HDD Upgrade

[QuiescentWonder]

If i understand your right, you are changing the firmware of the harddisk. So i guess it would not be that simple to do. (i could be wrong, but i have never heard that it is possible to change a harddisk firmware using software, since this would enable viruses to get really sticky...)

It's possible, the only problem with that is you would have a huge virus with code for writing to the firmware on thousands of different drives, otherwise your virus is only good for one or two specific hard-drives, that's why no one does it.

Plus it actually ruins hardware... I like to think most virus creators have at least /some/ ethics.

[DaWaN]

Does the Xbox 360 Hard drive contain any logic execept from the hard drive or is the hard drive direct connected through Sata ?

[Arakon]

direct connection.

[uberfry]

Plus it actually ruins hardware... I like to think most virus creators have at least /some/ ethics.

A virus is of no use if you can't make it of any use yourself...well except those who are for specific people...

[jimmsta]

Good luck with this. It seems you've gotten very far, and seeing as you haven't corrupted your guinea pig hard drive, I think you may be on the verge of a breakthrough. I thank you for figuring out the DVD challenge stuff, and find it awesome that you're embarking on this hard drive modding adventure.

Again, Good luck!

[Arakon]

as for virus, it has been possible to damage/ruin (more or less) an xbox 1 for years, by simply wiping the eeprom. yet no "virus" ever appeared.
same for PCs. it has been possible for years to flash the bios chip or cd/dvd drives or graphics card bioses from windows forever, it wouldn't be any issue to write a virus that does that. so I don't really think a virus flashing harddrives is a real concern.

[Makalai]

True, but when these dudes can earn money, they use every technique. I remember virusses that would wipe your hdd if you didn't pay with your creditcard. And that was only software virus.

Imagine.... protect the hdd-firmware with lock/password and you can earn easy money because it is almost impossible for users to get rid of such a virus. And what about M$ itself to protect their harddisk (although that would be no problem )

Let's hope it never happens.... so we can keep 'playing' with the hdd-firmware for our XBOX and no one takes advantage of it in a non decent way.

[TheSpecialist]

Got the 1200BEVS. It indeeds understands the same 'factory' commands as my wd 2500 IDE drive. I created the flash file, double checked, tripple checked, flashed and ... dead !! Hehe. That sucked hard. I read over the code again and again, looking for the bug, couldn't find it. Then I tried hotplugging the sata connector and found that plugging it in on the right moment, made the drive accept SOME commands again. Luckily I could dump the block that I wrote to see what went wrong and I saw it skipped some bytes that I had sent to the drive. I then found out that if you upload multiple sectors in one go, you have to wait for the 'ready state' for the drive after each sector. I now changed the tool to wait for that state after each byte that it writes and now it works good

So, in short, my 120 GB WD1200BEVS is now a 20 GB HTS541020G9SA00
Now, I need a x360 to test it, still don't have one, going over to a buddy tonight who does. We'll see what the x360 says, maybe I did something wrong or maybe it indeed does want to see the right partitions, like 'Exess' in this thread says it will probably need (my drive doesn't contain any partition info at all). We'll see. Can't do too much experimenting tonight, if it won't work, I'll get my own x360 to do the experiments, it's an awesome machine anyway

[DaWaN]

Whoa nice stuff man !!! Hope it works, afaik I also live in your region so contact me if you need a x360

But Devkit harddrive does also work on retail X360 ain't it ? They are 80GB so maybe it's also possible to get 80GB

[BigK]

Will the tool have a restore option so we can use it in our pcs if we want to get rid of 360

[Pikkon]

But Devkit harddrive does also work on retail X360 ain't it ? They are 80GB so maybe it's also possible to get 80GB

No,hard drives from a 360 dev kit are incompatible with retail kits,basically dev kits use unsigned hard drives while retail kits use signed hard drives.

[TheSpecialist]

Can't do too much experimenting tonight

It turned out I couldn't do the experiment at all Daaaamn. You think of everything, double check everything before you're going to finally test and then it turns out that you don't have the right fricking Torx screwdriver size to open that HDD box, lol, can't believe it And since there aren't any shops open on sunday here, guess we'll have to wait another day ... Kinda sucks ...

Will the tool have a restore option so we can use it in our pcs if we want to get rid of 360

Ah, good idea, will add that, IF it all works of course. My plan now is to get a x360 monday, the right screwdriver of course, hehe, do the testing and if it works, finish the tool, which will be some work, since I do most of the things manual now. Also, I don't want to be here telling you guys it worked 'but i don't have any tool ready yet', hehe, so just gimme a few days and i'll be back, hopefully with some good news AND a nice tool for you to run

[zillionare]

Hello TheSpecialist,

Great Work/Discovery! X's finger and hope it works. I've taken my Harddrive screws out with a small flathead screwdriver(ones used on eyeglasses).

Took more than a minute this way. re-installed regular laptop philips screws to make next time easier. 

Hopefully you can complete this mod successfully! good luck too ya. I'm willing to beta test as I would like to do this mod myself.

peace,
zil

[TheSpecialist]

Anybody out there with a dev kit and a bigger than 20 gb hdd ? Or anybody who runs a bigger than 20 gb HDD without devkit (as rumours have that they ARE out there, like this one: http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/microsoft/xbox-360-hard-drive-leaked-at-70-gigs-212862.php) => please contact me

[Pikkon]

 ^ check your PMs

[bender_]

Just wondering if you think that it could be possible to make something like multiple 20Gb hard drives with a bigger HD and the 20Gb key

[Arakon]

doubtful, since the 360 just doesn't look at other partitions.

[a360]

Just wondering if you think that it could be possible to make something like multiple 20Gb hard drives with a bigger HD and the 20Gb key

What if the firmware could be switched to another partition or virtual-specialist-xboxhacker-LBA part of the larger than 20GB drive ?
Please don't tell me the firmware 'is signed' !

[TheSpecialist]

What if the firmware could be switched to another partition or virtual-specialist-xboxhacker-LBA part of the larger than 20GB drive ?
Please don't tell me the firmware 'is signed' !

Yes, I've been thinking about that too. In theory, it's not difficult, it's simply some LBA offsets you have to change, depending on the 'partition' you want to use. But how to tell the FW which partition you want to use ? I think that's not possible without some kind of hardware mod and that's not my cup of tea But I think some of these HW teams should have no problem in producing some kind of 'device'

[Oneohm]

I just wanted to add my 5 cents to the post. I have been working on this very subject myself. I've been able to get an Elite hard disk to function on a regular 360. I have been using a sector dump tool called mhdd to pull 16-22 on a Hitachi, Seagate, and the Fujitsu 120. So I have all three bin files. I also have been working on the Sony PS3 drive which also is a 20 and 60GB SATA Seagate drive. I've been unable to get the Sony drives to be detected on the 360 after sector editing. Is the issue really just the partitioning?