DIY: How To Upgrade Your XBOX 360 Hard Drive: Poor Man's Edition
Amos Ngai on Sunday, December 7, 2008 at 4:30AM 
UPDATE:This guide has been superceeded by the latest 360 HDD Upgrade Guide found HERE!
As some of you have read and heard through the twitter and the podcast, I was experimenting with tutorials on how to hack the XBOX 360’s hard drive. This hack is a little bit different as it doesn’t allow you to play backup games or participate in piracy but what it does is allow you to cheaply upgrade your XBOX 360’s hard drive from a 20GB to either a 60GB or 120GB hard drive. For the purpose of this guide, I will focus on the 120GB since that will provide you the best bang for the buck and only set you back about $60 instead of the outrageous $150 MS wants. Read on for the details!
Edit: This guide is out of date and will not be updated in light of the latest dashboard updates allowing for Flash Drive installs and the latest slim 360. Everything still works if you follow this guide but do not expect additional support.
Some disclaimers and warnings to get out of the way first:
- There appears to be an issue with transferring licenses to a new hard drive with regards to Videos purchased from the marketplace. If you have purchased videos from the XBL marketplace on the old hard drive and you’re upgrading that hard drive, there’s a chance those videos can’t be re-downloaded. Will update once more information is provided but this only affects VIDEOS, not games or any other updates.
- This mod is not for the feint of heart, you will need to be comfortable with taking apart a 20GB hard drive enclosure and be proficient in using MS-DOS commands.
- The warranty of the 20GB hard drive will be void once you open it up so see if you can find one used or if you currently have one, know that you won’t be able to send it back to MS for warranty.
- You need to backup your saved games with either a memory card or you can use a software tool called Xplorer360 (more on that later)
- I am not responsible for any damages or harm that may happen to you, your console, your sister, your dog, your wife, by you following the instructions in this guide. I’ve used it to successfully mod my own so I’m just sharing
Tools you will need:
- Torx 6 and Torx 10 screw drivers or bits (you can find this at Radio Shack or your local electronic stores - Torx 6 will be the harder one to find)
- Windows 98/XP based PC (Vista is not supported) that you can boot into MS-DOS (not just the command prompt in Windows but a full MS-DOS boot)
- USB thumb drive that’s 512MB or larger (the Kingston 1-2GB ones works well)
- Motherboard that supports SATA drive connections with appropriate Molex power connectors (check with your motherboard manual to confirm)
- 20GB XBOX 360 enclosure
- Western Digital 120GB 2.5” Hard Drive: Model # WD1200BEVS
- Ability to boot into MS-DOS (refer Part 1)
- hddhackr.com
- hex workshop
- hddss.bin file for the new 120GB HDD (google search for hddss.bin 120 xbox 360 or find it at various torrent sites). There is a possibility the 250GB rom will work as well but that is not covered here.
- XBOX 360 Memory Card (and you can return it after you’re done if you want - we aren’t destroying it.)
Assumptions:
- For this tutorial, I will assume you know how to find your SATA controllers and their corresponding port numbers
- You will be using the first SATA controller port for modding your HDD
- You will be backing up your gamesaves and gamertag to a memory card
1. Making the Boot Disk
There are millions of different ways to make a boot disk. If you have Win98, then you should still be rocking a floppy so that’s simple enough. But if you have Win XP or Vista, then you need to follow one of these tutorials (NOTE: Kingston Flash drives worked best for me, not all USB drives can be made bootable - my SanDisk ones did not work reliably):
- The Easiest Tutorial (but may not work with ALL USB drives - Kingstons OK)
- If that didn’t work for you, you will need to look into using an ultimate boot CD, which is a much more complicated tutorial, but you will have a boot drive that can be very handy to have around.
Now test your USB boot disk. Restart your computer and go into the BIOS of your system (by holding DEL upon boot) and make sure you have the USB flash drive (which should show up as a hard drive) as the first boot device. Refer to your computer’s manual on how to change these options. If you have successfully booted to MS-DOS you should see something like this:
The C:> is what you are interested in
Remove the flash drive and boot back into Windows (CTRL-ALT-DEL).
