Modded Xbox 1TB Hard Drive Upgrade - Retro Console Repair

In this video, I continue the modded Xbox restoration by installing a larger hard drive and loading it up with games.
I purchased a 1TB SATA hard drive with a PATA adapter for this upgrade, although I soon realized it would have been worthwhile upgrading to 2TB hard drive from the get-go. The complete Xbox romset is 2.3TB when unzipped, so I am currently able to have half of it on the hard drive.
The PATA adapter turned out to be very low quality although with a little attention from my soldering iron I was able to improve its odds of lasting.
I'm thrilled with my new modded system and already looking forward to my next Xbox build!
🎮 Xbox Repair and Modchip Installation Video
Check out how I repaired and modded this Xbox if you haven't seen it yet
• Xbox Trace Repair & Mo...
🎵 Music
Birds - Scandinavianz / scandinavianz
Creative Commons - Attribution 3.0 Unported - CC BY 3.0
Free Download / Stream: bit.ly/Birds-S...
Music promoted by Audio Library • Birds - Scandinavianz ...
Affiliated links below to some of the tools I use if you'd like to support the channel:
🖥 Composite and S-Video on my Mac
USB Capture Card: amzn.to/2YM4TT7
(Catalina 64-bit drivers can be found on the manufacturer's website)
🎮 Modchip
Aladdin XT PLUS2: amzn.to/437dcHW
Installation Guide: bit.ly/30Wg0tu
🔧 Toolkit
Screwdriver Set: amzn.to/2X7s0Gj
Automatic Wire Stripper: amzn.to/30F5TJm
🖌 Soldering Essentials
TS100 Soldering Iron: amzn.to/2YIJZUR
No Clean Flux Syringe: amzn.to/2NFUZvQ
No Clean Solder: amzn.to/2NHEAqQ
Desoldering Braid: amzn.to/312Grws
🔍 Soldering Add-ons
Tip Tinner: amzn.to/31w2EF4
Helping Hands Soldering Aid: amzn.to/3ihgksP
🔥 Thermal Compounds
Arctic MX-4 Thermal Paste: amzn.to/2Ak2y8w

[@jq4136]

I like the XBMC dash board , but the one you have running looks great.

[@jestamon]

this video could have been amazing if you just went into a little more detail dude..just saying

[@EricLDC]

Do i really need a sata? I have a plain hdd thats 300 gig don't plan to play that much.

[@leestephens7281]

thanks, i love this modding, i never chipped my old Xboxes but did softmod them with all the emulators, 750 gig IDE drive was as big as i have done, might have a go at this SATA and chip mod when i get a little time, i have been making up Retro Pi units which have been interesting, keep up the good work.

[@K.P.Alexander]

Love your videos! Also, a tip for the future: Replacing it with a used enterprise hard drive might be better for the long term as they are built a *LOT* better, in my opinion. I've hard numerous new retail drives fail on me, but none of my used enterprise drives have given any trouble. Many businesses will cycle out their drives every two years, and the drives come with a five year warranty as well. If you buy one, and the SMART data shows it's going bad, just cash in on the warranty (or just return/exchange it). Just remember to double check the mfg date on the drives before you buy. Also, make sure you're buying a SATA hard drive, NOT a SAS drive. But, this is just an anecdotal experience. Lady Luck may be feeling fickle, and you might end up cursing my name if you do this... Edit: Forgot to mention, they're usually a lot cheaper than retail drives also. However, if you plan on getting brand new enterprise drives, be prepared to pawn a kidney.

[@BorderlineOCD]

Nice hack with the warranty idea. This was supposed to be a DVR drive that is advertised to run constantly. Strangely its a 5900RPM drive which is an unusual configuration. It was cheap though. I think for the next build I would use something a bit more high end.

[@chapa8165]

Nice modding man! I'd go crazy if i had to Sutter all those chips lol. Great work

[@BorderlineOCD]

Thank you. It was a little tedious reflowing the SATA adapter pins but I always enjoy messing with the soldering iron so it’s still fun :)

[@naseromar5533]

can you please do a video for fixing ylod for ps3 by replacing nec tokin with tantulim

[@BorderlineOCD]

If I come across a YLOD PS3 I will.

