Xbox 360 Hard Disks can you please explain.

jazzie

I'm very confused I'm trying (with great difficulty) to buy a hard disk for my kids Xbox 360 4GB think this is what I'm looking for http://www.gamestop.ie/Xbox 360/Games/5774/xbox-360-slim-250-gb-hard-drive-disk but its out of stock

I came across this http://www.littlewoodsireland.ie/xbox-360-320gb-media-hard-drive/1029223887.prd?browseToken=%2fq%2fxbox+360+hard+drive

Is the only difference the extra capacity. Will this allow the kids to play the games that need to be installed on an Xbox HDD

I'm pulling my hair out with this and the kids are getting really fed up with two new games here they can't play.

Any advice appreciated.

Lisa

calex71

Yes looks like the one you want. The other ones that are available are for older "fat" xboxs and looks completely different and are much larger in physical size.

Same one here http://www.argos.ie/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Search?storeId=10152&catalogId=14551&langId=111&searchTerms=XBOX+HARD+DRIVE&authToken=

But a little more expensive but if its in stock you'll have it sooner.


Amazon would be significantly cheaper if you can wait for it

TouchingVirus

I would purchase the hards drive from Amazon and in the mean time source a 16GB or 32GB USB stick, format it in the Xbox 360 and you should be able to install the game to that device until the drive arrives

Allyall

I bought this about 20 minutes ago after seeing next months games. In the hope they'll be staying good every month from now on - http://www.amazon.co.uk/320GB-Internal-Slim-Hard-Drive/dp/B005UTBPFU/

sellerbarry

you should have read the reviews below it first.

theteal

I was under the impression that a normal 2.5" disk works in the 360. Have I had one too many this festive season? The price of that official yoke is mental

TouchingVirus

theteal wrote: »

I was under the impression that a normal 2.5" disk works in the 360. Have I had one too many this festive season? The price of that official yoke is mental

You have had one too many drinks but to answer in more detail:

You can't just buy any 2.5" drive and stick it into the internal enclosure expecting it to work. Official hard drives have a special Microsoft firmware/security sector on them to identify them as Xbox 360 drives.

You may use any USB hard drive or stick you like as a data storage device but due to limitations in place only 32GB of space will be available for use by the Xbox 360. This is grand for a gamer profile or two with games like GTA or Forza 4 that require installed data (8GB per disc installed) but becomes unwieldy after a while or if you are a solid user of the console. The only choice then in an actual hard drive but you don't have to pay Microsoft prices either.


There is a tool out there called HDDhackr that can take a Western Digital Scorpio hard drive (Scorpio Series BEVS/BEAS or Scorpio Blue Series BEVS/BEVT/BPVT or Scorpio Black Series BEKT/BJKT) and install the Microsoft firmware on it. The drive must be at least the same size as the drive you want (e.g. at least 320GB for a 320GB drive).


I suspect that's exactly what those cheaper alternatives are to the official drive, some cheap China-made enclosures (since Microsoft don't sell them separately) and a poor quality Western Digial drive, probably one that didn't meet the original Western Digital Quality checks since WD drives are good quality and people are complaining about drive failures a lot on the reviews on Amazon.

What I did years ago is buy a 120GB Scorpio Blue drive for my Phat console, it's still in use today There is a 320GB BVPT Scorpio Blue series for sale on Amazon for £37, they are probably cheaper if you just shopped around too. Then you can pick up a Slim enclosure for about €7 from eBay. Total cost should be around ~€40. You have the same as the cheap Amazon one getting bad reviews except the hard drive is under warranty and assuredly met the WD quality assurance before going on general sale


Once you have the firmware installed the device will be recognised as an official hard drive. It will not be able to play Xbox 1 games because it is missing special backwards-compatible data on a partition. If you want one with this partition you either buy the original drive or borrow a drive from somebody who has the same size drive and copy the data over yourself with another tool called Xplorer 360.

Allyall

sellerbarry wrote: »

you should have read the reviews below it first.

Yep, i should've mentioned. I did read the reviews. I saw this mentioned in another forum (I think xbox360achievements) and a few people were complaining about it. There is a guide there, with tools, to format the drive so there won't be any problems. For the price difference i took it. If there is physical problem with the drive, I'll send it back, I won't get a replacement.
The majority of the reviews are positive, (78 five star, 22 four star).

EDIT. Maybe it's a bit pot luck, but as i said, if it's too much hassle, i'll send it back.