as in a hard drive on it's own). By standalone 250GB I also meant the hard drive on it's own. I'd wager a fair bit of money that when the 250GB hard drive for the slim hits shops it won't be priced at €50. Bringing in other scenarios than the 4GB Slim purchasers out there, there are the people who have existing drives that were sufficient for them on their older models (20GB, 60GB, 120GB, 250GB) which were useless if they wanted to go for the Slim. Now they're saving themselves €42.78 and the only thing they have to do is swap enclosures :pac:

loopymum

How easy is it to put on the file ye are all talking about, could someone talk me through what I would have to do?

And I do mean from start to finish, I don't have SATA on my pc either

The official xbox one is €89 in game.

Lenny

Bought the 250gig, have a harddrive enclosure with exterier lights on it, do you think the dashboard would be able to record more power being used TV to report to MS?

slave1

loopymum wrote: »

How easy is it to put on the file ye are all talking about, could someone talk me through what I would have to do?

And I do mean from start to finish, I don't have SATA on my pc either

The official xbox one is €89 in game.

It's not difficult, see this post from another thread.

slave1 wrote: »

Why waste your money?

Hard Drive ~ £37 - delivery less than a week
Case $9.81 - delivery in around two weeks

Flash the hard drive
Tutorial here if you're stuck

I've a 250gig installed nearly a year without issue, no issue when I updated the system for Kinect either.

kiddums

I have one question about this,
Say I get the drive, the enclosure (old xbox if it matters), get the file off the internet as I don't know anyone with a 250gb, do all that, how do I transfer data across to the new HDD? Do I need one of those 20quid cables for it? Will it cause any problems for my DLC?

Ok thats more than one question, but im not changing that.

thorbarry

A dodgy hard drive will result in not being able to play Xbox originals. Just be aware of that if you have any old games

Myrddin

thorbarry wrote: »

A dodgy hard drive will result in not being able to play Xbox originals. Just be aware of that if you have any old games

I think people need to realise that Microsoft don't actually make these hard drives. They licence them & dial up the heat on the price. If there's a legit way of saving yourself money as TV has advised, go for it. Money aint as abundant as it used to be

kiddums

thorbarry wrote: »

A dodgy hard drive will result in not being able to play Xbox originals. Just be aware of that if you have any old games

I've been looking into this and I only see people saying this about specific drives.

If I get the drive mentioned by the OP will I be able to play originals? I have a few I still play.

Also do I really need an enclosure? Can I just move my data to usb and crack open the existing enclosure and swap the drives?

muppetkiller

This seems like good value
http://www.dealextreme.com/p/120gb-hard-disk-drive-module-for-xbox-360-slim-black-48648

keithkk16

If i buy this hard drive for my slim xbox http://cfventure.net/new/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=65_69&products_id=187
I'm right in thinking that i don't need to buy a screwdriver ?
The drive will just slot into the xbox ?

kiddums

keithkk16 wrote: »

If i buy this hard drive for my slim xbox http://cfventure.net/new/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=65_69&products_id=187
I'm right in thinking that i don't need to buy a screwdriver ?
The drive will just slot into the xbox ?

Thanks for that site, they have a nice 7200rpm drive for the old xbox for $69.

I haven't seen the new xboxes yet, but if you don't need a screwdriver to remove the existing drive you won't need one for that drive.

TouchingVirus

Lenny wrote: »

Bought the 250gig, have a harddrive enclosure with exterier lights on it, do you think the dashboard would be able to record more power being used TV to report to MS?

I only got back to this thread now, not even sure how I came back to it. No, I wouldn't imagine increased power consumption readings are taken anywhere on the 360, even if they were it really should be negligible in the grand scheme of things

ShadowHearth

220eu brand new 4 gb.... 250eu+1game 250gb brand new....

I dont see the point in all of the hassel... :rolleyes:

TouchingVirus

ShadowHearth wrote: »

220eu brand new 4 gb.... 250eu+1game 250gb brand new....

I dont see the point in all of the hassel... :rolleyes:

Read the thread, note it's age. Note the cost of the 4GB a while ago - €199. Note that 250GB standalone hard drives for folks who purchased the 4GB is not currently available from what I can see. When it was available in the US it was €100 ($129). When it is available over here, going on past records for Microsoft hard drives, it will not be competitively priced.

Saving yourself €50 at least, that's worth the 'hassle' if you own a 4GB console.

ShadowHearth

TouchingVirus wrote: »

Read the thread, note it's age. Note the cost of the 4GB a while ago - €199. Note that 250GB standalone hard drives for folks who purchased the 4GB is not currently available from what I can see. When it was available in the US it was €100 ($129). When it is available over here, going on past records for Microsoft hard drives, it will not be competitively priced.

Saving yourself €50 at least, that's worth the 'hassle' if you own a 4GB console.

so its prety much zombie thread resurected :rolleyes:

lets hope it helps, still cant see the reason of buying 4gb xbox anyway... even when they came out. i cant see theyr prices to be so different on release date.

anyway, i hope it helps to people.

Reamer Fanny

Let's say I format the WD drive with a jtag console from System Settings > Memory Management would this then work in the Slim console without having to dump the Security Sectors of another drive and flashing it to the new drive?

savemejebus

ShadowHearth wrote: »

so its prety much zombie thread resurected :rolleyes:

lets hope it helps, still cant see the reason of buying 4gb xbox anyway... even when they came out. i cant see theyr prices to be so different on release date.

anyway, i hope it helps to people.

For me the reason was being able to pic up a 4gb for €160 (with controller, hdmi cable and game from amazon) and then throwing in a 250gb drive with an outlay of another €30. so €196 vs €250. That's good enough for me, plus the 4gb looks much nicer as it's not as shiny and as such not such a fingerprint magnet.

gizmo

250GB hard drive for the 360 Slim can be had on Amazon for £58.99 now.

TouchingVirus

justryan wrote: »

Let's say I format the WD drive with a jtag console from System Settings > Memory Management would this then work in the Slim console without having to dump the Security Sectors of another drive and flashing it to the new drive?

Yes, you still need the SS sector. The JTAG cares not for the SS, which is why any old drive will do - it doesn't put the SS onto the drive