New XBOX Hard Drive

I got my new XBOX Hard Drive earlier today. It's a 160gb IDE with 8mb Cache. It cost me $138 with $12.55 of that being GST. It was a bitch to setup and took me 6 hours. To start with I made a bootable DVD+RW which worked fine. I then took out my old hard drive and put in my new one. The XBOX would not boot any discs and couldn't boot from a blank harddrive so I kept getting Error 7 (HDD Error) and Error 13 (MSDash Problem). After a couple of hours of re-burning the DVD+RW and switching drives I decided to jump on IRC.

Feb 11 19:26:40 [Agret] Guys i'm trying to install a new hard drive and I need some help. How do you setup a new hard drive? All the tutorials on xbox-scene are stupid the just tell you to put cable select and boot disc. You can't boot without a formatted hard drive. I'm using an x2 lite flashed with X2.4983.06
Feb 11 19:27:16 [UnEZ] you'll need a dash boot disc
Feb 11 19:27:33 [Agret] I have one
Feb 11 19:27:45 [Agret] its called NewHDEvox1.4
Feb 11 19:27:49 [Agret] it's not booting though
Feb 11 19:27:51 [Agret] NOTHING will boot
Feb 11 19:28:16 [UnEZ] burn it right, to the right type of media too that your xbox dvd reader supports
Feb 11 19:28:16 [Agret] retail + backup games get the XECUTER2 logo then goto the error thing the NewHDEvox just boots straight to it with no logo
Feb 11 19:28:38 [Agret] UnEZ it's on DVD+RW it works fine on my old hard drive
Feb 11 19:28:44 [Agret] When I switch to new hard drive it wont boot
Feb 11 19:28:49 [UnEZ] same brand?
Feb 11 19:28:53 [Agret] ?
Feb 11 19:29:01 [UnEZ] the dvd readers
Feb 11 19:29:05 [Agret] its the exact same reader
Feb 11 19:29:08 [Agret] its just a new hard drive
Feb 11 19:29:11 [UnEZ] k
Feb 11 19:29:14 [Agret] nothing else changed
Feb 11 19:29:26 [Agret] I get "Error 7 Hard Drive Error"
Feb 11 19:29:40 [UnEZ] oh
Feb 11 19:29:49 [UnEZ] go over your cabling/jumper
Feb 11 19:29:51 [fierygt] are you sure your ide cable isn't faulty?
Feb 11 19:30:18 [UnEZ] or not plugged in firmly on all 3 connectors
Feb 11 19:30:36 [UnEZ] jump hd to cable-select (or master)
Feb 11 19:30:42 [Agret] it is on cable select
Feb 11 19:30:58 [Agret] fierygt afaik the xbox should be able to boot discs without a hard drive
Feb 11 19:31:15 [UnEZ] i don't think so
Feb 11 19:31:19 [Agret] and how could the IDE cable be faulty it works fine with retail hard drive
Feb 11 19:31:40 [UnEZ] sounds like the *drive* is faulty
Feb 11 19:31:46 [Agret] hmm
Feb 11 19:31:49 [Agret] idk
Feb 11 19:31:52 [Agret] its brand new
Feb 11 19:31:57 [UnEZ] so?
Feb 11 19:32:02 [Agret] i doubt it'd be faulty
Feb 11 19:32:12 [UnEZ] then go over your cabling
Feb 11 19:32:14 [fierygt] well, how many times have you pulled the drives in and out
Feb 11 19:32:22 [Agret] fierygt too many times
Feb 11 19:32:37 [fierygt] the more you do, the better chance you have of damaging cabling
Feb 11 19:32:46 [UnEZ] what kinda answers ya want? error 7 is indeed a hd error
Feb 11 19:33:57 [UnEZ] right, the dvd connector on the ide cable can seperate from the pins/cable from constant removing
Feb 11 19:34:33 [Agret] can you re-state that i dont understand
Feb 11 19:34:41 [Agret] the dvd connector?
Feb 11 19:34:53 [UnEZ] on the ide cable. the 40 pin
Feb 11 19:35:08 [fierygt] agret, don't dismiss small things such as the cabling, or you may be scratching your head for a long time
Feb 11 19:36:17 [UnEZ] watch when you pull on it to remove, you can see the cable pulling away from the pins, sooner or later, those tiny wires will fail to make contact inside the connector
Feb 11 19:36:20 [Agret] wolfman says:
