I just installed a 2 TB disk (WD Blue) using a Startech IDE -> SATA adapter. I boot my Xbox with Hexen in the drive and it detected a new, unformatted disk. I let it format the disk, then used it to install applications and XBMC. I then ejected the disk, powered down and powered up. Now the Xbox is sitting at the BIOS screen: the throbber animation completed, now I'm just looking at an Xbox logo and the LED on the console is cycling red -> orange -> green endlessly. Any idea what this means? I know the console can be finicky about SATA adapters and drives. Is this how that manifests? (The console is a 1.0, and I'm using an Xecuter2 modchip with an unknown BIOS. Waiting on a game disk to arrive so I can try to TSOP flash it w/ x2 5035.)
I just did a bunch of consoles. Had similar issues, I had to replace the ide cable with an 80 pin version and all worked fine.
I didn't know there were different versions of the cable. What types are there, please, and how do they differ from the ones used in PCs that supported IDE hard drives?
The stock cable is a 40-wire IDE cable. The alternative is an 80-wire cable. The 80-wire cables are more resistant to interference (and I think necessary for higher transfer rates). A PC could have either, depending on the age. You can google for an image to compare them, but it's pretty clear that a 40-wire cable is much courser than the 80-wire.
80-wire 40-pin ATA100-ATA133 IDE cable vs 40-wire 40-pin ATA33/66 IDE cable. When using a SATA HDD the Xbox uses the higher transfer rates autoconfigured by the IDE-to-SATA adapter. In most cases, the 40-pin cable is not capable of properly transferring data at the higher speed. Top: 80-wire 40-pin ATA 100/133 cable Bottom: stock 40-wire 40-pin ATA33/66 cable
Good news: 80-wire cable arrived. Better news: no more font corruption with Hexen. Bad news: booting to the disk instead of DVD still results in the same as before: the throbber animation completed, now I'm just looking at an Xbox logo and the LED on the console is cycling red -> orange -> green endlessly. Since I'm booting off a modchip this suggests the problem isn't an unlocked disk, which suggests either the SATA adapter or disk is incompatible, right?
Apparently the bios is x5 5031 (so says EvoX). It's partitioned (for now) with a 129 GB F: and no G:.
Took another stab at it. I think it was just not finding something to run, as I ran through the softmod install and was able to turn off the chip and boot successfully. And after that I was able to TSOP flash x2 5035, so I think I'm good to go. Time to remove the old modchip (goodbye ugly blue LEDs) and slap latest XBMC on.