[@naseromar5533]

@@BorderlineOCD hope soon you do

[@wadeanderson9032]

Could you mod my Xbox for me tell me how much it would cost if you do I do have a terabyte hard drive

[@Keith1212]

Xbox is by far my favorite console ever. I remember back in highschool modding my console with a chameleon mod chip. I had a few friends with modded xboxs as well and we always traded games and software. I was pretty popular for having all the family guys up to that point on my xbox lol. I also remember putting a momentary switch inside the controller where the memory card would go to power on or off the xbox with out getting up. There's an un used wire i believe a yellow one in the controller you can do this with. I have a video on my channel showing my "time capsule" xbox and how its been since highscool. I graduated on 05 :)

[@at-cj2iy]

Use component cables instead of yellow cable

[@groskreutzzdsinn17]

Bro your voice sounds like Michael Ceras

[@bunnysparklzbunnytime5117]

leave the sports games out and you might could fit the majority on it

[@BorderlineOCD]

That’s a good idea. There’s like 10 versions of Madden lol. I think I might do that and just keep an odd copy here and there of sports games I think I want to play. I might also have to draw the line at games that are over three gigs. There are a number of titles that are massive and at least for this 1TB build those probably shouldn’t make the cut.

[@matthewdoyle7877]

Hey mate! great video. Where did you find the True MS Dash 2.0? ive searched everywhere and cant find it. Any help would be amazing! liked and subbed!

[@DannyWilliamH]

Nice. Should maybe look into the CPU and RAM upgrade. It doesn't do a whole lot for Xbox games but it's a game changer for emulators and such.

[@BorderlineOCD]

Thanks for the suggestion! To be honest with you though I wanted this to be a pure Xbox gaming rig so that I could experience older Xbox titles that I never played when the system was released. I do enjoy some retro emulation on a Raspberry Pi and I know you can push the Xbox even further with PS1 and N64 emulation, but I don’t have a strong desire to use it for that purpose.

[@Wally17.]

@@BorderlineOCD While it’s good for emulation, the RAM upgrade also serves other purposes. It helps to smooth out dashboard performance for certain ones, and there are some Xbox games that can be patched to run in 720p which requires 128mb RAM to do so. But there are also a few games that can be patched to run in 720p that’ll work fine with the stock 64mb RAM. Unfortunately, the CPU upgrade is not just something simple that anyone can do. There were only like two community guys with the knowledge of how to do it, and they never made that information public. Then there was the company that made them. It was called the DreamX but no information about that was ever released. There is a guy working on researching how to do it so he can release the information, but that’ll be a while.

[@9899Snake]

What kind of hdd did you used? Have a link?

[@Itsuki_Takeuchi]

Do you will install the HDMI Board from makemhz?

[@BorderlineOCD]

It's an expensive kit but I would consider it for a future build. Not sure yet.

[@Wafflepants-dl8fk]

Bet you can't play Gauntlet Dark Legacy off the hard drive on the modded xbox

[@vwlssnvwls3262]

My daughter and I spent sooooo many hours on that first Xbox playing Halo. I miss those days.

[@p4radigm989]

my old Xbox got a problem too. when I turn it on it has bad contact, so it's very hard to boot into the modchip firmware, usually took me 5-10 tries to get it. I thought it might just be a bad contact on the switch, but when I watch your video, it fear it is probably more. Maybe the battery leaked or the traces are bad on the board. Why do these traces go bad anyway? oxidation?

[@BorderlineOCD]

There's no internal battery but you're probably referring to the clock capacitor, in which case it has been documented to leak on all Xbox versions except the v1.6. The traces are usually corroded by the electrolytic leakage from the clock capacitor. There could be other reasons those power rail traces break, not sure but I've come across it several times so it appears to be common.

[@vuttipongprasongsuk3757]

Aladin chip have write protect ? I can not flash modchip

[@BorderlineOCD]

Not by default. You should be able to flash it without issues.

[@Floydzabarber]

Nice video! Since you have a version 1.0 motherboard are you going to give the ram upgrade a try?

[@BorderlineOCD]

I hadn't considered that, but it's an interesting mod.

[@rafaelinhos]

Hi very interesting video. Just a question : with this mod is it possible also play games on Burned DVDs?

[@welme23]

It should.

[@techforceonsitellc6338]

is there a new mod chip? this one doesn't seem to be available.

[@BorderlineOCD]

ModzvilleUSA sells XBlast Aladdins which are a bit more capable than the XT. Alternatively you can look into getting an OpenXenium.

