IIRC the xbox 360 requires a specific type of drive with custom firmware, you can't just clone the data to any old SATA drive and expect it to work.

jmarsh wrote on 2023-07-20, 04:14:

IIRC the xbox 360 requires a specific type of drive with custom firmware, you can't just clone the data to any old SATA drive and expect it to work.

Yeah, sadly even in 2023 there's no 'real solutions. I was looking thinking 'Oh is there a new smart way to hack in an SSD into my Xbox 360?' and the conclusion settles on 'Fuck you, Microsoft.' Sad cause the user can just slap any 12mm or shorter 2.5" drive into a PS3 no problem.

I didn't know the 360 could only use proprietary hard drives (thanks Microsoft).

Can I at least make a disc image from the 360's hard drive (now that it has all of the games on it that I want), and then if the hard drive becomes corrupted, then I can put the disc image back on the hard drive to restore it to it's former state?

Norton Ghost (at least the older versions) can make a sectorwise image. That makes you independent from file systems.
But I'm not sure whether that will help you due to possible DRM restrictions.

Kerr Avon wrote on 2023-07-23, 19:05:

I didn't know the 360 could only use proprietary hard drives (thanks Microsoft).

Can I at least make a disc image from the 360's hard drive (now that it has all of the games on it that I want), and then if the hard drive becomes corrupted, then I can put the disc image back on the hard drive to restore it to it's former state?

Yes. The drive can be read/written by a regular PC, the firmware just contains some extra fluff that makes the xbox accept it as an "official" product.

jmarsh wrote on 2023-07-20, 04:14:

IIRC the xbox 360 requires a specific type of drive with custom firmware, you can't just clone the data to any old SATA drive and expect it to work.

Might depend on the console; but the old fat ones with the HDD caddy on the top of the console, just check for an actual bonafide PNG image (which is a copyright violation to duplicate) at a specific sector. It does some fancy crypto checksum magic of the data in the filesystem as well, but a raw sector copy (such as done with dd) works more or less fine. The novelty firmware and secret sauce checking, is inside the DVDROM drive. Microsoft very very much did not want you replacing that drive, EVER. They are given special firmware to read non-standard sectors, and the unique drive-IDs are paired with the console at the factory. It will RROD if you try to replace the DVD drive.

The hard-drive itself, though, is an otherwise unimpressive western digital BEVS series scorpio drive, IIRC.

Microsoft collected metadata about hard drives inside the consoles as well, and did ban-waves against people that "Upgraded" outside of Microsoft's approved upgrade pipeline. (It wasn't so much custom firmware, as it was blessed drive serial numbers, IIRC.)

Given the console is EOL now, I'd think MS wouldn't care too much. I dont think that they tie the blessed drive serial number to the volume's crypto functions, but could be wrong.

The CORRECT way to move the data, is with an actual microsoft product-- the XBOX360 Transfer Cable. (Link leads to EBAY)

Get a properly blessed/legit replacement drive, and the transfer cable. Use the console to format the new drive, then use the transfer cable to move all your games, user accounts, and save data.

With the Transfer Cable mentioned above, you can access the contents of a phat xbox 360 hdd using a program like Xplorer360 or FATXplorer. One of those will work. This might work with a 360 slim hdd attached to your motherboard's SATA, but I cannot confirm. However, you will probably run into trouble with rights and permissions at some point.

If I were you, I would ditch xbox live and RGH that box, and make use of the new freedoms that come with that (if possible). Alternatively, you could get a second system to RGH if you want to keep the first one stock and all your xbox live stuff and content permissions intact.
With an RGH'd xbox 360, you can dump your games from disc, play them from the HDD or other external storage, and browse the file system (including contents of other connected xb360 hdds), allowing you to backup anything you want.
Upgrading or changing the hdd inside one of the 360's enclosures is problematic and complicated, so you could try using an external ssd.

Is that an internal hard drive? Because the official ones sold by Microsoft maxed out at 500GB, which would mean that OP's Xbox has already been modified to accept unofficial ones. And in that case, yes I believe doing a 1:1 clone to another drive of the same size would work perfectly fine, security sector in place or not.

If it's an external one then I have no clue, I never bothered with those.

I haven't read the full original post and just assumed your system is stock.
If you're running a 2TB internal HDD, then you're probably running a custom NAND. Can you confirm by seeing if you get a purple Xell screen when powering the system on by pressing the drive eject button?
I did some searching and can infer that an RGH mod omits the hdd security sector check, so any hdd or ssd should work. In this case, creating a sector-level image of your internal disk, and then flashing that image to another disk will create 2 identical disks (in terms of partitions and contents), as far as you're concerned.

https://consolemods.org/wiki/Xbox_360:Upgradi … your_Hard_Drive <- You might find this useful

360 stock configurations up to 500GB but you have to use specific hard drive too. WD of correct models. And software to create it. All available online with easy search.

Cheers,