2. Loading the necessary files
Navigate to the root of the USB boot drive and copy the “hddhackr.com” and “hddss.bin” files there. Here’s the tricky part, if you have a SATA controller that’s NOT Nforce 4, continue to part 3. If you your SATA controller IS Nforce 4 or any nVidia controller, you are going to have to do some edits first so continue to 2a
2a. Editing hddhackr to auto detect your nVidia SATA controller
- Download and install HEX Workshop
- When in Windows type msinfo32 in your Run prompt (if in 98/XP) or search prompt in Vista
- Once the Information panel opens, navigate to Components/Storage/IDE and you should see something like this:
- write down the corresponding digits in the highlighted area of the screen shot, yours will be different but it will be in the same area on the first and third I/O Port lines that end in a “7”
- Each set of controllers corresponds to your SATA Controllers, that first set would be your 1/2 SATA ports while the second set is your 3/4 SATA ports. So depending on which port you plug your 360 Drive into, those are the sets of digits you need
- For Example, we are plugging in the 360 HDD into the FIRST SATA plug (refer to your motherboard instructions to see where the first port is) then the numbers I would need are 09F0 and 0970
- Now open hddhackr.com with Hex Workshop
- Scroll to the very bottom of the hex editor and change the last 8 digits to 09F0 0970 (or whatever your system said in the previous steps)
- Save the NEW hddhackr.com and replace or copy it to the flash drive (overwriting the old one if it’s already there)
3. Backing up your 360 saves and downloads
- You have two options, and the easiest one is to get yourself a memory card and just save all your stuff before you rip your 20GB HDD apart. Trust me, buy it from a place you can return opened boxed items (yes, this is evil, but so is hacking) because you’re only going to need it once.
- Any of your larger downloads you can download again once your new HDD has been installed and formated.
- GAMERTAG: IMPORTANT - make sure you MOVE your gamertag to the memory card and not just copy. When your new HDD is set up, MOVE it back from the card to the HDD.
- Another method involves you reading the information from the old HDD and copy it over to the new HDD with a program called Xplorer360. That’s beyond the scope of this tutorial and frankly, I haven’t done that so I can’t show you how (there are reports of this program corrupting your saves so you have been warned!)
4. Flashing your New 120GB HDD
- Turn off your PC
- Disconnect ALL your SATA devices (you can leave the leaders plugged into the the motherboard)
- Connect your 120GB WD hard drive to the first SATA controller port
- Insert your MS-DOS boot drive into an USB port and reboot your computer
- Once you are at the DOS prompt, type in this at the C:> prompt:
“hddhackr -f” (without the quotes)
The program will ask you if you want to create an Undo file, say yes.
You will get a prompt that says it’s been flashed successfully after a few minutes.
Shut down the computer, wait 10 seconds, and reboot into DOS.
type “hddhackr -f ” at the “C:> ” (again, without the quotes)
a prompt should appear telling you that the drive should now work for the 360
5. Replacing your 20GB HDD with the new 120GB
Watch this Video for disassembly, Amoeller on youtube did a much better job than I could ever have, as he says, this is the part where you will void your HDD warranty:
Repeat the steps in reverse to replace the 20GB HDD with the 120GB HDD
6. Format your New 120GB HDD for use
- Start your Xbox 360 console without a disc in the disc tray.
- In the System section of the Xbox 360 Dashboard, select Memory to view the Storage Devices area.
- In the Storage Devices area, select Hard Drive if you want to format the hard drive or other storage device, and then press the Y button on your Xbox 360 controller or on the remote control.
- In the Device Options area, select Format. You receive the following message:
- To format your Xbox 360 Hard Drive, select Yes. (NOTE: you maybe asked to enter in your console Serial Number, this is normal depending on the version of the dashboard you have and the SN can be found at the back of the console above the power plug)
7. Profit!
Congratulations, you should now have a brand spanking new 120GB HDD for use with the new XBOX experience. Perfect for installing all your games on to the drive with all that space. It’s normal to only see 112GB of space on that new drive because MS reserves some space for system files. Make sure you MOVE your gamertag back onto the new HDD and all your save files as well. Feel free to re-download all your content from XBL too.
