I need a little help if I may, I took an 80G hard drive out of my xbox and I want to put it into my computer, when I go to format the drive I get this C:\BIN> and it will not let me format the drive can any one tell me how to correct this or even what it means, Thank you.
I'm no expert but what method of format was you trying? WIndows disc at startup (you have windows? what version?) Disc manager? Does computer startup and run normal but not recognize drive? I don't know where your C:\BIN> comes up at but thats normally main drive not the extra one yer trying to install.
I had a problem reformating a hd a while back and recieved lots of help and solved my problem here... http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/209215 Maybe it will work for you as well.
If you need a boot disk, go to www.bootdisk.com. Then follow what jjcurran said. Should take care of your problem. ~Rich
I tried to do a format from windows xp and I tried to do one using windows 98 and ME, I tried to do FDISK and will not, it keeps going right back to c:\BIN>. Thanks for all your help.
you probably can't format it because windows can't read the current drive format. you will need to delete the xbox partition, create a new partition (ntfs) and then format.
in winXP: control panel > administrative tools > computer management click on disk management. right-click on the 80GB drive, and select delete partition. then select create new partition and follow the steps.
You can always use DBAN, it's free for individual use on the net (google dban). You can download a floppy boot version, this program will WIPE the hard drive clean, after which you should be able to do a windows format, make sure you do a FULL format, not the quick. If you use DBAN make sure than NO other hard drive is plugged into your computer (just unplug the data cables) so as to not accidently wipe out your other hard drives. It will take HOURS to wipe the disk, so don't be impatient. Another possible solution is to go to the hard drive manufacturer's site and download their disk utilities. Most will have a program that will do a low level format, if so this might be the best solution.
YES the drive is unlocked by xbox and to use dban do I copy this to a floppy or cdr and what file do I copy to use this, thanks for all your help.
Go here and download this program. Run it from the hard drive with a clean floppy in the floppy drive. It will MAKE a bootable floppy. http://dban.sourceforge.net/ Then disconnect all hard drive data cables except the one you want to wipe, boot computer with FLOPPY IN DRIVE. This will start the program, it boots you into Linux. If you can't figure it out how to use DBAN from the screens DON'T DO IT, it is easy for someone who has some basic computer skills, if this isn't you, don't do it. If you start the WIPE process LET IT FINISH, don't screw with the computer while it's wiping, it will take some hours depending on size of disk and speed of computer.
I have what appears to be an unusual hd locking/unlocking problem. I unlocked an xbox hd, put it in my computer and formated it for use with windows. After i rebooted it locked the hd. Now i cannot unlock it with the xbox as it will not boot. I have tried using xboxhdm with the password, and the eeprom that i backed up before I removed it from the xbox. But none of the unlock utils will unlock it. It is a 250 gig western digital. Any help will be greatly appreciated.
I am trying this DBAN program and it has been running now for about 24 hours, how long does this program normally take, thanks for all your help.
About 4-5 hours on a 250gb disk in QUICK mode on a fast computer, if you didn't specify quick it will make a THREE PASS Dept. of Defense standard wipe, don't know how long that takes. Did you go to the hard disk manufacturer's web site and check out their tools/utilities under downloads. Every disk I've ever had from Seagate, Maxtor, Western Digital, Hitachi or Samsung has had utilities to wipe disks, upgrade bios and do low level formats. One of these items should work if the DBAN doesn't. If you've got an old version of DOS around that would likely allow you to format the disk, the problem is Windows.
