The Xbox 360 is long gone, but the homebrew and hacking scene of a console is always searching for ways to revitalize and keep older consoles alive, and such is the case for a newly developed tool for the Xbox 360 that aims to make hard-drives compatible with the console.

The original OEM hard drives for the 360 are getting scarce and more rare as time goes on, and it's only a matter of time before the vast majority of the original hard drives manufactured for the system begin to fail in one way or another given the usual HDD lifespan. One such existing tool, HDDHackr, managed to successfully make third party hard drives compatible with the Xbox 360. However, this tool hasn't seen updates in more than a decade, making it fairly obsolete, more so with the number of different and modern chipsets floating around.

Thankfully, a new tool has jumped up to the task of creating another solution for modifying already existing Western Digital hard drives into Xbox 360 compatibles drives, with this new tool being called "Xbox 360 HDD Maker". This new tool for FATXplorer gets rid of the annoyances of having to create a bootable USB, mess with BIOS settings and other things, with the only real requirement to run it being a Windows PC and a USB to SATA adapter for the hard drive.

Anyone who has done any sort of tinkering with Xbox 360 knows about HDDHackr. For many years, HDDHackr was the only way to make a hard-drive compatible on retail Xbox 360s. It has been an incredibly useful tool and was so far ahead of its time. The developers should be commended for their work. Unfortunately, development on it stopped more than 10 years ago and it has grown more difficult to use due to modern chipset compatibility issues. OEM Xbox 360 hard-drives are also no longer in production. As these OEM drives start to fail, the need for a tool to make compatible drives has been growing.

FATXplorer 3.0 beta 32 has a brand-new solution, a tool named Xbox 360 HDD Maker

This tool aims to be an easier and more accesible way to the already existing HDDHackr tool from years ago, and more importantly, it tries to reinvigorate and give options to gamers with their beloved Xbox 360 system to still have their console in a functional form with more accesible modern hard drives, without the risk of having their original OEM hard drives failing to the passage of time.

Xbox 360 HDD Maker Website

 

[Armadillo]

From what I read the dev stated an older WD HDD 2020 and below is compatible. But im assuming any brand will work aslong its not manufactured after 2020.

No. Western Digital only, other brands won't work.

Screenshot of the tool says "This only works with Western Digital hard-drives". FAQ also says WD only

"Q: After all these years, why is Western Digital is still the only supported brand?
A: Most Western Digital hard-drives share a standard firmware which makes it easy to make a universal solution."

Didn't we have that fifteen years ago?
I remember swapping out the 20GB in the original shell to a 120GB myself. I just had to repartition it in a certain way with a special tool and then it worked with the 360.

Yes, we had hddhackr that did the same thing. This is just a newer program as hddhackr is old, generally didn't work with usb adapaters, only worked with certain chipsets & was cmd prompt only which is a problem for some people.

 

[subcon959]

But im assuming any brand will work aslong its not manufactured after 2020.

Not unless it uses a WD firmware.

 

[urbanman2004]

Game History Preservation FTW ...

 

[_47iscool]

I run just about everything from USB. Less stress and heat on the HDD.
A bit slower loading yes, but worth it to extend the life of the hardware.

Another advantage of installing games to USB is easy access for extraction.

 

[NEILYOUNG]

yeah my xbox360 will go out

 

[DarthMotzkus]

Pretty good and all but... wake me when we could use an ssd internally with the OFW.