Changing A Drive

[Animotion]

Hi nice place you have here

I have been reading up a lot on changing my 360's drive, (i'm having disc read trouble with old drive)

Last night i opened my 360 up and have found that my drive is hitachi 360 with rom ver 0047DH

I would like to change this to my new samsung ms25 drive i brought, from what i've read and looked at , i need to do these steps

1. Put my hitachi drive into mode b using slax , so i can get out the drives key with firmware toolbox , raw dump?
2. this would give me my original key/bin for hitachi?

3. change drive and use iprep to get a dump from my samsung ms25?
4. insert original samsung bin into firmware toolbox then where key is insert hitachi key ?,
5. spoof ms25 bin to report as hitachi 47dh
6. At this point i'd have a samsung drive that i could use in my 360?

7. If i wanted to make custom firmware for samsung from there?

I hope i got the steps correct I just want to make absolutely sure before i begin

[CoFree]

that sound right to me
getting the hit in mode b with slax can be a pain some times.
when i do a hit drive i use these tools.
Team Xecuter is called the X360USB found here
http://www.consolesource.com/ecomm/cata ... -2467.html
it can be priceeee if you are only doin 1
to get the drive in modeB i use this.1 click and its in modb (love this thing)it will also let you power the samsung so the 360 wont be needed to power when you are flashing it.
http://www.consolesource.com/ecomm/cata ... -2469.html

im not the best at spoffing.
you may want to wait till sadalius can have a look.

[sadalius]

Like cofree said, but if your just doing the one drive, then I would give slax a try. Once you get it into mode b and into windows to where it can see the drive, just use firmware toolbox 4.5 to dump the firmware and open it. Get your key. Once you do that your 1/3 done.

The next step would be to dump the firmware of your samsung. Follow the guides on here to do that. I've also got a guide in the tutorial section here on spoofing the drives as well. But once you get your samsung dump, open it with firmware toolbox and replace the key with the one from your hitachi. Then spoof the firmware to the exact same model as your hitachi. Then you can either flash it back and it be stock, or you can create a hacked firmware and flash that back.

One thing to keep in mind is to look at the keys and make sure that there not all of one character or just alot of the same character. All F's or all 0's would not be a good thing to flash to your drive as it surely would not work after that and there wouldn't be any way of recovering.

[Animotion]

Thank you both for your replys

The xecutor usb looks handy,

yes sadalius i am just doing the one drive, I think it would be overkill for me to order the kits then for the sake of one drive?
If it isn't to hard getting it into mode b with slax then i will go with that option for now.

One more thing , there is a classic dump option and a raw dump option which would be better to pick?

I take it that i have to have all hard drives removed when i use slax?

I have all parts but not any crocodile clips at the min. picking them up tommorow.

I will report back when i have my hitachi and samsung key.

[sadalius]

No, you don't have to unhook any of your drives. This is because when you reset the computer after getting the drive in mode b, you want to be able to boot into windows.

With raw mode and classic mode, I may be wrong on this, but the classic mode is if you have your hitachi connected by USB and not by sata. If you have it connected to your PC by sata, you don't have to worry about classic mode.

If you have any questions or get stuck on something, just let us know!!

[Animotion]

No, you don't have to unhook any of your drives. This is because when you reset the computer after getting the drive in mode b, you want to be able to boot into windows.

With raw mode and classic mode, I may be wrong on this, but the classic mode is if you have your hitachi connected by USB and not by sata. If you have it connected to your PC by sata, you don't have to worry about classic mode.

If you have any questions or get stuck on something, just let us know!!

I was dissconnected recently i'm back for now .

Anyways just to let you know that i tried with slax and slax 2.0 alpha, i connected my xbox with sata to main board, and my cdrom drive for booting slax with ide, it got to the login prompt for slax, i logged in and then reset, but could not see the 360s drive in drive management,

can't seem to get this running with slax ;( help,

should i just get one of thoose adapters to put it in mode b? , i mean i won't be using it afterwards as the drive keeps coming up with disc errors and stops spinning during gaming ;(

[Animotion]

that sound right to me
getting the hit in mode b with slax can be a pain some times.
when i do a hit drive i use these tools.
Team Xecuter is called the X360USB found here
http://www.consolesource.com/ecomm/cata ... -2467.html
it can be priceeee if you are only doin 1
to get the drive in modeB i use this.1 click and its in modb (love this thing)it will also let you power the samsung so the 360 wont be needed to power when you are flashing it.
http://www.consolesource.com/ecomm/cata ... -2469.html

im not the best at spoffing.
you may want to wait till sadalius can have a look.

Which would be the best for me to get? so i could use the usb 360 to get it in mode b an dump of my drive? i don't mind paying the extra if need be,

[Jman 31]

The easiest way is with the x360usb. Plus you have the extra tool in your arsenal if you ever have a buddy that needs a Hitachi done. I have this kit (comes with the connectivity kit) and though I don't use it often I'm glad I spent the little extra. You can get away without it though.IMO The v.2 connectivity kit is a must have for a serious modder though. It simplifies the whole process on all of the drives.

[sadalius]

Was the DVD drive powered on before you booted your computer?? If it wasn't then slax didn't see the drive. If it was, you may have an incompatible sata controller, a bad sata cable or such. As Slax boots up, from my experience, when it sees the drive, at a certain point, it will say "spinning up drive" and seem to get stuck there. Then you have to eject the drive and then close the tray by hand. Then Slax will boot on up and you get to the login, then you reset the computer and take the Slax disk out.

