Hardware Original Xbox Hard drive is dead, how do I fix it?

[morpline]

I have an original Xbox with a hard drive that is clicking. I don't have any backup of the data on it, is there a way to recover the data and/or get the console working again?

 

[Daggot]

You only have a few options, the old IDE HDD that was in your xbox is locked to your motherboard, to be more accurate its locked to the eeprom chip on your motherboard. There are a few ways of getting around this but all of them can be painful to some degree. Two options you have avaliable to you stand out though. You could install a modchip like an Aladdin XT plus2s or a OpenXenium. These would pretty much override the need for any more HDDs that are locked to your xbox and provide some extra functionality. Once that modchip is in you can pop in a HeXen disk with a new HDD(or SSD with an adapter) and you'd be good to go. Your other option is to pull a backup of your eeprom.bin from the chip on your motherboard using an eeprom reader connected to your pc. Most won't work when connected a computers usb port or even an adapter so you may be forced to open your computer and see if your computers motherboard has an LPC port you can use, the VGA/DVI ports on most computers also have an i2c bus you can use as well. Your goal in this method is to extract the HDD key from the eeprom and lock a new HDD to your motherboard and this will will revive your xbox in a stock, unmodified state. The HDD you choose for this method has to be compatible and it has to support locking. I'll post a compatibility list and my favorite way of making an eeprom reader/writer under this post. Although to be honest if I had to do this again I'd just use a modchip

https://xboxdrives.x-pec.com/?p=list

https://github.com/grimdoomer/PiPROM

https://icode4.coffee/?p=22

 

[FAST6191]

See above for the what you need to get it working again. HDDs are key locked and it is easier if you have the dumps made while the drive is functional, otherwise you are probably going into the hardware mod world at least temporarily (and unless you are borrowing a chip there is no point in going back). There is also the vanishingly rare chance that you have a memory card and stored your save on that (don't think I have ever seen it in the wild beyond some Halo types concerned with stats, most others only encountering them when they want to do a softmod or possibly little sibling is getting his own xbox).
Depending upon the revision of motherboard as well you might want to open it up either way to snip out the clock battery/capacitor, and possibly some other things (drive belt replacement possibly, especially if you are going from unmodded and presumably disc based game collection, some other capacitors in some models and possibly reflow some power connectors.

What I am more here to say is clicking drive might still be recoverable for at least long enough to get the keys and maybe save games too. It might be locked but it is still a spinning rust hard drive so you still then have the traditional heating, cooling (put in a sealed bag in the freezer, preferably with a silica gel or some kind of water absorbing substance), over volting (or indeed spin assisting methods in general for) the motor to overcome decades old thick grease... options that clicking tends to be at least temporarily resolved by.
I am not aware of any specific failings of xbox hard drives like there might be for certain PC models (overwritten firmware by sector reallocation, blown fusible link...) such that you could go play big boy drive forensics/repair, however most playing in xbox modding world to any serious level will be in a hurry to replace the drive and tell you this is why we do backups so where I can tell you about capacitors, CD drive belts and cold joints on connectors nobody will likely have taken the time to do anything for this (all that effort to fix a maybe 10 gig and more likely 8 gig drive when anybody who is anybody will replace it as a first course of action).

 

[morpline]

I guess I should have told you more about it.
It's got a 120 GB hard drive, and its already soft modded and has a Xecuter X2 modchip, iirc.

You could install a modchip like an Aladdin XT plus2s or a OpenXenium.

^^ Would that work?

 

[chrisrlink]

i just thought of a way if you have a raspberry pi and know a little bout (though this requires semi setting up for a mod chip so I'll go over it breifly theres a program called Piprom on github all you need is a desoldered lpc and to make it easier soilder in a LPC pin header you also need a female to female Jumper wires (their cheap got mine for $4, you only nead 3 and the pin outs are on the github in the inusrctions basicly you use Pi Prom to read your eeprom then put the eeprom.bin on a windows PC, get the beta 3.0 of FatXPlorer (itll be free til out of beta then about $25 one time license) you also need an 80wire ide cable (OEM is 40 wire) and a sata to ide adapter(and ofc a sata drive) after that format the drive to fatX load your custom dash of choice (this is the new perferable softmod method btw, go to HDD (Lock/Unlock) load your eeprmo.bin from piprom and lock it, just hook up the sata drive to the adapter and to the 80 wire drive on your og and vola

Post automatically merged: Feb 22, 2023

also if you do this nulling your hdd key even though easier to lock/unlock wont allow you to use Insignia online service but changing your hdd key to all 1's will and still achives an easier hdd password like nulling it

 

[FAST6191]

I guess I should have told you more about it.
It's got a 120 GB hard drive, and its already soft modded and has a Xecuter X2 modchip, iirc.

^^ Would that work?

You still have the physical based recovery processes available to hard drives, and if it is a known model and you care to delve into big boy hard drive recovery (a truly strange world with some truly strange people even by IT standards) you might get something there. If it is indeed a drive used in conjunction with a hardmod you might even have some more options if it is unlocked.

"soft modded and has a Xecuter X2 modchip"
OK? That is not necessarily a contradiction in terms but an odd one.
Baseline original xbox modding is broken into two categories. That being softmods and hardmods, with the drive replacement options being the main point of difference for most discussions.
Softmods and hardmods have two approaches each.
Softmods have the save exploits and drive hot swap approaches, both then ultimately exploiting after initial boot and thus needing a lockable hard drive and the console specific key for it.
Hardmods are mod chips (buy in mod chip, open source options rather minimal compared to a lot of other systems, installation not inconsiderable and gets harder for newer models) and then TSOP (basic soldering and components) for the older 1.5 and below motherboards (the 1.6 family being the last models released, also not subject to the clock cap problem). These bypass the BIOS entirely and thus don't need any console specific EEPROM/hard drive keys. I am not aware of any mod chips (or perhaps more accurately replacement BIOSes) that don't provide such things so no need to go replacing it with something else just yet.
You could have softmodded and then hardmodded later (or indeed if really bored or some means of playing official servers online the reverse) but if you have a hardmod then might as well slap another drive in and rebuild accordingly (or perhaps rebuild on the PC and then install if you want some more granularity than something like Slayer's or Auto installer deluxe/AID might provide you).

 

[Daggot]

I guess I should have told you more about it.
It's got a 120 GB hard drive, and its already soft modded and has a Xecuter X2 modchip, iirc.

^^ Would that work?

Yeah afaik, connect an unformatted drive and insert and run a disc like HeXen. It will prompt you to format and partition the drive and IIRC depending on the size of the drive it'll let you finish up in xbpartitioner. Then you just want to go into dashboard repair tools and re-install a dash and you should be fine.