I bought a new 250 GB HDD. I want to use it in place of the Xbox's small factory HDD. I used xboxhdm 1.9 to build the HDD, and I included the eeprom as instructions state. This went smooth. I then installed the ndure 3.1 softmod, which also went smooth. I have installed the ndure softmod before, and everything flowed the same as it did with my previous success. I popped the HDD in my Xbox, and I get error 5. I am to understand this is an error that comes up pertaining whether or not the HDD is locked or not. Since the ndure softmod is installed on the HDD, I don't see what the problem is. Is there any way for me to lock the HDD to fix this, if that's even what I need to do? Help will be appreciated. Also: I have an external harddrive enclosure, so can I put the 250 GB HDD I wish to use in the enclosure, hook it up to my pc, and make whatever changes need be made there? I dunno if it will work like that, but I have the option. I've read about this ConfigMagic program, can I alter the eeprom to whatever it needs to be directly with it?
error 5 meaning that it is not locked, but you already knew that. did you lock the harddrive with xboxhdm? it looks like you didn't, because if you locked it with the right eeprom you wouldn't get error 5 (perhaps error 16 relating to the dashboard); and if you locked it with the wrong eeprom you would get error 6. an unlocked hdd can be read using fatxplorer or something alike if hooked up to f.i. an usb enclosure, a locked hdd cannot be read. so you always need to unlock the hdd before hooking it up to your usb enclosure. this all leads me to believe that you created a hdmi disk, run an fatx formatted and installed the software on the hdd. but you didn't lock the hdd (option 3 on the xboxhdm disc if i remember correctly). so you still need to lock it (boot xboxhdm and lock it again. be sure it says status locked after locking, perhaps you have an unlockable hdd). on a side note: a softmod requires the hdd to be locked, only a tsop flash or hardmod doesn't require a locked hdd afaik only partitions c-e can be accessed with fatxplorer or alike, the f and g partitions cannot unfortunately. if they can, please correct me and point me to the utility that can read partition f and g
Thanks for the reply. I'm sure my problem is the unlocked HDD at this point. Is it possible to use xboxhdm to lock the HDD with ndure already installed, or should I start from scratch? I tried locking the HDD before I put ndure on by using the "lockhd -a" command, but it for some reason told me it couldn't get the password. I did put the correct eeprom on the boot disc, so I'm not really sure what the problem is. I notice there is also an option to try to lock it with a floppy? Also, does the HDD need to be hooked up to the Xbox to lock/unlock it? I tried to do it all without hooking it up to the Xbox because for some reason it keeps turning off midway through installations, but that's another problem all together.
let me give you a small run through how i upgrade / rebuild hdd's, since the procedure you did is not quite clear to me: i created a xboxhdm disc, with in the c and e folder all the files needed. i have a 'clean' disc, in which the c folder only has a ms dashboard. and i have a 'softmod' disc, in which the c folder has the sofmod (i use avalaunch as main startup dash btw). after putting all the files in correctly, i just created the disc and burned it to a cd. i DIDNT put the eeprom file in the eeprom folder, since i use the disc for different xbox'es and need different eeproms, and the file is case sensitive. if i remember correctly, it has to be in capital letters (EEPROM.BIN) or else you will get the message that something has failed etc. because it cannot find the eeprom.bin file. then attach the hdd to your computer, boot up the cd. choose option 1; put in xboxhdm then choose option 1 rebuild from scratch, ends me up with a prepared xbox hdd. then I reboot the cd again with the hdd still connected. then choose option 3; boot with locking and unlocking tools. then lockhd -a; it gives a search and cannot find anything (since there is no eeprom.bin on the cd anyways). then option 1; have floppy or put in floppy. put in the floppy with eeprom on it, then hit the option with the floppy disc and i am done. you will get a status meny displaying the hdd key and telling you that the hdd is locked. then put the hdd into your xbox and power the xbox on. if i use the softmod disc, i end up with a softmodded xbox (based on the SID) booting into avalauch. no further work needed; if i use the clean ms dash disc, i end up with a booting ms dash. then i just run the softmod via splinter cell and sofmod it to my liking. also ends up with a softmodded xbox. i believe you made a correct disc, but the eeprom cannot be found hence any error message while trying to lock. so do like i do, put the eeprom.bin (no capital letters needed, just be sure it is eeprom.bin) on a floppy (put it in the root of the floppy).
The floppy disk method worked like a charm. Unfortunately, I was absent minded when making the ndure disk, and forgot to enable NKP .67 to make a G: partition for HDDs over 137 GB... is there any way I can remedy this without having to do the whole thing over? It's unfortunate that I didn't realize I made this mistake until I finally got the thing locked, how easy would it be to add a G: partition? Can XboxHDM easily unlock the HDD so I can reinstall ndure with NKP .67? edit: Made this post prematurely, I was looking around UnleashX and it turns out there's a simple option to enable the G: partition. Formatted it and it works fine. Thanks for your help.
avalaunch itself also had the ability to enable and disable both f and g partitions; but you figured it out.
