DIY Hack: How to upgrade your 360's 20 GB HD to 120 GB HD

[TStodden]

Source: http://www.pcworld.com/article/150970/u ... cheap.html

For those who have a 20 GB HD on your XBox 360 & want to upgrade to 120 GB's, but don't want to pay the $200 that Microsoft is demanding...

Here's what you'll need.

* Torx screwdrivers (to disassemble & reassemble the 360 HD enclosure)
* 120 GB Western Digital Scorpio Blue HD, Model Number WD1200BEVS ( http://www.wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=200 , ~$70 direct w/ shipping) -- CRITICAL ITEM!
* An opened computer that can boot-up from a USB flash drive & a SATA connector.
* A spare USB Flash drive

You'll want to visit the source link above for the details, but the quick & dirty deal is that you remove the old HD, format the 120 GB hard drive (& it has to be this specific hard drive) to the XBox 360 format (which has to be done in DOS, hence the USB Flash drive requirements) & put the new HD in.

This way, you can upgrade your XBox 360's storage space for about HALF (or even a third, if you have the Torx screwdrivers already) of what Microsoft is demanding.

[soloist]

Interesting information, TStodden!
A friend of mine mentioned h-
ow he was able to add his
own harddrive, so I g-
uess this was the
method used
for the pr-
ocedu-
re.

[TStodden]

Most likely. The writes on PC World note specifically states that you need that specific drive to get it to work... most likely as somebody discovered that it's the same model that the 120 GB HD when they opened it up & dug around online.

[soloist]

Could you imagine someone JUST happening
to stumble upon such information or
being bored or clever enough t-
o compute the possibility
though? Then again,
it's been done o-
n the origin-
al Xbox
(no-
t that
really ne-
eded to sinc-
e there was way
too mudch room on
the original Xbox's hard-
drive. That is why Miccroso-
ft lowered the storage capacity
for the 360 with the idea of upgra-
ding the harddrive after becoming full.