[@jcchaconjr]

Man, good stuff!If I wasn’t so squeamish about screwing up my Xbox, I would try nodding it. I already had to open it to replace the DVD drive when it died years ago. I really hope you get your handsome a Saturn soon. Truth be told, Iwould be happy with a decent picture of the region jumpers for an early Model 1 board. I have a Universal BIOS chip that I’d like to install in it and finally get rid of the physical switch. But of course, I want to outback the original US region jumpers, and haven’t been able to find a picture showing what the look like.😩

[@BorderlineOCD]

I hope to work on a Saturn soon as well. Plan to make it part of my next bulk purchase.

[@djjoe214]

If you make me one of these I'll buy it off you?

[@RobertPendell]

Does this still end up with the issue where some games may not work due to file path limitations on the hard drive vs the DVD? I used to have a soft modded Xbox way back and would dump the games from the disc directly.

[@BorderlineOCD]

I haven't run into that issue but there are way more games on here than I'll ever play so if its an issue perhaps I just haven't experienced it yet. The only detail I recall having to pay attention to was transferring games in Binary mode via FTP (rather than the default Ascii mode in most FTP programs) otherwise text appeared garbled in some games.

[@brianhenry2134]

You can flash the internal bios of the xbox from 1.0-1.5 without a modchip. I flash all of mine but only use a modchp for xbox v1.6 Hope this helps.

[@BorderlineOCD]

I know, but that wouldn't involve any soldering, and wheres the fun in that? :) For most folks soft-modding would be the way to go, but I do like the added flexibility of a mod chip like easier HDD swaps. I also have another unit I'm working on soon that has a dead DVD drive and it should be fairly simple to flash a firmware on the Aladdin XT that forgoes the drive check on boot.

[@tidumarco]

Great video! I was wondering which rgb adapter are you using to connect the Xbox to your iMac? Thanks!

[@BorderlineOCD]

It's an inexpensive capture card that support Mac. I have it linked in the description. It's not RGB though just composite. I only use it for testing during repairs.

[@zackmerritt2408]

how did you get your xbox to boot from the new hard drive all the videos i’m seeing are using the hot-swap with a y splitter ide power cable. this method looks way easier

[@BorderlineOCD]

It's hard-modded with a chip (shown in Part 1) so you can directly initialize the hard drive using HeXen.

[@lonewolf5322]

Awesome stuff! Just subscribed 👍

[@BorderlineOCD]

Thanks for the sub!

[@Fahrenheit38]

I know you probably don't wanna go down this rabbit hole but what download manger do you use with archive.org?

[@BorderlineOCD]

You can avoid all that and search for torrents of those exact archives.

[@marcosvaldez8510]

I have an xbox when I turn it on it shows yellow lights for moments and then it turns off. what could it be?

[@BorderlineOCD]

I'm assuming you mean orange? Solid orange has something to do with the A/V cable (bad cable or unseated) and flashing orange is overheating I believe (could mean there is a problem with the fan).

[@DeathPrevails77713]

If i have a softmodded system can i still hardmod it or will i need to uninstall the softmod and then install the hardmod?

[@BorderlineOCD]

A hard modded console will not automatically boot a soft modded dash. I believe there are ways to do it and rebuild the dash using HeXen so it points to all the right locations but I haven't done this before so I'm not sure about the implications. I'm assuming you are looking to keep your stock hard disk? If you're upgrading the hard disk anyway then HeXen will allow you to partition/format and install the dash of your choice.

[@skuartle]

where did you get the softmod software installer disk?

[@BorderlineOCD]

Search for TruHeXEn and you'll find a version. It's not really a softmod installer. The system has to be modded before you can run the disc.

[@melvinpervis6678]

I modmy old Xbox but can't find the roms to put the games on it

[@BorderlineOCD]

Very easy to find online through regular "underground" channels.

[@simone0406]

Work whit 1 tb ssd ?

[@BorderlineOCD]

It would work but there’s no point. The PATA bus on the Xbox can’t take advantage of faster transfer speeds you’d expect from an SSD.

[@isaacmartinez6613]

yea im trying to get someone to mod a xbox original to play all the xbox games

[@BorderlineOCD]

Some folks offer modding services on eBay and Craigslist. You can always softmod yourself thats much easier.

[@drewbreezy5854]

Modded original Xbox's are the best. I've owned a few.

