Gaming dlc and such from usb?

[nico445]

Hi, i might get a xbox 360 with jtag but my question is can you play dlc and marketplace games from an external harddrive?
tried to look for it but couldn't find it. also is it easy to update after it has been jtagged? i'm only familiar with the psp and wii and that stuff is just too easy.

 

[FAST6191]

XBLA can be done from USB. Extraction or more likely a custom dash.
DLC not so much.
I have not tried any of the new indy game releases from USB (or at all for that matter).

Frankly though any sata laptop drive will work in a case (or raw if you fancy soldering) so I would opt for that instead. Running DLC and XBLA from there is really easy- indeed many people have (extracted) isos on USB and kick the hard drive to XBLA and DLC, personally I quite like GOD installs so I use the hard drive for them as well.

Updating- chances are you are using freeboot which makes a bit trickier. You can almost always build an update from an existing dump + keys but a clean NAND from before you started messing around with stuff (plus keys) is nicer. I suppose it is much like anything- your average update/hack is easy enough but if things start to fall apart then it can get tricky to get sorted.

 

[nico445]

XBLA can be done from USB. Extraction or more likely a custom dash.
DLC not so much.
I have not tried any of the new indy game releases from USB (or at all for that matter).

Frankly though any sata laptop drive will work in a case (or raw if you fancy soldering) so I would opt for that instead. Running DLC and XBLA from there is really easy- indeed many people have (extracted) isos on USB and kick the hard drive to XBLA and DLC, personally I quite like GOD installs so I use the hard drive for them as well.

Updating- chances are you are using freeboot which makes a bit trickier. You can almost always build an update from an existing dump + keys but a clean NAND from before you started messing around with stuff (plus keys) is nicer. I suppose it is much like anything- your average update/hack is easy enough but if things start to fall apart then it can get tricky to get sorted.

thanks

, soo just buy some cheap xbox casing from dealextreme or something and throw a laptop drive in it? i have a big external harddrive for games
so i could just throw the regular retail games on there, how would i transfer stuff from my computer to the xbox harddrive? could i just copy it from usb or do i need a special cable?

 

[FAST6191]

Yeah a DX case will do, you might have to format it ahead of time (hddhackr being the usual one here) but that is nothing drastic.

As for transferring you can use a special cable if you want, the sata ports and power of the drive otherwise or more likely you can hook it up to the network and transfer everything via FTP (xexmenu and freestyle dash both feature FTP servers you can connect into).

If you wanted to use USB you could probably do that as well but FTP is really easy once you figure it out (it usually just means you get a client, type in your xbox IP address which the programs will tell you, username and passwords of xbox and xbox and then transfer to your chosen directory like you would any other file).

 

[nico445]

i read something about only using wd drives? is that true or can i just throw in any harddrive ?

still deciding between building my own or just buying a cheap one from dx with like 20 gb. since the xbox 360 will just stand next to my wii i wil use it's 500 GB external drive for games. but like i would like to play dlc and such and save ofcourse so i also need a small xbox harddrive. I can just hook up a lan cable between my computer and the xbox right? thanks for all the help

hmm thinking about the hddhackr thing i still would need a way to hook it up don't I?

 

[FAST6191]

Yeah a lan cable between the 360 and PC should do.

The WD drive restriction applies to regular 360s, JTAG 360s can use what they like though (one of the many things JTAG 360s have in their favour).

"way to hook it up" means you need a free sata port in your PC (or laptop if you prefer). Unlike DVD drive flashing anything will do here.

 

[nico445]

oh well i guess i could do that, i'm at the moment scoring a xbox 360 , it's a banned arcade/core system with a wired controller and i get halo 3 odst with it for 60 Euro doesn't seem too bad. he's still checking the dashboard version and will email me again after that. let's hope its hackable
then i still need to save up for the jtag and the harddrive but that won't take too long with christmas and such in just 2 months

.

 

[nico445]

small bump , just got the xbox has dash 2.0.7371.0 , just a question if i get freestyle dash 2 on it can i use usb sticks for profiles? and haven't got the money yet but the xbox won't recognize my 2 external harddrives. the one has a wbfs and a fat32 partition, and the other is my lacie petite 320gb, NFTS and that also doesn't get recognized. will that be fixed by updates or am i screwed?

