Tutorial written by : Anonymous
Last edited: January 27, 2004

This is a tutorial for EASILY upgrading the hard drive in an XBOX that will be modded without a modchip. As the description says, though, you will need a chipped XBOX (chip must support an upgraded hard drive) temporarily. There are of course variations, like temporarily putting a modchip in the XBOX and then removing when everything is done, but this tutorial assumes the following things:

-You have an XBOX that you want modded WITHOUT a mod chip and you want to upgrade its hard drive... To avoid confusion, this XBOX will be known within this tutorial as "VBOX", V is for virgin.

-You have access to an XBOX that has been modified with a modchip that allows for an upgraded hard drive... this XBOX will be known within this tutorial as "CHIPBOX."

-You have Config Magic running on one of the XBOXes involved. This tutorial prefers running it from the CHIPBOX.

-You have basic knowledge regarding how to use and navigate through the hardware and software of a modified XBOX (you know how to use the Evolution X dashboard, can find tutorials on how to perform an exploit mod, upgrade a HD in a CHIPBOX, and know how to properly open and swap drives inside an XBOX.) This tutorial will not provide step-by-step instructions for some parts because other tutorials are easily available which do a much better job of explaining what to do than I could.

-For those who know what they're doing with Config Magic and EEPROM swapping, skip down to the bottom for a simple summary of the following steps:

2. Run "Backup" through EvoX on both the VBOX and CHIPBOX and transfer the backup folders that are created on the XBOXs' C drives to your PC. Make sure you are able to identify which folder came from which XBOX.

3. This is also a good time to back up the C and E drives of the VBOX to your PC.

*B. Make the EEPROM and serial numbers of both XBOXes match:

1. Make sure you have Config Magic loaded on the CHIPBOX. Put the "eeprom.bin" file from the VBOX's backup folder into the "Data" folder of Config Magic. You'll need to overwrite or erase the one that's already in there.

2. Run Config Magic on the CHIPBOX and perform these steps in this order:
{Notice the Unique HDD Key listed)
a. Unlock HDD
b. Load EEPROM from .BIN file
{Notice the Unique HDD Key now listed... it should be different. If it's not different, the eeprom.bin from the VBOX was not properly transferred to the CHIPBOX}
c. Update XBOX EEPROM
d. Load XBOX EEPROM
e. Lock HDD
{Hopefully the "unique" information from both XBOXes match now.}

*C. Install the upgrade HD intended for the VBOX into the CHIPBOX

(The theory here is that you take advantage of the simplicity of upgrading a CHIPBOX's HD while setting the right serial number on it to match the VBOX. If the EEPROM from an XBOX's motherboard and the serial number on the HD don't match, they will not run. Also, a VBOX requires that its HD be locked in order to run - a CHIPBOX can run an unlocked HD just fine.)

1. I won't bother stepping through all of this. There are great tutorials out there: http://www.xbox-scene.com/articles/hdd-install2.php , plus you probably have someone who can help you if you don't know how since you have a CHIPBOX handy likely with an upgraded HD.

2. Just make sure that if you want to keep the info (save games and stuff) from the VBOX, that you back up the C and E drives from the VBOX and use those to fill the new upgrade HD rather than using the info from the drives on the CHIPBOX.

3. I believe after preparing a HD with EvoX, it is automatically locked. Make sure the drive is locked before trying to connect it to a the VBOX.

*D. Prepare the new HD for software exploit use in a VBOX.

1. Again, if you don't already know how to do this, use someone else's tutorial. Alcoholfuelled wrote a very thorough tutorial for this which I highly recommend. It can be found here: http://forums.xbox-scene.com/... . You can start at Part 3 in his tutorial.

2. At the time of this writing, Part 5 (hex editing the dashboard) in the above tutorial did not work for me and many others. It explains how to fix occurences of "XTF" while I found it necessary to change "xtf" (lowercase.) This is significat as it means the difference between your dashboard working and not working. Of course, there are many different versions of the dashboard out there, so I am not making the claim that Alcoholfuelled's tutorial is wrong. It just didn't work in the case of the XBOXes I've modded thus far. The bottom line is that you need to try it until you get it right. BTW - I found your tutorial very useful, Alcoholfuelled, and I appreciate all your effort - lay off the crazy juice, though. It'll kill you

{Note: Even though you've prepared the HD to work with a software exploit, the modchip in the CHIPBOX bypasses it. You can always test it out by turning off the modchip if your chip has the ability. If the CHIPBOX runs the software mod properly while the modchip is disabled, you know it will work in the VBOX.}

*E. Connect the upgrade HD to the VBOX and enjoy.

{No steps... that's it}

*F. Set the CHIPBOX's EEPROM back {Optional}

1. If XBOX Live isn't part of your life, it might even be to your advantage to keep both XBOXes having the same "unique" information. That way, if there's ever a problem with a hard drive on one of them, you could have an easier time trying to fix them since you can run them in the other XBOX.

2. If you want to swap the CHIPBOX's info back to normal, see step B-2 in this tutorial. Before flashing, though, replace the eeprom.bin in Config Magic's "Data" folder with the eeprom.bin that you backed up from the CHIPBOX.

**** So that's it. It's really a very simple process and I've never had a problem with Config Magic crashing or anything during an EEPROM flash. Thanks go out to everyong involved in the scene, especially the creators of EvoX and Config Magic. Also, I know that this tutorial is kind of wordy and could work by altering some steps, but I wanted to make things as easy to understand as possible. If you notice any problems with it, please follow up in this thread and I might get around to updating it.

And, of course, this is for information purposes only. I take absolutely no responsibility for anything you choose to do or not do to your own stuff. I do, however, promise that I think this tutorial is accurate as of the time of its writing.

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If you already know how to swap EEPROMs and are handy with an XBOX, this is all you need to know:

1. Backup the EEPROM info of at least one of the XBOXes.

2. Make the EEPROM and Serial numbers of both XBOXes match by swapping one of them with Config Magic or another EEPROM flashing program.

3. Connect the new HD to the CHIPBOX and prepare it for use as if for the CHIPBOX. If you want to keep all the information from the VBOX intact, make sure to copy the C and E drives from the VBOX's retail drive onto this new HD instead of using the C and E drives from the CHIPBOX.

4. Make this new HD ready to run in a VBOX by transferring and renaming everything necessary for use with a software exploit.

5. Connect the new upgrade drive to the VBOX and enjoy.

6. (Optional step) Flash the EEPROM in whichever XBOX you flashed in Step 2 back to its original state. This step just ensures that the serial numbers within each XBOX are back to normal - The only reason I can currently see this step as being necessary is if future changes in exploit modding allow for XBOX Live and both the VBOX and CHIPBOX used here want to use the service.