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?
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?
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. 