 

[tk_saturn]

You can use a USB stick for profiles on FSD1.2, FSD2.0a, XEXMenu. For external drives, I imagine it's FAT32 only. You can only use a USB device for profiles if it's had the XBOX reserved space setup, which is limited to 16GB. The reserved space, and the rest of the drive appear as seperate devices to XBOX applications, for example dashlaunch uses Usb:\ for the USB drive itself and UsbMu:\ for the reserved area.

The reserved area is actually just a hidden directory on the USB drive which contains a few files.

 

[FAST6191]

You only need that dash to begin with (well actually it is just a good marker of the underlying things that need to be there). The whole point of stuff like freeboot (part of almost every JTAG 360 unless you are a real homebrew fiend) is to trick the 360 into running the later versions of the dashboard (in the case of the latest freeboot versions the 9199 update that has USB).

What the 360 likes for USB on the stock dash and what the 360 likes for USB when you hack it are two very different things.

 

[nico445]

ok, soo i would have to format my hd,, does the iso2god thing work on an external drive or do i have to do something different?

sorry for all the questions. i'm just new at this and it's hard to start

 

[FAST6191]

Wait I think we confused things

As of a couple of versions back MS added the ability to use a USB drive in place of an onboard hard drive or memory card. This was however after JTAG got closed.
When you do a full JTAG hack you essentially end up at the newer dash (technically you reboot into it from the older one) and this includes the ability to use USB drives as a poor mans memory card that these newer dashboards have.

MS did not make things easy though as you need to "format" your USB drive to a special format designed for the 360 if you want to use it- tk_saturn already took that although if you want to access it then xtaf is a good program to use.

However if you just want to load games from the drive with a JTAG machine then you can use a regular drive (FAT32 or HFS+ formatted) and some form of loader (usually xexmenu or freestyle dash) once you extract the iso to the drive (exiso-gui or something being able to do it).
I do not know if you can do GOD installs on an external drive (or at least have them appear in the main dashboard).

 

[nico445]

ok, well then i can just use a simple stick for saves, it's just until i have enough money to build my own xbox harddrive

well i'l just extract them to my harddrive and then try. probably getting my xbox
jtagged around friday/saturday can't wait

hope a usb hub works since i have a wired controller ;p

 

[tk_saturn]

MS did not make things easy though as you need to "format" your USB drive to a special format designed for the 360 if you want to use it- tk_saturn already took that although if you want to access it then xtaf is a good program to use.

It doesn't format it. It just creates a directory called Xbox360 in the USB device which is hidden by default. The filesystem is still your normal FAT32.

You can use a FAT32 device which already has files on, and it use simply uses the free space without formatting or deleting your existing files.

 

[nico445]

and another bump

the guy that doing my jtag is saying it's better to apply the x-clamp fix and add some new thermalpaste so that i don't get a rrod which is going to cost me another 40 euro, is it worth it? it's a xbox from 2005 and it is getting already new fans with some awesome leds

 

[tk_saturn]

Personally, I wouldn't go anywhere near a 5yr old console. It's more than likely to be a console which has already RROD'd, and then fixed. It's likely to have a fair amount of use too. People buy them up cheap as knackered consoles, repair them and sell them on for $$$ profit. Because they've previously RROD, the dashboards haven't normally been updated. They then RROD again a few months down the line. The fact he knows how to replace the thermal paste and X-Clamps, suggests to me he's doing exactly that.

Also make sure he replaces the GPU heatsink with that from the late Zephyr's, Falcons. Also make sure you get a photo of the idle tempertures in FSD2 before making payment. WTF was selling a Xenon on here, and have the fans 12V'olted, Heatskinks replaced, fan shroud mod. That's the minimum for a Xenon console.

Much also depends on how much you are paying for it. WTF's Xenon for example was pretty cheap, and so was worth the risk. But if you paying too much, you're better off looking else were for a newer consoles. I'm sure there will be people selling them in the netherlands.

Replacing the X-Clamps has been known to help, as has using artic silver. But it doesn't permantly fix the issue.

 

[nico445]

well it was a ex rrod. the modder told me, bought the xbox somewhere else for 60 euro.. with a controller and halo 3 odst don't know if i paid too much now, i'm already getting new fans in it that would cool much better he said

would that and the x-clamp fix + new thermal paste be enough or am i screwed?

this is more expensive then i thought jtagging is 60 euro, 20 euro for the fans and installing of them, and then the stuff to prevent the
rrod 40 euro, and then i still have to make a harddrive

, maybe i should have just went for a secondhand ps3 and a ps3groove stick xd