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Creating E Drive larger than 4-5GB?

Posted: Tue Aug 01, 2017 5:20 am
by bengalih
So on my 2TB system my E: drive is partitioned/formatted to the following size:

4,881.63

This seems to be whatever the default was when using xbpt to create the filesystem.

I'm curious if it is possible to make this partition larger (and thus take away some available space from F: or G: drive)?

The reason I am asking is that there seems to be more than this amount of space for available DLC.
Here for instance is a collection of all DLC for the xbox:

https://digiex.net/threads/xbox-offline ... loads.675/

Even excluding the Live only DLC (which is worthless now anyway), the total amount of DLC is probably upwards of 8GB.

This means you can't have the DLC if you own all the games which DLC is available for - because this data gets installed to the UDATA/TDATA folders.

I haven't even tried to partition larger because I don't want to mess anything up - would this cause any problems to the system?

Re: Creating E Drive larger than 4-5GB?

Posted: Tue Aug 01, 2017 8:19 am
by shloader
bengalih wrote: Tue Aug 01, 2017 5:20 am So on my 2TB system my E: drive is partitioned/formatted to the following size:
4,881.63
This seems to be whatever the default was when using xbpt to create the filesystem.
You may or may not know this but I think it's worth restating at this point that the Xbox hard drive doesn't have a partition table in its stock form and all drive partition information is hard coded into the kernel. Any regular Evo, iND or xecutor bios can and will use a partition table if one is created by any drive partitioning app like XBpartitioner.
bengalih wrote: Tue Aug 01, 2017 5:20 am I'm curious if it is possible to make this partition larger (and thus take away some available space from F: or G: drive)?
Sure. XBpartitioner has always been able to manipulate the sizes of all partitions. However you do this I would recommend you keep the collective size of all your required first five partitions inside the 127GB original LBA limit of the stock kernel, regardless what size drive or bios you do use.
bengalih wrote: Tue Aug 01, 2017 5:20 amI haven't even tried to partition larger because I don't want to mess anything up - would this cause any problems to the system?
If you're running on a softmod, I would say this runs a fair amount of risk as you'd have to go through more hoops to fix anything. If you have a Chip or TSOP mod... can't break it bad enough that a HeXEn disc wouldn't fix ya in minutes. I'm sure there are other pitfalls with regards to how some games were coded, but it's not like you can really break anything permanent.

Re: Creating E Drive larger than 4-5GB?

Posted: Tue Aug 01, 2017 9:50 pm
by Rocky5
If you’re softmodded or hardmodded custom partitions will work, but like above it’s advised to keep the stock partitions ( especially C if softmodded ) the stock size.

But if you never boot into the stock kernel ( ie if softmodded with an older softmod ) by loading a retail game from a cold boot ( powered off ) then there shouldn’t be any side effects.
( I don’t think there would be any sideffects if the E partition is say 20GB )

As NKPatcher will patch the kernel to read the partition table. Just never change the C partition size.

Re: Creating E Drive larger than 4-5GB?

Posted: Wed Aug 02, 2017 9:16 pm
by bengalih
Rocky5 wrote: Tue Aug 01, 2017 9:50 pm If you’re softmodded or hardmodded custom partitions will work, but like above it’s advised to keep the stock partitions ( especially C if softmodded ) the stock size.

But if you never boot into the stock kernel ( ie if softmodded with an older softmod ) by loading a retail game from a cold boot ( powered off ) then there shouldn’t be any side effects.
( I don’t think there would be any sideffects if the E partition is say 20GB )

As NKPatcher will patch the kernel to read the partition table. Just never change the C partition size.
Thanks Rocky5 -

I went ahead and used xbpt to make the drive 10GB instead of the ~5GB it was allocating. Kinda sucked because I had already copied over pretty much all the games when I realized that I needed about 6-7GB of space for all the DLC/updates, etc. So, I have to ftp all the games back which will take a few days.

For any interested I used xbpt. First I had to disable my F: and G: partitions (right thumbstick). Then I was able to go to Partition 1 (E:) and changed the size to 10GB. Then I re-enabled F: and G: and used "B" to distribute the available space again.

The only strangeness I then had is after I wrote the table and formatted things my X3 Live Config was not showing the F: and G: drive sizes properly. So I used the X3 tools to reformat those partitions which then reported as ER (error?) in xbpt. I then reformatted them a second time within xbpt and then everything was seeing them right. I'm not sure why xbpt basically needed 2 format operations (I expect that X3 maybe messed the cluster size up)...but all is good.

I'll report back if I experience and weirdness with this configuration.

Re: Creating E Drive larger than 4-5GB?