[@eddyctedtogames876]

Great video Do you have any idea what the maximum hdd size is the chip can detect on the latest firmware? I was looking around online but didn't find a straight answer

[@BorderlineOCD]

Updating the Aladdin firmware will allow you to allocate the full 2TB that the file system supports. With a 2TB drive you'll actually have about 1.8TB of space. If you install a 3TB drive, you can allocate the full 2TB but the rest is wasted. Some people still do this to get those extra 200GB, especially if the price difference between a 2TB drive and a 3TB drive is negligible.

[@eddyctedtogames876]

@@BorderlineOCD thx for the reply! I'll be modding one of my xbox systems myself soon and thanks to you, I'm all informed and ready to go. Keep up the great work :)

[@NOTLeavingLV]

I like your channel, but wish you’d remind folks piracy is stealing and not show folks how to do it…

[@Sharptooth100]

Go with 2TB Seagate hard drive as that option, lad. That is wiser to try.

[@BorderlineOCD]

Will be doing a 2TB for my next build.

[@Sharptooth100]

@@BorderlineOCD Good! Now you know I helped you.

[@anthonyaviles8665]

I use jrocky5 soft mod does all that you do with the chip

[@BorderlineOCD]

I think a softmod is the best option for the average person. If you don't have the soldering skills you shouldn't concern yourself with a hardmod. Most people won't care about the advantages of a hardmod as they are mostly for tinkerers and hobbyists. Things like easier HDD swaps and rebuilding corrupt dashboards area still easier with a hardmod as the system will always boot from disc first. I also plan to build a modded unit without a DVD drive. A softmod won't allow you to do that. If you just want to play games a softmod is still the easiest option.

[@anthonyaviles8665]

yeah i finally got a xbox with dead hard drives

[@radcreate_sg]

You may consider the XBMC4gamers dash :) sleek and good

[@BorderlineOCD]

I gave it a shot and found the navigation to be slow. Am I missing something or is UnleashX just faster? What had your experience been? Do I need to install XBMC as default dash from HeXen first then overwrite with files from XBMC4Gamers? I didn’t do this I just copied it to Apps and launched it from UnleashX.

[@Allious131]

@@BorderlineOCD UnleashX is faster you are correct evo is garbage.

[@Spartan122S]

@@Allious131 nah Evo ain’t garbage, it just has less functions unlike Unleash

[@thewoodbarionshow2223]

Very Very Cool man!!👍👍

[@BorderlineOCD]

Thank you! It was a fun build.

[@michaelmcmahon8312]

Awsome job modding and soldering😃

[@BorderlineOCD]

Thank you, I definitely enjoyed the project!

[@AKG74]

I wonder where one could acquire one of these mods

[@BorderlineOCD]

You mean installing the modchip, or just modding the Xbox to run some games off the hard disk? Soft modding is always an option if you want to go that route.

[@AKG74]

@@BorderlineOCD a fully modded console would be more my preference. Even following tutorials i wouldn't have the confidence to try modding it myself.

[@esraeloh8681]

@@AKG74 I mean, there's a few on ebay, I am seriously considering grabbing old broken consoles fixing them up & modding them out with bigger ssd's as some games can quite heavily thrash the r/w heads around. Maybe even upping the RAM for some of that sweet emulation action to run a bit smother but I am miles away from even being able to test if this would even help in most cases. I know the Quake 3 port has some serious memory issues & pages like a bitch which is just so slow with even the slight access time for the physical disk causing massive lag spikes. But yeah, there's modded consoles on ebay.

[@2S2F1]

Great video man.

[@BorderlineOCD]

Much appreciated.

[@mukeshgoolcharan6121]

Good stuff

[@BorderlineOCD]

Appreciate it

[@74bobby]

Great Job Bro.

[@BorderlineOCD]

Appreciate it, thanks for watching as always!

[@p4radigm989]

get some Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut, thats 2-4°C cooler than Arctic MX-4, bro.

[@BorderlineOCD]

If you're building a gaming rig with the latest and greatest hardware, by all means use the best paste you can buy. MX-4 is an excellent paste from a cost/performance perspective and I wouldn't hesitate recommending it. I repair systems regularly so a more advanced formula on my builds would quickly add up in $$ and the benefits provided are not worth it for the average person.

[@James28R]

I take it you own all the games physically, you wouldn’t be a pirate would you

[@BorderlineOCD]

Absolutely. I own every game. The full collection. All 878 titles.