Tech question for someone smarter than me...

[Seamus Haley]

Mmmkay so... I pretty much build my own PCs out of parts rather than dropping twice the money for half the power with one of those package deals so I'm not a *complete* idiot when it comes to this sort of thing, but I've hit a situation which I may or may not have the ability and knowledge to go forward with.

X-Boxes... A microsoft product that had a very slow round of initial sales because they were twice the cost of the Playstation 2 and Game Cube and they only had two or three game titles avaliable for the first six months or so. They now cost $150, give or take and it's rumored that Microsoft (selling to retailers for a fraction of the end consumer cost) isn't making much of a profit of console sales (some sources online even claim they lose money) and is relying on software sales to make up the difference. What is undeniable is that there are a lot of substandard parts which are used in x-boxes. The DVD drive is a piece of garbage and they end up succumbing to material fatigue with even moderate levels of use, the drive ends up misaligned and the error messages about reccognizing the CDs start becoming more and more frequent, games which have a lot of loading to do or are particularly dependant on reading the CD as gameplay progresses become virtually impossible to play.

So Fable crapped out on me and I enjoy the game.

I cracked open the X-Box (barely out from under warranty) with the idea of perhaps realigning the DVD drive (I've done so successfully with a low end DVD player that had problems and have done so with countless ancient CD drives) only to find that it had REALLY crapped out and that there are a number of cogs which have missing or damaged teeth, so that the CD just isn't sitting anywhere near where it should be when the tray is in... I could measure out the cogs and carefully dismantle the whole thing but that sounds lieka serious pain and I discovered that inside every X-Box is a PC. Flat out, no question motherboard, harddrive and DVD drive connected with ribbon cables, it even has a removeable chip and DIMM modules.

So in looking at what's inside the x-box, I have an urge to poke things and end up switching RAM around and using a PC style DVD drive to play a couple games, but this is all with the cover off and it can't be put back on with a replacement drive that doesn't have the same shape. I figure that I've got a lot of spare PC parts sitting in boxes taking up space (I replace parts on the "good" PC and have a series of secondary systems which go steadily down in quality as the parts replaced are retired to a lesser machine, it makes lan games for older titles a piece of cake)... So I want to build myself some X-Boxes. Not only do I want to take the contents of the current X-Box and put it in a PC tower with a better DVD drive that won't crap out (That one is fairly easy) but I want to take some of these spare boards and drives and copy the X-Box operating system onto them.

Problem is, I have no idea how the X-Box hardrive (looks like a 20 gig actually, better than I expected) is formatted or partitioned and I hesitate to try setting it up as a slave to a drive running DOS and Windows to find out... Copying the X-Box harddrive to another is something I also have not the slightest idea of how to accomplish, since generally I have copied directly from a drive which was going to be running an identical operating system...

Anyone, anywhere, have ANY ideas? I know I can wipe a harddrive by switching the pin configuration, but after getting a "clean" drive, I have no idea what to do next in getting the contents of an X-Box drive onto a second harddrive and would appreciate any help anyone can give me.

 

[Clay Davenport]

This is out of my area, since I have absolutely no knowledge of an X Box, but one thing came to mind with copying the drive.

I use a program called Drive Image Pro for backing up my system. It basically takes a picture of the contents of the drive and converts it to an image file that can be restored or placed on another drive. I use it as a fail safe to guard against complete data loss, and to make my own restore option in the event of the need to completely format a drive.

Assuming windows would recognize the existance of the drive as a slave, then you would install it as another drive. Drive image would reside on the C drive, and the image would also be stored on C, since you cannot save an image to the drive being imaged.
Once the image was there, you just install any drive you want the image on and use the program to restore it to that drive.
The way I understand it Drive Image doesn't really care what's on the drive, it's just taking a snapshot of the data, so any problems with windows being able to read what's on the drive in a way as to use the data would be irrelevant.

There would be one way to avoid trying to slave it. You could hook it up with an SATA connection using a PCI card and an adapter for the purpose. The benefit of SATA here is there is no master/slave configuration, it's just another drive.
I wouldn't think just hooking it up to a PC would endanger the data on the drive.

It's a very interesting idea, but unfortunately this meager idea is all I can offer.

 

[mycurlylocks]

Gee, I really feel lucky. We have of the first Xboxes that came out and it still works fine. It gets used almost every day. I had started to buy Fable, but the reviews said it was short. I decided to wait for either a used copy or a price drop.

I know my Xbox came with an 8G, locked hardrive. Supposedly it runs off of a stripped down version of Windows CE.

I don't know much about it, but you might read this information and see if it helps you any:

http://www.copying-xbox-games.com/tutorials.php?tutorialid=00000032

It seems to explain how to transfer the hard drive info. Hope it helps a little.

Good luck,
Candy

 

[Pug]

I'm not too sure about the X-Box hard drive but my friend did replace his (was a 10GB one) with a 120GB Seagate and added a mod chip. He said that adding the new hard drive was easy. I suppose I'll ask him for specifics. He had to add something to get it working.

I'll find the link later, but there's a nice site that features Xbox modsand I know of a webby that sells specialized HTPC (Home Theater PC) style cases for Xboxes.

My first Xbox broke, due to the DVD drive dying and me breaking it after I took it apart. I've also had the DVD drive in my Playsatation 2 crap out, so it's not just the Xbox. Thankfully my Gamecube is still as functional as it was on day one, and it's my most used system, next to the PC.

Fable can be short, it really depends on how eager you are to complete the main quest. There's around 20 hours of playtime if you only do the main quest oriented storyline, and not stop to enjoy yourself by getting fat and married. It's pretty deep, but some parts, like getting fat and married, aren't as developed as they could have been. Overall though, it's worth its price. I'm on my third playthrough as an evil-as-can-be mage/sorcerer. My first run had me playing as a sword wielding goody-two-shoes with a halo 'round my head and a circle of butterflies circling it. The 2nd time I was an archer with a mixed disposition (balverines fall to the bow pretty quickly).