I hope this guide was helpful! If you have any comments or suggestions, leave a comment at the end of the post and I’ll be sure to help you out if I can or point you in the right direction!
THANKS/CREDITS: PCWorld, amoeller via youtube, Xbox-Scene, TheSpecialist, Bay-Wolf, Ultimate Boot CD, Pendrive Linux, and GOOGLE for being a great search engine!
Amos Ngai
This guide has been superceeded by the latest 360 HDD upgrade guide found here.
Reader Comments (54)
Thanks for this. http://gamerwok.com/ is now in my feed reader, I'll keep and eye out for your next story. I like the layout of your site, nice and clean and easy to read. Thakns.
Thanks for your comments, Akmed. I hope you continue to enjoy the content. Check out the podcast if you haven't already done so, it's a lot of fun!
Hello Nguy...
The post you made on how to do it all is great!
What if we were to get a Western Digital 2.5″ Hard Drive that was greater in size than 120GB?
Would it only show 120GB? until Microsoft were to upgrade the HDD again to allow a bigger HD size?
Would the xbox work fine and work with a HD greater than 120GB?
Hey JT, as far as what the users on the forums have said, it's possible to use a larger HDD as long as it's a WD Scorpio. But because the firmware you are flashing on it is a 120GB, the 360 will only see 120GB. I personally haven't tried this yet and there are people reporting that it may not work at all so I would suggest tracking down a 120GB if you can. Newegg has these in stock last I checked and if you're in Canada, I have it linked in the guide where to purchase it as well. Cheers!
hi. does it have to be a western digital with that specific model?
is it safe to go online xbox live with this mod?
tia.
Hi Manny,
If you want to mod to a 120GB HDD, it HAS to be that particular drive. Because that's the type of drive MS uses and also is the only one that will accept the hacked firmware you flash it with. If you follow the instructions and you use a memory card to transfer your files, you SHOULD be safe. I can't guarantee that it will be 100% because I don't know what MS does to detect changes but since you aren't hacking your saves (which is why you should use a memory card so the files aren't changed) then it's no different if you were to upgrade a 20GB to a 120GB store bought. I personally haven't been banned on XBL and many others on the Xbox-Scene forums that have done this mod have also been safe for over 1.5 years. Good Luck!
Nguy, Is this the only modded feature on your 360? I've been searching for any tales of being banned for only having a modded HD, not dvd-firmware or anything else. I haven't seen even one story of banned with only upgraded hd. I have a few friends that want me to upgrade them but I worry they would be pretty sad if they get banned. Thanks....
...TUT works great Bonus I didn't need to do step 2a. Also I used Xplorer360_extreme2 instead of the mem card. Cheers
Glad the Tut worked well for ya and that you didn't have to deal with 2a - that part is a bitch! I have a few 360's and there is a virgin 360 with only this mod on it but I haven't owned that one for very long. It did survive the latest Ban Hammer last month (but so did my other ones.) There were *some* posts on xbox-scene a LONG time ago - when this method was first discussed (even before there was a 120GB MS HDD) and people said that they did experience bans. But then again, this is the internet so take that with a grain of salt since there are those that SWEAR on their unborn child they didn't flash FW and still got banned. So far, I'm safe - DLC and XBL all works perfectly. As far as 360 knows, it's a real 120GB. I even popped it back and forth between my virgin FW and modded FW boxes and it's still fine.
One note though, the guy that got his gamertag banned because he was cheating was using Xplorer360 to hack his saves. No details were ever released on whether MS can see if you saves were ever accessed by Xplorer and that's how they caught him or another method. That's why I suggested to use the Memory Card, on the extra safe side. But I think honestly, it's probably safe.
I'm wanting to buy a "Western Digital Scorpio WD3200BEVT 320GB 5400 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Notebook Hard Drive - OEM" for my 360 I'm need to know first if it'll work/safe. I dont want to loose my consoles Live ability. It's a Halo 3 Editio and I want to keep my origonal HDD Case so it doesnt look tacky. Thx for any help.
