I just finished swapping my XBox drive with a 120gb Maxtor. Now I can copy every game I ever wanted to play to the harddrive and I won’t have to carry disks around anymore.

I used the tutorial at http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=244043 to operate xboxhdm.

Here’s what I did:

1. Bought XBox
   Before the new softmodding kits came out you had to get a box built within a certain date range. Using SID4 I’ve successfully modded version 1.0a boxes as well as the latest 1.6 boards. I haven’t seen a box I couldn’t use this softmod method on. The only problems I’ve run into using old boxes is the DVD drive not supporting some media types.

2. Softmod
   I bought an Action Replay at FredMeyer for under $30. Then I downloaded Softmod Installer Deluxe 4 from Torrent Spy and copied it to my Action Replay.

   I went down to the Game Crazy on 45th and bought a copy of MechAssault. Then I stopped at Dick’s across the street and had a burger.

   The softmod process is a piece of cake after you copy the savegame files from the memory card to the XBox then boot MechAssault into “Run Linux” mode under Campaign.

3. Removed Harddrive
   I followed the directions at xbox-scene.com to get the drive out. Turns out the bit kit I bought at REI for my Leatherman had the right bit for all the screws. It’s the best tech tool I ever bought.

4. Unlocked and Cloned
   Using xboxhdm For Dummies I was able to unlock my original drive, clone it to my new 120gb drive, format the F partition, lock the new drive and successfully boot from in the xbox.

5. Copied and Played
   UnleashX is my favorite dashboard because it’s got sweet skins and has a built-in ripping function. Put in a game, tell Unleash to rip it and in a few minutes I’m playing Farcry Evolutions: Instincts with no disk in the drive.

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