fat xplorer Xbox formatting tools

XBOX, but not XBMC4XBOX related discussion
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professor_jonny
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fat xplorer Xbox formatting tools

Post by professor_jonny »

As below we now have official formating of xbox hdd's from with in windows:

https://fatxplorer.eaton-works.com/2021 ... e-arrived/
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Re: fat xplorer Xbox formatting tools

Post by Coldly-Indifferent »

Thanks for the info.

That could be very useful - if I can get the ITB WD AF HDD I want to use to be recognised by FATXplorer which at the moment I can't when it is already FATX formatted with dash installed etc.

I've opened a support ticket but my suspicion is that the problem is to do with the USB housing I'm using and a minor but significant issue caused by that when using Advanced Format WD HDDs. The housing works fine with FATXplorer when using older IDE or SATA WD HDDs.

I'm hoping the new enclosure I've just ordered might resolve the problem but I'm going to try wiping the ITB HDD and, in the same USB enclosure, see if formatting it using FATXplorer itself will bypass the issue, whatever it is.
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Re: fat xplorer Xbox formatting tools

Post by professor_jonny »

Eaton is working on sector alingment with 4k regons, I think the xbox does not care and it can cause preformance issues.
I have used it with a 4k secor and 512E drive and have had no issues using a direct SATA interface.

I do know some of these devices are rubbish and don't adhere to standards as per say the XBOX adheres to the ATA standard to the letter (going off the leaked Kernel source so I'm told) and is a reason many sata to ide devices dont work (also they throw out giberish on boot).

All I can say is stay with a named brand, most docks should work if they support drives larger than 2tb.

Eaton is very responsive if you email him a bug report or ticket.
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Re: fat xplorer Xbox formatting tools

Post by Coldly-Indifferent »

The problem I was having was definitely a specific external housing/WDC HDD firmware issue.

The trouble was actually fixed by a FATXplorer update. That very quickly followed after I'd opened a support ticket explaining the trouble.

But since I've bought a different (better) external housing supporting both USB 3.0 and eSATA and that not only works fine with FATXplorer it also resolved the other non-Xbox related issue I been having with the ITB WDC too.
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Re: fat xplorer Xbox formatting tools

Post by GoTeamScotch »

Love this tool. I like it so much I bought a license. I want to see this project grow. Makes building Xbox hdds so much easier on modern hardware. :)
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Remember kids, always zero-ize your HDD key!
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Re: fat xplorer Xbox formatting tools

Post by professor_jonny »

It is very cool indeed one of the few tools i find handy I have paid for also if you are a mod installer it is a must with copying on large amounts of data.
The pre load thing I convinced him to add makes things easy when setting up a harddisk, as I have hdd install packages on my pc I just point to the zips and it does it's thing.

Xbox formatting support is in beta so no licence is currently needed until an official release is out, he wanted feedback and testing and bug reports to ensure everything is ok and has the features people want.

There is a few things planned Eaton is working on, the 16tb patch for the 360 (well the patch is done but fatxplorer needs updating to format the drive acordingly), then the same for the internal 360 hdd and then the original xbox will likely get some love too as it has the same fixed sector count limit and a simular aproach to the 360 will likely work.

large harddisks will likely not work under linux as gpt/Uefi support will be required to support drives exceding 2tb or some other workaround so there will likely need to be modifications made to them also so that is another thing being looked into.

I have passed Eaton on the ASM patches and IDA databases from OZ_Paul to help him with original Xbox support as well as flirt signatures and librarys for IDA.

Drive locking is being looked at using an alternative method to winaspi as support for drive locking was removed in win 10.

If you have any requests let him or me know and it could get on the short list.
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