P.S. Am I Need to know if my xbox will beable to see all of My HDD.
Hi Shadowknight, the larger hard drives *should* work but that one you listed WILL NOT. The WD hard drive needs to end in a "BEVS" before the flash tool will recognize it. As for it being safe, yes, it's safe. As long as you don't play burned games and you aren't changing any of the gamesaves on your HDD, Microsoft should not ban you. BUT this isn't a 100% guarantee because I'm not Microsoft. The only 100% guarantee is if you got and buy a real 120GB Xbox360 HDD and use that instead. Check here for more information, maybe post in there as well to see if anyone can tell you for sure that it's 100% safe.
I personally haven't been banned and those I know that has made the hack also hasn't been.
I'm sorry, but I don't know what you are trying to ask :)
"P.S. Am I Need to know if my xbox will beable to see all of My HDD.
I’m sorry, but I don’t know what you are trying to ask"
I think he wants to know if he is going to see all of his hdd volume.. i.e: has 320gb but only sees 250gb. ;)
So long,ParaDoXXX.
AH! You sir, are a linguistics master :) Unfortunately, the 360 will only see the 120GB MAX. That's a firmware limitation and has nothing to do with your drive.
I am having trouble i bought a 1gb kingston digital traveler.. and it isnt working. i have dowloaded the files. the problem i am having is with the usb boot disk. i copied the files like i am supposed to but when after using the usb format drive, none of the files on that are supposed to be transfered to the usb drive have been transfered. do you have any idea what could have gone wrong
Did you try it with both methods? If you used both methods and neither way worked then it would seem like your flash drive can't be made bootable (I had an issue with a few others as well). Try another or return it and get another Kingston - mine was a 4GB version that I got for $10 so you could always try that one. Hope it works out!
i have a boot drive and that is working how do i know if i booted into a pure ms-dos.. every time i go into hacker i get an error reading file message do u have any idea what could have caused this
I have the nforce controller and i added the extra lines into hddhackr i have the 120 gig and when i try to run the hddhackr -f in ms dos i get the error "could not open file" right after it says accessing drive
oh and it seems my extra 8 numbers are the same as yours
sorry for the comment spam this is my last one im an idiot i didnt have the hddss file on my flash drive great tutorial.
Even computer Techs make mistakes lol
Hey KGrif, glad you figured it out :) give the guide a digg if you haven't. And @theKid3, this might be the same issue for you if you didn't put the hddss.bin file in the same location as your hddhackr.com - give it a try and see if it works.
I just ran through this very helpful little guide with a WD1600BEVS Scorpio 160GB 5400 RPM 8M drive (AUD$80 at umart). Did the memory card transfer (many many times to get all the purchased content across as it was only a 256 MB card). I now have a happy and working 120 GB drive for my console. Thanks heaps for this Nguy.
I guess my one added tip, if you need to do multiple transfer iterations with a memory card, is that you should move your gamer tag profile to the memory card first and then leave it there for the entire multi-stage transfer process and make it the last thing you transfer off the card onto the new hdd. This is because virtually every copy or move process will require you to sign in to Live to do it. Having the profile on the memory card makes this possible.
I'm glad your upgrade worked out Slartimitvar! I'll update the post with your suggestion, thanks for your contribution! What you could have also done was re-download the content once your new HDD was set up since it's tied to your gamertag and would have shown that you had previously purchased the content. That's another way vs. doing multiple transfers for those that don't have 2 Xbox's
Will having a hdss.bin from 'bay' or wherever you can get, get you banned from live? That is unless you have your own 120gb hdd from M$.
The hddss.bin file is just a rip of the official firmware from the 120GB drive that MS ships. It's not going to get you banned unless Microsoft starts to detect accessory mods. As long as you don't CHANGE or MODIFY your save files in anyway, then you are safe.
Thanks for the info. Really appreciate all the help you've helped me and the others here :)
This is by far the best instruction guide for upgrading the Xbox 360 hard drive because it explains the USB boot option, to me that was the key, And as everyone says "If I did it anyone can do it. At about a quarter of the way through I noticed it was much easier then I was making it out to be. THANKS A TON!!!