Posted: Wed Aug 02, 2017 10:30 pm
by Rocky5
enable the partition table support in the X3 HDD menu.

Re: Creating E Drive larger than 4-5GB?

Posted: Thu Aug 03, 2017 4:34 am
by bengalih
Rocky5 wrote: Wed Aug 02, 2017 10:30 pm enable the partition table support in the X3 HDD menu.
Yeah - there is an option called "Use saved partition table" under the new HDD setup. It is the only setting that seems to deal with this.
It is/was already enabled as I found out when I first upgraded my drive to 2TB that if it wasn't turned on X3 kept "resetting" my drive information.

So the issue I was having this time was not that. I can't really say what it was, but the steps I outlined above got around it - just not sure why I had to do them.

Re: Creating E Drive larger than 4-5GB?

Posted: Sat Dec 29, 2018 2:37 pm
by TeleTubby666
Will this also work with an Xecuter 5035 Bios?

Thanks in advance!

Re: Creating E Drive larger than 4-5GB?

Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2019 6:16 pm
by commod
That would be nice!

Re: Creating E Drive larger than 4-5GB?

Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2019 3:09 am
by quark
It works, but doesn't go over the limitation of 2.2Gb

Re: Creating E Drive larger than 4-5GB?

Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2019 4:09 am
by TeleTubby666
As stated here by Rocky it seems to work with 5035 als well:

http://www.emuxtras.net/forum/viewtopic ... 19c#p76460

Re: Creating E Drive larger than 4-5GB?

Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2019 4:26 pm
by quark
Yeah, as I said in my last post, it works. I did test it yesterday with a 3tb hd (x2 5035), but nothing interesting with it if you cannot go over the 2.2gb limit. Didn't tested to upload games yet, but boot time seems to be slower.

3tb hdd

Posted: Wed Jan 15, 2020 12:04 am
by HeavyMetal
I know this is a different topic but does any one know how to correctly size partitions f and g if I've got a 3tb HDD in my og Xbox?

Re: Creating E Drive larger than 4-5GB?

Posted: Wed Jan 15, 2020 1:32 am
by Coldly-Indifferent
You mean you're using a 3TB HDD and are happy just to use (roughly) 2TB of it, the maximum size the Xbox supports.

I'd assume the standard advice applies whether hard or softmodded and that is F and G MUST be of equal size if you want to use the full 2TB.

That means less than 1024GiB in each - I'd make it simple and say 1000GB in each maximum just for safety. Use XBPartitioner v1.3 (must be this version) to do this and it should correctly partition F and G (6 and 7) using 64K clusters.

Google for YT tutorials on installing and partitioning larger Xbox HDDs for more info but that is basically it.

Believe me you do not want the pain of dealing with an incorrectly partitioned larger HDD because if you've partitioned it wrongly or with the wrong cluster size it will corrupt. The only fix is to re-partition which means losing everything already on F and G.

Re: Creating E Drive larger than 4-5GB?

Posted: Fri Feb 07, 2020 9:28 pm
by Sim
Coldly-Indifferent wrote: Wed Jan 15, 2020 1:32 am

That means less than 1024GiB in each - I'd make it simple and say 1000GB in each maximum just for safety. Use XBPartitioner v1.3 (must be this version) to do this and it should correctly partition F and G (6 and 7) using 64K clusters.
Apologies to jump in there quick on my first post. Can I note I just formatted a drive with 1014GB on each F and G partitions all going smoothly so far
XBPartitioner v1.3
64k clusters

Re: Creating E Drive larger than 4-5GB?

Posted: Sat Feb 08, 2020 1:14 am
by Coldly-Indifferent
Its when you reach the limit on one or the other that the problems occur.

It also depends on what exactly 1014GB means - if that is what the Xbox itself is reporting ie. 1,014,000MiB on F and G then you're OK because that is actually 990GiB (base 1024)

Re: Creating E Drive larger than 4-5GB?

Posted: Sun Mar 15, 2020 8:28 am
by PhilTheStampede
bengalih wrote: Tue Aug 01, 2017 5:20 am So on my 2TB system my E: drive is partitioned/formatted to the following size:

4,881.63

This seems to be whatever the default was when using xbpt to create the filesystem.

I'm curious if it is possible to make this partition larger (and thus take away some available space from F: or G: drive)?

The reason I am asking is that there seems to be more than this amount of space for available DLC.
Here for instance is a collection of all DLC for the xbox:

https://digiex.net/threads/xbox-offline ... loads.675/

Even excluding the Live only DLC (which is worthless now anyway), the total amount of DLC is probably upwards of 8GB.

