XBMC4Xbox

Just wondering what the limit actually is. Yes I know I have a 1TB but that is running with a Thomson DVD board inside to take the place of the DVD. I have done slims with smaller HDDs that haven't required the Thomson board to run but I'm real interested just how big the HDD can be before the NON DVDrive bios starts to fail to be all that is required. I have a 500GB Western Digital HDD in a slim that is ignoring the M8 NON DVD bios and on trying an Ind 5003 NON DVDrive bios I'm getting the same result. The symptom is locking up after the bios splash screen. Really trying to track down if this is just a WD HDD induced problem or if there actually is a limit before the bios is simply ignored. Thanks in advance boys.

I always have problems with no-DVD consoles and Evox or IND-BIOS.
Let's try Xecuter 2 (5035 or 4981).

I have only used ide hdd's so far, 160/200/250gig and only had success with ind5003 bios.

i did a 2tb western digital wd20ears with a samsung 605 board and probally 1 out of every 10 boots caused a hdd error other than that it worked ok.
some times it would come online without f or g drive on boot up with a evox bios or ind bios for me.

the xbos was a 1.1 tsop flash with x2 bios no flubber etc...

Is there a limit HDD size for the slims?

Hope Nextelhalo got the answer for us.

Just to let you all know, these bioses where working perfectly and continue to work perfectly on a test stock 8GB HDD in this same machine . I did another Xbox with that same M8 modded bios but the HDD was a 320GB and it worked perfectly. It is the same bios I used on my 1TB sata HDD and I put it down to being the sata to IDE adapter causing problems and although I put in the Thomson board, I left the NON DVDrive bios in there and that machine is working perfectly, Other than the fact I had to Hack it to get it to run with a board. Something interesting I found, if i put in the yellow DVD cable into a DVDrive and leave out the IDE cable to the DVD, it still will not work but this did on the 1TB sata settup. I also tried putting the HDD in the DVD connector position on the IDE cable and that didn't work. I also threw another IDE cable at it and still no joy. An X2 may be my next option but I need to mod it as I don't have one modded ready to go. Has anyone got a modded X2 ready to go?. Needs to be 256k in size to suit an Aladdin and F and G partitions are being used and it's a 1.4 machine. I also have a Duox2GS chip I can use. It was in this machine but that was the 1st thing I changed. For those also that may be interested, I changed the HDD links in all position including Master and Cable Select and this also made no difference.


Bit of an update, I found a 160Gb Sammy IDE HDD and this bios is running sweet with no DVD and the M8 bios on it. Thoughts on whether this could be a WD problem. I really wish i had a Sammy 500GB IDE just to prove it.

Not having the DVD drive in there really can goof things up. As far as I know the HDD size is still limited to the BIOS. I have no idea what Ind-bios or EVOX limit is but i know X2 bios's have a 2TB limit.
There are only two main issues i've run into in the past.

1. Some of the new WD 320GB IDE hard drives (specifically the Blue Caviars) just flat out will not let the xbox boot without the DVD drive. I've done extensive testing on this including switching jumper settings on the hard drive and a whole lot more. I still have not found a solution to this so i just stay away from those if i'm building a slim.

2. XBMC can have problems with a slim box but only in one area. I've noticed that if i boot up XBMC and try to go straight to file manager the xbox freezes or the "thinking" icon on the bottom of the screen is always going and never brings up file manager and it wont let me go back a screen or do IGR. To get around this all you have to do is navigate to system info (after a reboot if you froze already), wait for a few seconds for it to display all the info (after usually a 2-3 second freeze, again only with no DVD connected), then go back to the main menu and straight into file manager and BOOM!!!!, file manager appears right away. I've seen this issue with X2_5035 and X3_3294, I've never tested it on anything else though.

Honestly these are my only two tiff's with a slimbox but the feeling of looking at your beautiful slimbox melts those problems away and you just roll with it.

@Xman, if you want to give X2_5035 a shot you should slap it on that DUOX2 that you have and see what happens. Nice thing about it is that with that bios
you can just edit and FTP a config file over to E to make any bios changes, no need to make the changes on PC and then re-flash your xbox each time. Give it
a go and see what happens. NOTE: X2_5035 only comes in 512k and 1MB sizes so you cannot use that for the Aladin, but X2_4981.67 would be worth a try and
it's 256k. Also since you've got that 160GB Sammy in there see if it has that file manager problem i spoke of.

NEX

Cool Nex, so there is a limit in there somewhere on all the bioses. Funny you should mention the fillemanager issue, that is exactly what I found with the 1TB machine so it looks like it's actually the bios causing the issues rather that the sata adapter as I presumed. I'll continue to look for an answer to this problem that doesn't require a Thomson board but for now I'll close up the ICE machine and just run it as a 160GB. I really hate using custom machines as a test bench. I'll grab a stocker and feel a lot more happy experimenting on it.

i know X2 bios's have a 2TB limit.

i thaught this was a limit imposed by the cluster sizes only as with 48bit lba you are limited to only a megre 144 petabytes ?
I was under the understanding if you format to 128 clusters you extend your hdd size limit beyond 2tb but it starts to get wastefull and currently nothing has the ability to format to 128k clusters?
i read some where idotsfan was tinkering in this area.

Some of the new WD 320GB IDE hard drives (specifically the Blue Caviars) just flat out will not let the xbox boot without the DVD drive.

all drives these days utilise an on disk firmware and spin up times can cause faults from unability to access the disk as it may not be initilised, in these cases if you power the hdd from an external source it in most case works.

I've noticed that if i boot up XBMC and try to go straight to file manager the xbox freezes or the "thinking" icon on the bottom of the screen.

I fixed this fault by soldering wires to the tray status wires on the dvd board to fake the tray is closed and it fixes this problem my last slim box did this same thing i did a write up on the old forum about this.

On that note did you manage to have a play with the reset line on the xbox xman to see if you could get a run of the mill sata adaptor working ?

I found this diagram on another forum. It makes that console thinks DVD drive is connected. Has anyone tested it?

Nextelhalo wrote: 2. XBMC can have problems with a slim box but only in one area. I've noticed that if i boot up XBMC and try to go straight to file manager the xbox freezes or the "thinking" icon on the bottom of the screen is always going and never brings up file manager and it wont let me go back a screen or do IGR. To get around this all you have to do is navigate to system info (after a reboot if you froze already), wait for a few seconds for it to display all the info (after usually a 2-3 second freeze, again only with no DVD connected), then go back to the main menu and straight into file manager and BOOM!!!!, file manager appears right away. I've seen this issue with X2_5035 and X3_3294, I've never tested it on anything else though.

This happens to me to with M8+ BIOS noDVD.

MrMajst3r wrote:I found this diagram on another forum. It makes that console thinks DVD drive is connected. Has anyone tested it?

I have tested this very carefully and it does not work. I still get the boot up error after I had jumped those signals. I suspect the xbox is looking at some signals thru the IDE cable of the DVD ROM at boot makiing this type of fix not possible.

hal9000 wrote:

Does this work with a sata hdd ? The hdd size/ bios is not the limiting factor in getting a slim to boot, its the time for the sata-ide bridge to power up and spin up the hdd thats the killjoy. With iND5003 and ide hdd's i havent had any boot issues, sata hdd is another matter.

i have a 500gb, cant remember what brand, but think its a WD drive in my slim with dvd board attached. works good. Think I tried the first wiring pic to fool xbox. From what I remember I got it to work but would lock up if I went to file manager.