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Xbox External HD - USB

Discussion in 'Xbox - Hardware mods' started by Reframer, Mar 25, 2007.

  1. Reframer

    Reframer Member

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    I have looked, possibly I am blind. However does anyone know if I can just plug an external HD into the xbox via USB. This would be to play AVI's and such through XBMC. I thank you all.

    Reframer
     
  2. 3lement

    3lement Regular member

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    This was the same question my brother asked me. The controller ports on the xbox are usb ports just made bigger. You might be able to transform one of them into a usb by wasting a controller. but im not sure if the xbox would read it probably not...
     
  3. Reframer

    Reframer Member

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    For $5 on ebay a guy can buy the adapters, so that is not the problem. I just want to know if it works, if it does just P&P it would be the easiest solutions for modders. Someone ever try this??
    Thanks
    R
     
  4. handsom

    handsom Regular member

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    Nope. The Xbox won't read it, even modded it won't be recognized in anything but linux and a couple homebrew programs. Probably not the answer you're hoping for, but at least you can save yourself the money...

    Those adapters are usually for keyboards, etc; or homebrew stuff.
     
  5. 3lement

    3lement Regular member

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    alright thnx for answering this question. ive been looking for an answer forever lol thnx again.
     
  6. Burnasty

    Burnasty Regular member

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  7. 3lement

    3lement Regular member

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    yea but when you do this will the xbox be able to read like an external hd. i mean if not whats the point?
     
  8. Burnasty

    Burnasty Regular member

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    no it can't read a hd but it can read a keyboard and mouse and usb stick drive and memory cards.
     
  9. Reframer

    Reframer Member

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    Does this mean that it can actually read one of those 40 80 GB USB "portable" drives???
     
  10. Burnasty

    Burnasty Regular member

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  11. 3lement

    3lement Regular member

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    It can read a usb memory stick? like a 1gig? id put in usb ports if it can do that.
     
  12. mikeh0303

    mikeh0303 Regular member

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    if you plug an old ipod(mini) into the xbox it will re-format it and I think you might be able to use it. But it will destroy the ipod and it is very hard to fix the ipod. Do this at your own risk!
     
  13. 3lement

    3lement Regular member

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    yea but i mean like a little memory stick. Like a little usb memory stick. they vary from 1gig to like 4gigs. would it be able to read that? anyone know? thnx
     
  14. handsom

    handsom Regular member

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    I'm going to give a more solid answer, so that there's no room for error.

    Unless your memory storage device is either an internal hard drive or an xbox-formatted memory card in the controller- The xbox won't read it.

    There is no USB stick/drive that will work any differently in this case or any external hard drive enclosure. It is what it is, and that's all.

    The only remote exception is a mod that some of the more extreme users have done; to add a second hard drive, but it uses an ide chain, not USB; and they usually end up doing a SEVERE mod to the xbox case to try and make it look right. But that's hardly an external solution. That requires going through a lot of trouble for very little real use.

    Besides, I get the idea that reframer is looking to use XBMC for hefty media playback, but doesn't want to crack open his system.

    I'm in a good mood this morning, so I'm going to offer something that I've never heard someone try before, do with it what you will.

    The XBMC OS won't read something that isn't already in the FAT-X file system, unless it's a CD/DVD. So, theoretically, if you could format a hard drive to FAT-X(Lookup XBoxHDD here), you *might* be able to make the xbox read it. However, you *might* also have to lock it to your system's unique code. Be forewarned though, once that thing is in FAT-X format, it's a lot harder to read in anything but that xbox, you can't just pop it back into your pc and change files with Windows. I'm not garaunteeing this will work, I'm honestly not even going to give you 50/50 odds; but I will say I've never heard of someone trying it, and it just might be worth a shot, if you have the technical know-how. You would probably have to wire the usb enclosure up to one of the memory card ports in your controller; and you might even have to see about editing the USB device's interface to make it be recognized under the same code as an M$ memory card, I don't think you would though, because AR and M$ both made memory cards with different USB ID's, and they both work fine, so I don't think this would be an issue.

    Anyways, that is the only conceivable way it could possibly work, and it's a long shot that may have no results anyways, but if you really want to do external that's the only way that even might work.

    Like I said, no USB stick drive will be any different. And if you want to save yourself the time on trying to re-wire the enclosure to the memory card port(Techinically USB), you could find a "Sharkboard" for usually less than ten bucks now, and it comes with a USB adapter for your memory card ports which works equally well. I used it for keyboard/mouse setups often, so if you can get the drive converted to FAT-X, it just *MIGHT* work; but to my knowledge, no one has ever tried it before.
     
  15. mikeismad

    mikeismad Regular member

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    ive done it, i tried to format one and use as a usb in an external casing, and it didnt work at first, but i reformatted it in windows and it worked just fine after i did that, but be warned, getting it out of fat-x will be a problem :(
     
  16. handsom

    handsom Regular member

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    I want to make sure we're on the same page, because I think there may be some room for error here.

    Are you saying that you got an external usb hard drive, reformatted it in fat-x, then formatted it with windows(NTFS or Fat32?) then, and only then, it worked with the xbox? Because that wouldn't make a lick of sense, when you reformat, it should leave behind no trace of it's prior ToC, etc, so it shouldn't read if it's not Fat-X at all... It would be just like it was never Fat-X to begin with. I can't imagine why or how that would work. But if I read that right, I'd sure love some more info, I've got multiple 'boxes, and I'd love to have one shared external drive for them, that'd be great!

    I'm not sure if I read that right though, because upon a second read through, it looked like there may be some room for reader error.
     
  17. 3lement

    3lement Regular member

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    Alright thnx i didnt think that it could read a usb stick. someone said you could, just making sure, thnx
     

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