If it turns out that you have an incompatible sata controller, then you'll want the USB kit for sure. That way you won't have to use the sata connections on your PC, but rather the USB ports instead and it will work for sure that way. You will have to use a sata port for the samsung though. Unfortunately, there isn't a way around that. You might try dumping the samsung while your at it to see if you can get that to work properly.

[Animotion]

Was the DVD drive powered on before you booted your computer?? If it wasn't then slax didn't see the drive. If it was, you may have an incompatible sata controller, a bad sata cable or such. As Slax boots up, from my experience, when it sees the drive, at a certain point, it will say "spinning up drive" and seem to get stuck there. Then you have to eject the drive and then close the tray by hand. Then Slax will boot on up and you get to the login, then you reset the computer and take the Slax disk out.

If it turns out that you have an incompatible sata controller, then you'll want the USB kit for sure. That way you won't have to use the sata connections on your PC, but rather the USB ports instead and it will work for sure that way. You will have to use a sata port for the samsung though. Unfortunately, there isn't a way around that. You might try dumping the samsung while your at it to see if you can get that to work properly.

yes i turned on my 360 at the same time as my pc,

the drive was seen in my computers bios, and it went into slax, but it didn't seem to do anything, I never saw the spinning up drive msg, do u mean when the slax logo appears and then it loads all the things? not sure if it might of been the faulty cable, as when i was putting my comp back i noticed a faulty sata cable that i've thrown away, i've ordered the usb kit that comes with the connectivity v2. i'l keep it should be handy for the usb hardrive.

i'm not sure if i was unlucky enough to use the faulty cable, my sata chipset is sil or uli i think , and i used a via vt6421a tried,

so i guess it's realy easy to do the mode b thing with the usb?

thx for your replys i didn't know about the usb thing before. Yes i guess i can put in the samsung drive now and get a dump of the samsung or wait so i don't have to use the 360 power supply with connectivity kit right?

[sadalius]

I would just wait on the connectivity kit. That way you won't have to use the 360 as a power supply like you were talking about. With the connectivity kit, mode b is as simple as the press of the button on the connectivity kit. The Via 6421 card should work good for what your trying to do, but if you had a bad cable, then that will surely cause problems for you. The thing with the USB kit, the USB piece won't work with the Samsung, but I do believe that it comes with a sata cable so if you cable was bad, you can use that one and should be good.

[Animotion]

I would just wait on the connectivity kit. That way you won't have to use the 360 as a power supply like you were talking about. With the connectivity kit, mode b is as simple as the press of the button on the connectivity kit. The Via 6421 card should work good for what your trying to do, but if you had a bad cable, then that will surely cause problems for you. The thing with the USB kit, the USB piece won't work with the Samsung, but I do believe that it comes with a sata cable so if you cable was bad, you can use that one and should be good.

Hi sadalius

Yes i am just waiting on the connectivity kit atm, When that arrives i will create the dumps. I use a new sata cable to.

I had some more questions.

1. I've seen option in iprep to spoof drive, option 3 i think it was where u can put hitachi fw when making bootable flashdrive. Is ok to use iprep to spoof instead of firmware toolbox?

2. I notice that the custom firmwares have option for 12x 5x etc, some people reccommend 5x and some 12x, what do you think would be good speed to use,

[sadalius]

I don't know how iprep works for spoofing. I would imagine that it works in a similar fashion to firmware toobox, but I know how toolbox works and I know that it makes the proper changes correctly, so thats what I recommend. As for speed patching, thats totally up to you. 12x is the speed that the stock firmware is set to from the factory, so I generally stick to that, but, other people claim that MS shouldn't be able to ban you for using a slower speed citing "how would they be able to say that it just wasn't having a hard time reading the disk and switched to a slower read speed." If I were going to use a speed patched firmware, then I probably would go with the 8x. Not to fast, and not to slow.

[Animotion]

I don't know how iprep works for spoofing. I would imagine that it works in a similar fashion to firmware toobox, but I know how toolbox works and I know that it makes the proper changes correctly, so thats what I recommend. As for speed patching, thats totally up to you. 12x is the speed that the stock firmware is set to from the factory, so I generally stick to that, but, other people claim that MS shouldn't be able to ban you for using a slower speed citing "how would they be able to say that it just wasn't having a hard time reading the disk and switched to a slower read speed." If I were going to use a speed patched firmware, then I probably would go with the 8x. Not to fast, and not to slow.

Ok I will use the 5x or 8x , And firmware toolbox method,

I've just recieved my xecutor usb 360 and it comes with a connectivity kit v2, it's like a pcb black board with connections do i connect this to the 360? i din't get no instructions with it, I just want to make sure i doing it right

dont want to fux it up lol

[Jman 31]

You remove the drive from the 360. You will need a separate power supply (I use one form an old computer that I tore apart. I've also used an old xbox1 to power it up. It just needs to be a constant power supply that won't turn off when you reboot your computer) that you will plug into the connectivity kit (the piece with the mode b and eject switch on it). You will not use the power from the 360 at all. The little 3" cable supplied with the kit will plug into the connectivity kit on one end and the hit drive on the other end. You will not use the other board supplied with this kit for this application.

You will Plug the supplied usb cable into your computer's usb port and the mini usb plug into the X360USB.

The sata cable will go from the X360usb to the hit. drive.