I upgraded my 360's 20GB drive to a 120GB drive...

BobMurdoch

Playing XBoxOne SeriesX/Supporter
Supporting Founder
Sep 12, 2003
5,770
191
Brielle, NJ
Brown brings my package from Best Buy yesterday.....

I take it home, wait for the missus to go to bed, and then open up the package..... All it contains is the drive which looks identical to the old one except for the 120 label on the side, a data transfer cable, and a CD ROM with the transfer program on it.

Fire up the 360, get it to recognise my wireless controller, and then per the instructions, I unplug the HD DVD from the rear of the 360. According to the instructions you HAVE to use the rear port. Unplug your HD DVD player or wireless transmitter if they are installed there....

Then plug the USB cable into the rear of the unit. Install the chunky other end onto your new hard drive. LEAVE your existing 20GB drive right where it is.

A message appears on the screen telling me to either press continue or cancel, and describes what is going to happen to the drive. The dashboard will be disabled during this process, so let it do it's thing and watch TV while it works diligently formatting and migrating your data to the new drive.

Mine took about an hour. Just enough time for me to flip over to SNY, fast forward through the slow parts (I had set it to record the game), and watch my Mets storm back in the ninth to win the game last night. Woo hoo. Man do we love playing in Arizona..... 11 straight wins there now....

But I digress.... Game over, I switch my A/V receiver back to the 360, and everything is all done. It looks identical to my old setup (all themes, savegames, content, and custom soundtracks are there. According to the little manual, I can rename my hard drive. Um, OK..... MadDog's Hard Drive now comes up when I load games....

It tells me to shut down the 360, unplug the data transfer cable, and swap out the hard drives. I replug in my HD DVD drive and I start it up again..... No worries, it fires up right away, I select my gamertag and log in. Woo hoo. Mission accomplished. I'm told that if any glitches happen during the transfer, that you can merely restart the process, the data on the 20 GB drive stays there until the final stage is completed...

There are a few demos loaded that weren't there before. Eh, not thrilled, so I delete them, but the 21 XBLA games I've downloaded previously are there. One major caveat.... for those of you switching to the elite or using a 360 that was replaced by Microsoft, you will HAVE to be online and logged into XBox Live to play the full versions. Otherwise, it revokes your access and only allows you to play the trial versions. A fix for this issue may or may not be coming, but it is a gotcha for those of you with limited or no internet access and a different system than you started with...

Other that that issue, the process was simple. With all my previous content and a few other things that Microsoft preloaded onto it, it said I have 98 GB free. Yes, the drive is overpriced, but I use the 360 so much it was a no brainer. Note that the data transfer cable is one way only. Once you migrate the data there is no going back.....

Now a final question...... Can I sell my old 20GB drive to Gamestop? Is this of any use to anyone, or did they brick it when they deleted the data?
 
Good post.

Question though, does new HDD have special USB port for data transfer? Or does data transfer cable plug into port on HDD? Seems to me, if it is a USB HDD, one could get USB HDD and run software on CD, formating any HDD to work with 360. Since CD formats HDD and copies data over to it.
 
Good... At least I can something for the trade in.....

Tony, the drive comes with a special cable that has an unusual attachement to interface with the new 120 GB Microsoft drive... Proprietary connector will keep that from working (plus I'm sure the console talks to the receiver and looks for a response that a generic drive won't give back.... unless someone hacks in and can ghost one of these drives and solves the connection problem, it looks like Microsoft will keep their monopoly on these things.....)

Actually given the fact that they are still selling the consoles at a loss, I don't begrudge them making a few bucks back on the accessories....

BTW, the spring dashboard update is coming tonight..... Separate blade for Video Marketplace coming, trickplay while downloading, bookmarks (downloads split into 10 chapters will ne the norm) and a half dozen other enhancements......
 
Thanks for the kudos on the posts..... I know that risking your drive's data is a little off putting, but I wanted to relay how easy and painless it was..... I'm sure SOMEONE will have a horror story about the migration, but it was easy for me.....
 
I ran a search on Google and found several people selling them from $30-60.

The best method may be to just go with Gamestop and be done with it.... You may make more elsewhere, but for ease of trade in, they are probably the least problematic....
 
Good... At least I can something for the trade in.....

Tony, the drive comes with a special cable that has an unusual attachement to interface with the new 120 GB Microsoft drive... Proprietary connector will keep that from working (plus I'm sure the console talks to the receiver and looks for a response that a generic drive won't give back.... unless someone hacks in and can ghost one of these drives and solves the connection problem, it looks like Microsoft will keep their monopoly on these things.....)

Actually given the fact that they are still selling the consoles at a loss, I don't begrudge them making a few bucks back on the accessories....

BTW, the spring dashboard update is coming tonight..... Separate blade for Video Marketplace coming, trickplay while downloading, bookmarks (downloads split into 10 chapters will ne the norm) and a half dozen other enhancements......

Just curious, oh well. :) Yeah, I'll eventually get myself larger drive, but right now don't have cash. I think, MS, though selling at a loss now, will eventually reap the rewards. I believe they'll actually make a profit on 360 in the long run. At least I hope so, so they want to release something better in a few years.

Yeah, I'll have to make sure to check out spring update. Haven't connected to live in the last few days
 
No prob....

The Elite doesn't make sense for me right now as my TV maxes out at 1080i.

I'm renovating my house from June - October, and a Sony Pearl Front Projector is in my future, so I may spring for it then unless feedback is that the improvement isn't that noticeable... (Since I'll have a 92" screen it might make sense for me though).
 
No prob....

The Elite doesn't make sense for me right now as my TV maxes out at 1080i.

I'm renovating my house from June - October, and a Sony Pearl Front Projector is in my future, so I may spring for it then unless feedback is that the improvement isn't that noticeable... (Since I'll have a 92" screen it might make sense for me though).

Sony projector huh. Wow. haha just kidding with ya bob.
 
Yeah, f'ing ironic, ain't it......


I don't hate everything they do,.... most of the TV's I've bought have been Sonys.... My beef with them revolves around their attempts to ram onerous DRM upon us at every opportunity (root kits, region coding, etc.).

But the Pearl is something different from their usual MO.... A great projector with a 15000 to 1 contrast ratio and 900 lumens with 1080p, plenty of inputs, a gorgeous form factor..... and a $3900 street price...

Hopefully, it won't trip a protection circuit every time it tries and pass an XBox 360 signal....

JUST KIDDING!

P.S. Hope things are improving down in VA Tech land..... My butting heads with you on various issues aside, we're thinking of you and everyone else down there....
 

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