Xbox Hard Drive Replacement

Written By: rmarstel
  • Comments: 25
Xbox Hard Drive Replacement

Difficulty

Easy

Steps

9

Time Required

10 - 15 minutes

Introduction

This guide will show you how to replace your Xbox's hard drive.

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    • Make sure your Xbox is safely unplugged and is laying on a flat, stable surface.

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    • Turn the Xbox over to reveal the four rubber feet.

    • Use a metal spudger to pry off the four rubber feet.

    The screw is in the outside corner. If you pry up only the half of the foot on that side, you can easily remove the (very long) screw, and the foot will stay attached.

    Ian Butler -

    Ah I always used to damage the feet.

    Andrew Veiga -

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    • There are 2 more screws hidden under the two labels on the bottom of the case.

    • You can either remove the labels or simply feel for the screw holes through the labels and then cut or punch a hole through them.

    It is also easy to feel for the screw hole with your finger and then cut a hole, or punch it out with the tip of the Torx driver to reveal the screw.

    Ian Butler -

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    • Remove the six T20 Torx screws securing the top cover to the bottom cover.

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    • Once the bottom and top shells are no longer attached, carefully turn the Xbox right-side-up, lift and remove the top cover.

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    • Remove the three 3 mm T10 screws securing the hard drive to the Xbox.

    • There is one screw on the rear left side of the hard drive that is only visible when the IDE ribbon cable is lifted up. The other two are at the front right and left sides of the hard drive.

    • The screw on the lower left corner of the disk drive is not in the hole that it appears to be in, but rather just closer to the corner.

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    • Free the hard drive power cable from the carrier for sufficient slack to lift the hard drive out.

    • Lift the plastic hard drive carrier out of the Xbox case.

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    • Remove the four 3.4 mm T15 Torx screws from the plastic hard drive carrier (two screws per side).

    • Carefully remove the hard drive from the plastic carrier. Gentle rocking will see the hard drive come out quite easily.

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    • Pull both the hard drive data ribbon cable and the power cable straight up from the hard drive.

    • They may be firmly seated, so be careful trying to remove them. DO NOT pull the wires as you may damage the cable assembly.

    Remember that the new drive will only work if it has been properly prepared, and the Xbox has been modified.

    Ian Butler -

    there is NO way to legally replace the xbox hard drive. it is LOCKED to the motherboard and the xbox will not boot to the OS or make it past the BIOS if the HDD is not the one that came with it from the factory. you MUST use a mod chip and “home brew” to do a HDD swap and expect it to work

    James Vawter -

    Could you point me to a good tutorial on using a modding an original Xbox? All I want to do is swap an HDD in original Xbox with another original Xbox HDD because I want my saved game data. Any way to figure this out? Seems like modding is a !&&* of a burden.

    michaelaugustin2000 -

    Can i replace the original hard drive with new one

    Andrew Veiga -

Conclusion

To reassemble your device, follow these instructions in reverse order.

Author

rmarstel

Member since: 29/10/09

5674 Reputation

18 comments

can you replace the hard drive with one that has windows or linux on it and run windows or linux from the hdd and turn the xbox into a media pc or is the xbox OS not in the hdd but in a chip on the motherboard that cannot be overridden so that it boots from the hdd

Alex Matthiessen -

NO, you cannot.

kaos_engr -

kaos_engr is wrong. You CAN run Linux on a modded Xbox. Although since you also asked about REPLACING the hard drive: I don’t know whether you have to use the original hard drive or can use any IDE hard drive. But Linux is apparently possible on a modded Xbox. See here, and there are more resources on the web too, just search the web for “original Xbox linux”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_Linux

As for Windows on an original Xbox. I’m sure I read once that proper drivers wouldn’t exist. Because nobody would have written them. Certainly Microsoft didn’t want you putting Windows on your Xbox. However I just came across this video of someone allegedly running Windows 98 on an Xbox. I’m not sure if they’re somehow virtualising Windows using Linux or something. Maybe have a look and figure out what’s going on: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erk_XE-D...

But Linux on an Xbox does look possible, IF you have a modded Xbox.

D C -

http://www.ebay.com/gds/How-To-Determine...

Utilize the information on this website to determine what Xbox version you have so you know what replacement parts to look for.

Navy Vet 2015 -

The repairability score varies on the model...

Stephen Kymn -

greetings- we have an Xbox One that is out of warranty. The Xbox wont turn on. We have replaced the power brick & it still wont turn on. We think the hard drive crashed. Orange light is on on power brick. Should we try to replace the hard drive?

wallis -

Is it an original Xbox, Xbox 360 or the latest Xbox One? Very poor naming of the consoles on Microsoft’s part. Most used to call the original 2001 released Xbox the Xbox 1 after the Xbox 360 was released and now there’s the Xbox One (spelled out) and Xbox One S and Xbox One X. (Argh!!)

Power brick (external power supply) was on the Xbox 360 or Xbox One not the original Xbox. The original Xbox’s power supply was self-contained.

kaos_engr -

This Xbox Hard Drive Replacement Guide mentions nothing about the ATA security employed by the original Xbox’s firmware that prevents easily swapping drives between different consoles. Without first unlocking and relocking the HDD to the new console’s motherboard (HDDKey), you cannot just swap HDDs from one to another.

kaos_engr -

This Xbox Hard Drive Replacement Guide mentions nothing about the ATA security employed by the original Xbox’s firmware that prevents easily swapping drives between different consoles. Without first unlocking and relocking the HDD to the new console’s motherboard (HDDKey), you cannot just swap HDDs from one to another.

kaos_engr - May 9

best comment so far swapping any xbox hard drive may it be the original xbox, xbox 360 etc is not as simple as this guide made it to be.

TavarChynn -

That's because the guide is incomplete. You need a soft nodded Xbox and y splitter cable for hot swapping

Darren Owen -

Missing important step(s): How to prepare the new HDD so that the XBOX is working again. Or does an empty HDD is enough?

Harald-René Flasch -

How do you remove the non-ribbon cables from the hard drive? Not all of us know how to work these plastic caps :/

Cooper Stevenson -

Tengo el error 8 como puedo solucionarlo

Akel yeeaaah -

Before attempting this please keep in mind that the hard drive is locked to the motherboard. You can physically replace it, but you will simply get an error code when you boot. You will need to mod your system in order to boot off of a replacement hard drive.

MP3 -

there is NO way to legally replace the xbox hard drive. it is LOCKED to the motherboard and the xbox will not boot to the OS or make it past the BIOS if the HDD is not the one that came with it from the factory. you MUST use a mod chip and “home brew” to do a HDD swap and expect it to work

James Vawter -

What size of hard drive do you need for the replacement

Wyatt Phillips -

can i double the hhds in one xbox?

Technomancer chuck turbo man -

I would highly advise watching this youtube video for the software side of things. You CANNOT just replace the HDD on a stock system. It must at least be softmodded so that you can run software to clone the existing data and to set the HDD KEY.

https://youtu.be/yc_1KnqKr94

This video does a great job of covering the software side of things, as well as showing how to do this with a SATA drive.

Zayne G -