2 hd and no dvd

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R0Bzombie
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2 hd and no dvd

Post by R0Bzombie »

Hi, it is possible to connect 2 hds and remove the dvd drive ( I only want to know the linux part, the hardware part I know how to do)

Thank you
My linux only Xbox:
V1.0
CheapMod
160gig hdd
128mb Ram
Image
Trevante
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Post by Trevante »

Yes it is possible. Do note though that if you want to have both of them on at the same time, you'll need to flash your chip with the Gentoox loader/cromwell. If you're using a hacked bios, you'll have to install a switch so that only one HDD receives power at a time.
R0Bzombie
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Post by R0Bzombie »

Trevante wrote:Yes it is possible. Do note though that if you want to have both of them on at the same time, you'll need to flash your chip with the Gentoox loader/cromwell. If you're using a hacked bios, you'll have to install a switch so that only one HDD receives power at a time.
I already have the Gentoox loader into my chip.
So I only have to plug in my 2nd hd and power on and the xbox will recognise it ?
My linux only Xbox:
V1.0
CheapMod
160gig hdd
128mb Ram
Image
Trevante
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Joined: Mon Oct 11, 2004 10:21 pm

Post by Trevante »

Yes, that should work. Gentoox should recognize it as hdb.

Btw, how much faster does Gentoox run with 128MB of RAM? I'm thinking of buying an old 1.0/1.1 and getting more RAM put in it for Linux, but I'm not sure if it's worth it.
renmet
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Post by renmet »

Yes it works really nice with 2 hdd's. here is a photo of my xbox with 2 hdd's

Image

best regards
renmet :D
R0Bzombie
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Post by R0Bzombie »

Trevante wrote:Btw, how much faster does Gentoox run with 128MB of RAM? I'm thinking of buying an old 1.0/1.1 and getting more RAM put in it for Linux, but I'm not sure if it's worth it.
On bootup it's amazing. It's booting lightning speed. I didn't try to emerge anything with 128mb because I've put the ram 2 days ago :D
And don't buy an old xbox, it's too expensive. Buy an old grafix card LEADTEK - WINFAST GeForce 2 Pro 64MB AGP 4x and the ram chips are the same as an xbox :)
My linux only Xbox:
V1.0
CheapMod
160gig hdd
128mb Ram
Image
Trevante
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Posts: 203
Joined: Mon Oct 11, 2004 10:21 pm

Post by Trevante »

R0Bzombie wrote:
Trevante wrote:Btw, how much faster does Gentoox run with 128MB of RAM? I'm thinking of buying an old 1.0/1.1 and getting more RAM put in it for Linux, but I'm not sure if it's worth it.
On bootup it's amazing. It's booting lightning speed. I didn't try to emerge anything with 128mb because I've put the ram 2 days ago :D
And don't buy an old xbox, it's too expensive. Buy an old grafix card LEADTEK - WINFAST GeForce 2 Pro 64MB AGP 4x and the ram chips are the same as an xbox :)
Well I have a 1.6, and you can't add extra RAM to those, so I'm going to have to buy an older Xbox anyway (not to mention you can't increase the resolution either) :( Plus I don't have the soldering skill to put the RAM chips in my self (I'd probably fry my Xbox trying to do so), so I'd probably end up getting it sent to Friendtech, or maybe just buying an Xbox with 128MB pre-installed.

Thanks for the tip on that graphics card, do you have the model number though? I wouldn't want to go buy the wrong card and desolder the wrong chips. I might sell some of these RAM chips. :)

EDIT: Would this happen to be the one you're talking about?
R0Bzombie
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Post by R0Bzombie »

Trevante wrote:EDIT: Would this happen to be the one you're talking about?
Yes exactly
My linux only Xbox:
V1.0
CheapMod
160gig hdd
128mb Ram
Image
nobspangle
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Post by nobspangle »

to get the second drive to work in linux you will need to
1. partition the drive with fdisk
2. create a filesystem on the drive (I recommend reiser but you can also use ext3, XFS or JFS
3. add an entry to fstab to make the drive mount on boot.

If you get stuck with any of these steps post back
If you keep an open mind, will your brain fall out?
R0Bzombie
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Post by R0Bzombie »

wow that's sounds very hard to do.
The only thing I know how to do is partition the drive with fdisk on my windows computer.
My linux only Xbox:
V1.0
CheapMod
160gig hdd
128mb Ram
Image
Tsuroerusu
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Post by Tsuroerusu »

R0Bzombie wrote:wow that's sounds very hard to do.
The only thing I know how to do is partition the drive with fdisk on my windows computer.
It's very simple. I like to partition the drive in a PC using a standard x86 Gentoo LiveCD, I find it a bit of a pain to swap drives in the Xbox.

