Upgrading original Xbox drive in 2023

[Gamemaster1379]

I have an original Xbox, already softmodded. I would like to upgrade the HDD to it to a higher capacity one. Ideally, I'd like to do an SSD. I know performance won't be much faster, but it would be a bit smaller and quieter and less error prone to being jostled about.

What would this take in 2023? Are there any guides?

 

[SylverReZ]

You'd be better off getting more out of your Xbox with a modchip.

 

[master801]

This guide should help you: https://consolemods.org/wiki/Xbox:Hard_Drive_Upgrade

If you want to use hard drives up to 16TB (fucking stupid imo, but if you want to anyway), use this. It patches the kernel to add support.
https://github.com/gaasedelen/titan

 

[Gamemaster1379]

You'd be better off getting more out of your Xbox with a modchip.

Hardly seems worth it. Aside from not having to flash the EEPROM, is there any other actual benefit?

Post automatically merged: Jun 18, 2023

This guide should help you: https://consolemods.org/wiki/Xbox:Hard_Drive_Upgrade

If you want to use hard drives up to 16TB (fucking stupid imo, but if you want to anyway), use this. It patches the kernel to add support.
https://github.com/gaasedelen/titan

Interesting. I seriously doubt I'm going to need more than 1-2 TB tops, and that's if I'm being greedy and trying to add a bunch of the NA games library.

 

[SylverReZ]

Hardly seems worth it. Aside from not having to flash the EEPROM, is there any other actual benefit?

Adding more custom BIOSes of up to 1MB, its also very straight forward to install the pin header and the wire to D0 if you have a steady hand.

 

[Blakejansen]

Adding more custom BIOSes of up to 1MB, its also very straight forward to install the pin header and the wire to D0 if you have a steady hand.

Why not just a TSOP flash? It's free and does the majority of what a chip does with less soldering.

 

[SylverReZ]

Why not just a TSOP flash? It's free and does the majority of what a chip does with less soldering.

Yes, but I prefer a modchip more for the most part in my honest opinion. TSOP does less than what a modchip does, as it can only do one custom BIOS whereas modchips can run more than one. There's also no recovery so if the TSOP got damaged then you're screwed. But if you have a modchip installed, then it can act as a way to restore functionality and revive your Xbox. There's also a limited amount of motherboard revisions that are compatible, the later 1.6 revision had the ROM stored in its custom Xyclops chip that cannot be written to.

 

[Blakejansen]

Yes, but I prefer a modchip more for the most part in my honest opinion. TSOP does less than what a modchip does, as it can only do one custom BIOS whereas modchips can run more than one. There's also no recovery so if the TSOP got damaged then you're screwed. But if you have a modchip installed, then it can act as a way to restore functionality and revive your Xbox. There's also a limited amount of motherboard revisions that are compatible, the later 1.6 revision had the ROM stored in its custom Xyclops chip that cannot be written to.

Only 1.6 need a Modchip for custom bios. If TSOP gets messed up, I think you would need a Modchip to restore functionality. I can't remember if there is a special Modchip that lets you flash the corrupted TSOP. From my recollection there is also a "hotswap" method with a Modchip to restore a bad tsop flash.

 

[Gamemaster1379]

Yes, but I prefer a modchip more for the most part in my honest opinion. TSOP does less than what a modchip does, as it can only do one custom BIOS whereas modchips can run more than one. There's also no recovery so if the TSOP got damaged then you're screwed. But if you have a modchip installed, then it can act as a way to restore functionality and revive your Xbox. There's also a limited amount of motherboard revisions that are compatible, the later 1.6 revision had the ROM stored in its custom Xyclops chip that cannot be written to.

So, I just finished the upgrade by getting the components in today. I used CHIMP to clone the drive. What was suspicious to me was my master drive was already unlocked. For that to be true on the original drive, the system must be chipped. I understand that's a soft brick for a softmod only console.
I bought this secondhand, so I guess someone beat me to it.

This guide should help you: https://consolemods.org/wiki/Xbox:Hard_Drive_Upgrade

If you want to use hard drives up to 16TB (fucking stupid imo, but if you want to anyway), use this. It patches the kernel to add support.
https://github.com/gaasedelen/titan

I decided to not bother risking any kernel reflashes or patches. The entire NA library is a little over 1 TB. I had a spare 2 TB drive lying around that was in my main rig, so I just swapped it in. Brought the whole project down to $12 of new parts.

Was grateful that it was a one and done! All worked first try.

 

[Blakejansen]

This guide should help you: https://consolemods.org/wiki/Xbox:Hard_Drive_Upgrade

If you want to use hard drives up to 16TB (fucking stupid imo, but if you want to anyway), use this. It patches the kernel to add support.
https://github.com/gaasedelen/titan

Can you upgrade to 16TB with a softmod?