Xbox Standard Drive - useable as a normal HDD?

[marcus]

Im wanting to format my XB 8GB hard drive, to install an OS. However, after being unable to run XP setup as setup could not write to the drive, I installed it onto my main PC hoping to perform a quick format and was unable to pass the BIOS due to errors reporting on the HD.

Does anyone know if the XB drive is useable as a normal drive?

[marcus]

Presumeabley it needs to be unlocked before it can work, and presumeably I need to refit it into my XB to do that.

I guess I answered my own question

[tankplanker]

You can unlock it in your PC (need to add it after the bios check or skip auto detection), but you need the HD password, so if you have backed that up before unplugging the drive from your Xbox you have a winner.

You could also do a hot swap of the drive once its been unlocked in the Xbox, but you might as well use Config magic to unlock it properly if you are going to do that.

[marcus]

Aye thats exactly what I did, using config magic. I didnt think you could hotawap IDE drives, I thought that was only SATA territory.

[tankplanker]

You can, but you take a risk on fudging the drive for good.

Take a look at xbox-scene, its the only method you can use to swap out a HD if you don't have a chipped xbox.