Feb 11 19:36:20 [Agret] doubt it's the drive more likely the way we're trying to load it
Feb 11 19:37:03 [fierygt] well, you also said it won't even boot retail games, correct?
Feb 11 19:37:07 [UnEZ] i dunno, only 1 way to do it
Feb 11 19:37:19 [Agret] fierygt it wont boot retail games after the hd swap
Feb 11 19:37:24 [Agret] when the retail drive is put in the games boot
Feb 11 19:37:34 [UnEZ] still needs a hd for the saved game slot on every game boot
Feb 11 19:37:39 [fierygt] that's because there is no dash
Feb 11 19:37:55 [Agret] also homebrew discs and the evox hd loader thing wont boot
Feb 11 19:37:57 [UnEZ] that would be error 13
Feb 11 19:38:21 [Agret] i get that too
Feb 11 19:38:32 [UnEZ] missing msdash
Feb 11 19:38:34 [Agret] error 7 when evox or homebrew disc loaded
Feb 11 19:38:36 [Agret] error 13 when retail
Feb 11 19:38:51 [Agret] also get error 7 when no disc in drive
Feb 11 19:38:55 [UnEZ] cuz there's no retail dash
Feb 11 19:39:06 [fierygt] are you burning the XISO as an IMAGE? it is very important it be burned that way
Feb 11 19:39:08 [Agret] well yes thats makes sense UnEZ it is listed in the list
Feb 11 19:39:24 [Agret] fierygt tried MooGUI and ZXBTools and Qwix to make XISO and burn with Nero
Feb 11 19:39:30 [Agret] should i attempt a data burn with UDF
Feb 11 19:39:37 [fierygt] no
Feb 11 19:39:47 [fierygt] your probably burning wrong
Feb 11 19:39:50 [UnEZ] !help prebuiltiso
Feb 11 19:39:52 [xbinsHelp] prebuiltiso - There are pre-built EvoX dashboard isos in #xbins ftp, they are in /xbox/apps/dashboards/evolution-x/_unoffical
Feb 11 19:40:02 [UnEZ] !help formatftpevox
Feb 11 19:40:03 [xbinsHelp] formatftpevox - Format a new HD through FTP (v1.8.2594 & higher): http://www.xbox-scene.com/articles/hdd-ftp.php
Feb 11 19:40:14 [Agret] ok will get an ISO
Feb 11 19:40:14 [fierygt] close the "new" item menu your getting when you load nero
Feb 11 19:40:20 [Agret] new item?
Feb 11 19:40:25 [Agret] I just go into nero burning row
Feb 11 19:40:26 [Agret] *rom
Feb 11 19:40:30 [Agret] close hwatever pops up
Feb 11 19:40:32 [Agret] goto recorder then burn image
Feb 11 19:40:47 [Agret] choose DVD, 4x, finalize, burn
Feb 11 19:40:47 [UnEZ] yep, cancel the wizard
Feb 11 19:40:59 [UnEZ] dvd??
Feb 11 19:41:05 [UnEZ] dao
Feb 11 19:41:11 [UnEZ] disc-at-once
Feb 11 19:41:14 [Agret] Burn the EvoX dashboard to a CDRW or DVD-R (no CDRs).
Feb 11 19:41:20 [Agret] so uhh dvd+rw isnt supported?
Feb 11 19:41:31 [UnEZ] not on a samsung

Those guys nailed it down to either a dodgy cable or a faulty drive. They also blamed it on my media. I asked in #xbox and they blamed it on my BIOS so I flashed to the latest one (This is before the xbins chat log above) and still nothing. IRC is no help at all and my drive and cabling were both fine. Someone even went so far as to say my motherboard was b0rked. I took the retail drive and the 160gb and cloned the retail bit-by-bit to the 160gb drive using Norton Ghost with the command line switch "ir". After the clone I chucked it in the XBOX and my EvoX booted straight off :) I went into UnleashX and formatted the F: then I returned to EvoX and turned on support for the F Drive. After power cycling the XBOX the F: space free came up as 154gb :) My drive is installed and working. I have just chucked all my Full Metal Alchemist episodes on there (51 of them, the entire set) and GentooX. I am having problems getting GentooX to run though. I have also ripped Halo to the hard drive into my NMP folder so now I can play all the singleplayer and original maps through it :) I'm going to enjoy this 160gb drive it was worth the time (6 hours) and money ($138)