So, after looking stuff up I heard that some Xbox hard drives actually have 10gb total, not 8gb. Now, I've heard you can use the space by formatting F, but is this part of the drive separate from everything else? For example, will I only have 2GB on F and the other 8 on C (E?)? Is there anyone to merge them?
IIRC, the two cache partitions (X and Y?) follow immediately after the E partition, and the XBOX expects the partitions to start at specific positions, so there's no way to shift those towards the back. Unless, maybe, there's a BIOS hack w/ modified partition offsets? (You can merge F and G partitions (>127GB HDDs only) though if your BIOS supports it, since F and G do follow imediately after each other. That only applies to >127GB HDDs though.)
E: is the first partition on the disk, C: follows then X:,Y: and Z: are at position 3,4 and 5 on the partition table. The rest of the space is unused on 10GB those Seagate HDDs. It does't matter at which physical position the partition is on the HDD, the operating system (here Xbox bios) takes care of identification by letter. Some hacked bios can read the partition table from the HDD itself, which allows custom partition sizes but for the sake of game compatibility, you should always use the default scheme for the first 5 partitions. Launch XBParititioner on your Xbox and you'll see. As for OP: Just use Auto-Installer Deluxe or Hexen's disc and find the option to format the F partition. That's it. You can probably find the same features on popular dashboards such as EvoX or UnleashX but they have to be properly configured to show the options.
It's not really worth it for 2GB anyway. Since you have to be modded to begin with, I'd just throw in another Hard Disk if you can. There's two Seagate drives as well. Please note! http://xboxarchive.co.uk/doku.php?id=system_parts:start
I agree with HEX1GON that it's not really worth it. Just salvage any IDE hard drive from an old computer and the odds of making it work on a hard modded system (ie not softmodded) are really good. You can even buy a new SATA HDD and use a SATA-IDE converter to plug it in your Xbox. I bought myself a 2TB WD Red and used a cheap no-name chinese SATA converter board. It works perfect and fast with my ATA-100 cable. Be advised that not all combination of HDD and converter board will work. Most people have better success with Seagate HDDs, I can't remember the model number but it should be fairly easy to find if you search around. Good site here, I see there's no info on the Maxtor HDD. I might still have one laying around for pictures and info. Can the public edit this wiki?
You know I think you're right. I don't why but I was under the impression that some of those rugged hard drives in early revisions were Maxtor... But I can't seem to find anything that could confirm this thought. I usually throw the stock HDD away in a bin as soon as I open the console so I don't pay close attention to the brand! My bad.
