Where do I buy an IDE hard drive in Stafford?

[Wookie]

The hard drive in my Xbox seems to have had it - the F partition's disappeared. Therefore, it's looking like I need a new drive. There's a list of compatible drives, but I don't know anywhere that might sell me one over the counter - PCworld seem to only sell their own brand, Maplins are grossly overpriced, and Solo and JCComputers don't seem to have websites.
Anyone any ideas? Or has it got to be eBuyer again?

 

[tek-monkey]

You could call JC Computers? They are now called Stafford Computers though. Not sure he'd have any new ones in stock though, its 3 years since I worked there and we were mainly SATA back then.

 

[Wookie]

Hmm. I vowed I'd never go near them again a few years ago. However, needs must... Will pop in in the morning.
Still run by Jon and his wife, is it?

 

[Gramaisc]

Someone calling themselves PCBitz has a stall on the market and someone calling themselves PCBitz, located in Rugeley, has a shop on ebay, which has some on now.

 

[Wookie]

Hmm... OK, will have a look. Don't think there's been a pc stall in the market since Dav Goosey, who shut up shop c: Xmas 2006.
Oh, by PCBitz, do you mean the bloke at the front by the Guildhall entrance? Used to be a printer's stall?

 

[Gramaisc]

That's the one. He was there this morning, but was engrossed with his mates and I didn't want to butt in, especially as I don't have the slightest idea about these things and he might have asked me something...

 

[gdavies]

personally try scan.co.uk but you will hav to flash a drive image to any hdd you buy

 

[Wookie]

personally try scan.co.uk

About the same price as ebuyer, but the postage is more expensive. Any reason to choose Scan over eBuyer?

but you will hav to flash a drive image to any hdd you buy

Why?

 

[gdavies]

personally try scan.co.uk

About the same price as ebuyer, but the postage is more expensive. Any reason to choose Scan over eBuyer?

just had pretty good experiences with them in the past

but you will hav to flash a drive image to any hdd you buy

Why?

an xbox hdd is not a standard fat32 or ntfs format it is done in a set way to stop people just putting in any old hdd the biggest you can put in so far is 250gb. to give you an idea here is some info

Drive structure on the Xbox 360 hard drives:

Drive contents:

Address Length (bytes) Contains
0x0000 8192 Null (0x00)
0x2000 68 Plain text hard disk info
0x2044 24 Static Binary Info (doesn't change console to console)
0x205C 256 Dynamic Binary Data (changes from console to console - possibly encrypted serial number of console)
0x2202 2 Size of following PNG file
0x2204 2754 MS logo in PNG format (aka hddss.bin),

Partitions:

Address Description
0x80000 Cache Partition (aka partition 0)
0x80080000 Unknown
0x120EB0000 Xbox Backwards compatibility drive (aka Xbox1 emulator / partition 2)
0x130EB0000 Main Xbox 360 Partition (aka partition 3)


there is tools you can use to sort it pretty readily available on the internet

 

[Wookie]

Who said anything about Xbox360? It's an Xbox. The compatibility chart seems to indicate that the WD drive is compatible...

 

[gdavies]

lol i just could'nt remember the xbox orignal having an hdd my bad lol well there is some info if you upgrade at some point

 

[shoes]

I chucked an old WD drive in my xbox years ago, cant remember the size but an 80GB rings a bell... plug and play basically, it was a very simple operation

 

[Wookie]

My understanding is that it doesn't matter what make or capacity of harddrive you have in a chipped Xbox, as long as it's formatted in the right way. The only time it matters is when you want to play on Xbox Live (does that exist for the original Xbox any more?), because you have to have the hard drive "locked".
According to the database of Xbox-compatible hard drives, the drive at ebuyer I have my eye on seems to be well liked. And is "lockable".
Does anyone put in fairly regular orders to ebuyer and would be prepared to do me a favour? Or does the computer market still happen at Trentham Gardens?

** EDIT URLified a URL.

 

[wmrcomputers]

My understanding is that it doesn't matter what make or capacity of harddrive you have in a chipped Xbox, as long as it's formatted in the right way. The only time it matters is when you want to play on Xbox Live (does that exist for the original Xbox any more?), because you have to have the hard drive "locked".
According to the database of Xbox-compatible hard drives, the drive at ebuyer I have my eye on seems to be well liked. And is "lockable".
Does anyone put in fairly regular orders to ebuyer and would be prepared to do me a favour? Or does the computer market still happen at Trentham Gardens?

** EDIT URLified a URL.

Damn - just placed an order today with delivery on Monday. Sorry pal.

I order most weeks though at some point