This means you can't have the DLC if you own all the games which DLC is available for - because this data gets installed to the UDATA/TDATA folders.

I haven't even tried to partition larger because I don't want to mess anything up - would this cause any problems to the system?
Hey man. When you ended up finally making the E drive larger, did you run any tests about what Rocky 5 was saying. You seem to be the only documented person I could find who attempted to install all the DLC and ran into the same issue I have. I want to know how safe it is and what I can and can't do.

I have apt of FTPing to do all over again and don't want to do it wrong, as I'm sure you remember from your experience. I was literally done; made a custom background even. Then I found this issue.

So any and all insight would be fantastic.

Re: Creating E Drive larger than 4-5GB?

Posted: Sun Mar 15, 2020 5:09 pm
by bengalih
PhilTheStampede wrote: Sun Mar 15, 2020 8:28 am Hey man. When you ended up finally making the E drive larger, did you run any tests about what Rocky 5 was saying. You seem to be the only documented person I could find who attempted to install all the DLC and ran into the same issue I have. I want to know how safe it is and what I can and can't do.

I have apt of FTPing to do all over again and don't want to do it wrong, as I'm sure you remember from your experience. I was literally done; made a custom background even. Then I found this issue.

So any and all insight would be fantastic.
Well honestly I don't remember, which is why I like to post/follow-up like I did above so that it is documented. My XBOX gets used maybe once every couple months for the kids/guests. As I wrote above I apparently did reformat it to 10GB in size. AFAIK I have no issues, although my box is X3 hard mod and I only run things off the HDD.

I'm out of town for a few days, but if there is something/some test you want me to try when I get back in town I'll try to run it, but yeah...I don't really see any issues changing the size from the 5GB default to 10GB.

Re: Creating E Drive larger than 4-5GB?

Posted: Sun Mar 15, 2020 9:16 pm
by PhilTheStampede
bengalih wrote: Sun Mar 15, 2020 5:09 pm
PhilTheStampede wrote: Sun Mar 15, 2020 8:28 am Hey man. When you ended up finally making the E drive larger, did you run any tests about what Rocky 5 was saying. You seem to be the only documented person I could find who attempted to install all the DLC and ran into the same issue I have. I want to know how safe it is and what I can and can't do.

I have apt of FTPing to do all over again and don't want to do it wrong, as I'm sure you remember from your experience. I was literally done; made a custom background even. Then I found this issue.

So any and all insight would be fantastic.
Well honestly I don't remember, which is why I like to post/follow-up like I did above so that it is documented. My XBOX gets used maybe once every couple months for the kids/guests. As I wrote above I apparently did reformat it to 10GB in size. AFAIK I have no issues, although my box is X3 hard mod and I only run things off the HDD.

I'm out of town for a few days, but if there is something/some test you want me to try when I get back in town I'll try to run it, but yeah...I don't really see any issues changing the size from the 5GB default to 10GB.
I didn't mean to imply I didn't read the follow up. I just grabbed a quote so you'd be notified.

As far as tests go, I was just wondering, i suppose, if you put Rocky5's possible problem to the test; i.e. starting the Xbox from a powered off state with a disc. Otherwise, I'm just going to have to remember to keep discs out of the Xbox when I turn it off to avoid any issues, though I'll most likely just be using the HDD as well.

Don't do that test if you haven't already as he said it could cause harm lol.

But anyway, you have a good vacation, brother. Thanks for the reply. And be safe! Don't stand by anyone who coughs!

Re: Creating E Drive larger than 4-5GB?

Posted: Sun Mar 15, 2020 11:50 pm
by bengalih
PhilTheStampede wrote: Sun Mar 15, 2020 9:16 pm I didn't mean to imply I didn't read the follow up. I just grabbed a quote so you'd be notified.

As far as tests go, I was just wondering, i suppose, if you put Rocky5's possible problem to the test; i.e. starting the Xbox from a powered off state with a disc. Otherwise, I'm just going to have to remember to keep discs out of the Xbox when I turn it off to avoid any issues, though I'll most likely just be using the HDD as well.

Don't do that test if you haven't already as he said it could cause harm lol.

But anyway, you have a good vacation, brother. Thanks for the reply. And be safe! Don't stand by anyone who coughs!
Wasn't implying you didn't read the follow-up, just stating my memory wasn't that great so anything you wanted beyond what was written here I'd need to look back into :).
I think I might own the Splinter Cell disc still (got rid of all my old media), and I would test it because I highly doubt it would cause an issue - especially with a hard-modded box.... but honestly I don't think there should be any issues.

If you need any more specifics on my setup let me know, usually I'm around and can run a test or two.