Whenever I partition my Xbox drive in my PC i like to disconnect all other drives just in case disaster strikes, you never know when a strom comes by and causes a power off (I'm paranoid about those :P ).

After it's booted you just use these commands (In this example I use a 120 GB drive and 1 big daddy partition):

Code: Select all

fdisk /dev/hdx                            (<-- Replace x with a if your drive is set to master or b if set to slave in the Xbox)
Now you're in fdisk type n to create a new partition, type 1 to create partition 1, hit enter twice to create 1 big partition, and hit w to write the partition table to the drive.

Now it's time to format (I preffer EXT3, which I use here):

Code: Select all

mke2fs -j /dev/hdx                        (<-- Replace x with a if your drive is set to master or b if set to slave in the Xbox)
You can find a more detailed guide, and I recommend you read it, here: http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/h ... t=1&chap=4
Richard M. Stallman: "Freedom to redistribute and change software is a human right that must be protected."
nobspangle
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Post by nobspangle »

To add to the above, I prefer reiserfs because I don't like wasting my harddrive space.
so I replace

Code: Select all

mke2fs -j /dev/hdx
with

Code: Select all

yes | mkreiserfs /dev/hdx
If you keep an open mind, will your brain fall out?
britishseapower
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Post by britishseapower »

im considering doing this...seems like a great idea...i have samba installed so if i put a huge hdd in i can share it over the network...xbox would be perfect for this i think. I got a new softmodded 1.6 and the thing is i dont want to open it! haha...bit of a problem when u want to put a new hdd in....will have to consider...I tried external HDD on the usb ports and it worked !! pretty good really...but usb1 is not quite up to the job i think...not as zippy as a fast ide interface, was ok though for sharing out some mp3s...streamed them fine. Not given up on usb external hdd yet...but it had other problems like generating loads of debug messages.

I am comfortable putting a 2nd hdd in but was a bit worried about this switch business...? trevante - will i need one...and what does it involve?

I think a nice 300 gigger would be good...any problems with that?
Presumably as its a second device there are no problems with any size.

Pros/cons or reiserfs versus ext2 or ext3 also for this drive?

From what i understand...any of these are better than NTFS!
Trevante
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Post by Trevante »

For starters, if you want to have a second HDD hooked up, you'll need to keep your DVD drive in, unless you get a modchip.

As far as a switch, yes, you'll need one since you're softmodded. Only one HDD can receive power at a time, and if they're both powered on, the retail kernel will give you error codes. The switch is moderately simple if you have decent soldering skills. You'll need a certain type of switch (don't remember exactly which one), a molex Y adaptor, and a 4 device IDE cable.

You'll need to wire up the molex Y adaptor to the switch a certain way, take a look at this tut. If you're still not very confident on how the switch should be wired, go to the Xbox-scene case modding forums (or the General Hardware area) and ask them how to wire the dual HDD switch just so you're sure.

As far as that second drive, I'm not sure if the problem would still exist in Gentoox (I"m pretty sure it wouldn't though), but on FATX partitions, if the partition size is over 256GB, data corruption will occur when you hit that 256GB mark. Now if you do a native install, your F drive will no longer be FATX, so technically this shouldn't be a problem, but I'm not sure if Linux file systems have any problems like this.
Tsuroerusu
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Post by Tsuroerusu »

britishseapower wrote:I think a nice 300 gigger would be good...any problems with that?
Presumably as its a second device there are no problems with any size.

Pros/cons or reiserfs versus ext2 or ext3 also for this drive?

From what i understand...any of these are better than NTFS!
If you want to put a 300 GB drive you will have to split it up in a few partitions because the Xbox IDE controller only supports partitions up to 137 GB, I would make 2 x 120 GB partitons and a little smaller partition of the rest (3 in total).

ReiserFS should, as far as I know, be very good for small files, EXT2 is the tried and true Linux file system, it's actually fairly robust, at least to my experience. I prefer EXT3 since it's a journalised file system, which minimizes the chance of data corruption in case of the system being shutdown inpropertly a little.

EXT3 is a good all around file system as far as I know. I've used it all the time I've been using Linux (Since June 2004), and I've only had good experiences. Let me tell you, pretty much every modern Linux file system is better than NTFS :wink:
Especially the journalised file systems.
Richard M. Stallman: "Freedom to redistribute and change software is a human right that must be protected."
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