hdd swap

[joe_stereo]

Hi all.
So i've been trying for a couple of days now to swap my xbox hard drive into my computer. I go into the dashboard, play a song on the hd, pause it and wait for an hour or two. Then i plug 'er in to my pc boot it up. The BIOS recognises the drive on Secondary Master(Good) and continues to boot windows.(Windows takes much longer to boot). When I get to windows the drive is detected. I click next, next, then "Windows fails to install the drive"

HDD Driver does not see the Drive, so what am I doing wrong? Please help, I would really like to see this work.

[AlcoholFuelled]

If windows is taking a considerably long time to load then this is generally a sign of the hard drive not unlocking.

[joe_stereo]

Could you suggest a game with a menu that will spin down the hard drive? Also, when it "spins down" does it stop or just slow down?

[AlcoholFuelled]

Rather than me suggesting a game that you might not have, just throw in a game you own and see if the game stays at the menu (dosnt play demos) and that it plays the same (or preferably no) music/sounds.


Cheers
AlcoholFuelled

[ashton]

Your problem is that you wait for the hdd to spin down...have you previously installed evox? if you have, go to the backup option in the system utils, once there, ftp to your xbox and download the backup folder from your c drive..that contains the hdd key...get unlockx to unlock your hdd in dos mode, boot up into windows again and use hdd driver. it will recognize it...if you havent installed evox yet, you can get the xbox hdd to unlock by simply booting up, letting it sit at the dashboard until screen dims...then do the hot swap, make sure you have paused the detection of your IDE devices on the pc, then resume right after you swap...then hdd driver will recognize the drive...hope i helped..

[hans wurst]

i had the same problem.

the "normal" way to unlock the hd didn't work for me.

i had to boot up the pc with the locked drive. afterwards i plugged it to the xbox (still with power from the pc) load a game and the corresponding savegame from the hd and then reconnect the hd to the pc. without spinning down and no reboot of the pc.
now hdd driver found my hdd and i could make a backup,...

[catfish]

the problem is related to how BIOS handles the IDE detection. some will work fine if it's paused before detetion, some will reset the drive upon detection (relocking it) and others will not allow you to to pause before the IDE detetction starts
depending on the BIOS in your motherboard, there are several ways to get the drive to initialize properly.

For starters, always detect the the drive in CMOS setup first (auto detect is not recommended for this)- then save and exit.
I have also had better luck using the memory option in the dashboard to make sure the drives are unlocked. (browse through what you have)

1. the easiest way (if it works for you) is to re-enter CMOS setup with the Xbox drive attached, wait in there while you use the Xbox to unlock the drive, reconnect the HD and then exit without saving (this option will work for you if your system exits CMOS without reseting). (If it counts the memory, try another option).
2. Set IDE HD-delay option in CMOS to 15 sec or the max allowed and try to be quick.
3. pause after the IDE detetion, then reconnect the HD to the Xbox to allow the Xbox to unlock it, then reconnect to PC and continue booting.
4. The hardest way is when you have to time the pause key from just after the RAM count to just before IDE detection, this is achieved when the text stops wrinting on the screen beneath the RAM.

What AlcoholFuelled said is correct, if it takes long to boot, the drive is not unlocked. I would suggest setting the bootmenu to always show as this could save you alot of time.