Recovering Hard Drive

[darkswordchris]

Hello. I attempted to softmod my xbox. I hotswapped, opened up xplorer360, backed up partition 3, then copied the contents of the ndure c folder into partition 3. Turned off my xbox, plugged everything back in, then started it up. I got a black screen after the logo, so I hotswapped again and restored my backup of partition 3. Started the xbox again, started a game, got a message saying it needed servicing. So I turned it back off and hotswapped again. Now I noticed my partition 4 is missing. Not empty, but gone. How can I restore it? I do not have my eeprom, and I can't seem to get xboxhdm to boot, I select 1 on the options and it gets stuck after "usb.c - (something about loading into buffer 1 or something similar)". The usb version of xboxhdm tells me that it can't find the xbox-partition. Note: My cd drive is an external, usb drive. I do not have an internal drive. I believe this may be the reason I get stuck at usb.c.

 

[TeamScriptKiddies]

What exactly were you trying to achieve by doing this? FYI you should NEVER hotswap your 360's hdd, thats VERY BAD. Its essentially just an internal notebook hdd in a large shell (for the Phat models anyways). Its possible that you damaged your hdd at this point. Try this, disconnect the hdd from your 360 altogether and see if the console fires up without it. If it fires up without it, then your hdd is likely toast, but the console is probably fine.....

 

[darkswordchris]

Not an xbox 360, an original xbox.

 

[TeamScriptKiddies]

Not an xbox 360, an original xbox.

Oh okay, because you mentioned xplorer360 so I assumed it was a 360 lol. Sorry. FYI a better route to take for softmodding an original xbox is to use the splintercell save file exploit. Its so much easier and the chance of ruining your xbox in the process is almost impossible. Sure you'll need to buy an adapter to put the modified save file on your xbox, but their dirt cheap and its worth it. Hotswapping to softmod is generally bad practice.

 

[darkswordchris]

Ya, if I can get this recovered, I'll just do it that way.

 

[TeamScriptKiddies]

Ya, if I can get this recovered, I'll just do it that way.

I wonder if you could just format it on your PC (through Windows), then stick it back in the xbox in hopes that the xbox will detect the wrong type of filesystem and format it correctly. A bit of a longshot, and you will LOSE EVERYTHING this way, I don't know what you have on there....

 

[darkswordchris]

I don't have anything on it anymore, everything got destroyed. However, I think this will just make the problem worse as all the system files for the xbox are on the hard drive.

 

[TeamScriptKiddies]

I don't have anything on it anymore, everything got destroyed. However, I think this will just make the problem worse as all the system files for the xbox are on the hard drive.

it won't run at all without the hdd in it?

 

[darkswordchris]

Nope.

 

[TeamScriptKiddies]

Nope.

Could you yank a hdd from a "donor" xbox and use it in yours? I assume the hdd's aren't locked to the console in any way shape or form....

EDIT: like if you bought a broken xbox off ebay (say with a disc read problem), but the hdd is fine

 

[darkswordchris]

They are locked to consoles via a chip that contains a unique key to unlock it, which is why hotswapping is necessary rather than just plugging it in.

 

[TeamScriptKiddies]

They are locked to consoles via a chip that contains a unique key to unlock it, which is why hotswapping is necessary rather than just plugging it in.

damn that blows...

 

[darkswordchris]

Yes it does. I wonder if there is a windows tool that can create fatx partitions...

 

[TeamScriptKiddies]

Yes it does. I wonder if there is a windows tool that can create fatx partitions...

there's gotta be something, google is your friend

 

[DinohScene]

What exactly were you trying to achieve by doing this? FYI you should NEVER hotswap your 360's hdd, thats VERY BAD. Its essentially just an internal notebook hdd in a large shell (for the Phat models anyways). Its possible that you damaged your hdd at this point. Try this, disconnect the hdd from your 360 altogether and see if the console fires up without it. If it fires up without it, then your hdd is likely toast, but the console is probably fine.....

Your 360 will just shut off if you try to do that.

I wonder if you could just format it on your PC (through Windows), then stick it back in the xbox in hopes that the xbox will detect the wrong type of filesystem and format it correctly. A bit of a longshot, and you will LOSE EVERYTHING this way, I don't know what you have on there....

If you try to do that.... you'll xbox will just spew up an error as it can't locate the dashboard which resides on the C partition of the HDD.

Could you yank a hdd from a "donor" xbox and use it in yours? I assume the hdd's aren't locked to the console in any way shape or form....

EDIT: like if you bought a broken xbox off ebay (say with a disc read problem), but the hdd is fine

HDD's are locked with a console unique HDD key.
Swapping HDD's in unmodded consoles will resort in an error as the BIOS can't unlock the HDD.

OP does your xbox still boot to the dash?
Then the best thing you can do is delete all the save games from the Xbox and start fresh off.

If it doesn't boot to the dash then you'll have to resort to chipping it unfortunately.

 

[Sicklyboy]

Turn the Xbox on with the hard drive plugged in, and the IDE cable to the DVD drive unplugged. You'll boot to error 16, which will result in an unlocked hard drive. Can you still read it with Xplorer360? Ignore the fact that you don't have partition4 at the moment, I am pretty sure you can recreate that in a custom dash.

What exactly were you trying to achieve by doing this? FYI you should NEVER hotswap your 360's hdd, thats VERY BAD. Its essentially just an internal notebook hdd in a large shell (for the Phat models anyways). Its possible that you damaged your hdd at this point. Try this, disconnect the hdd from your 360 altogether and see if the console fires up without it. If it fires up without it, then your hdd is likely toast, but the console is probably fine.....

Dude 360 HDDs are SATA drives which are hotswappable by nature.

You have a chance of damaging an Original Xbox hard drive (what this thread is about) but I've hotswapped mine a bunch and never had an issues

 

[darkswordchris]

Turn the Xbox on with the hard drive plugged in, and the IDE cable to the DVD drive unplugged. You'll boot to error 16, which will result in an unlocked hard drive. Can you still read it with Xplorer360? Ignore the fact that you don't have partition4 at the moment, I am pretty sure you can recreate that in a custom dash.

My HDD now only shows up as seen in attached screenshot. Is it just not unlocking, or is it possible that I have now damaged the IDE port on my PC? I don't have anything else to test the port with.