I recently purchased an Xbox from n64freak with the upgraded CPU and RAM. I want to use my old 500GB HDD with the SATA adapter. I unlocked the HDD and was having some trouble at first getting the Xbox to work with the HDD but now I think I have it mostly set. I'm using Hexen and I'm kind of afraid to mess with TSOP flash operations without first knowing what I'm doing. Basically F seems to be limited to 120gb while I have to put the rest on G. The way my softmod was I just had a bigger F partition. In order to do this would I need to use a different flash version? Before doing anything else though is there any disadvantage to having the bigger F partition compared to having both F and G? I've messed around with softmods for years but I'm new to using an Xbox wirh a TSOP flash. EDIT: Also, xbpartitioner allows the F partition to be bigger but then Hexen will show it as 0gb free and won't let me install anything to it. EDIT2: Actually there's something weird about the fonts on UnleashX and Hexen where they're just corrupted so you can't see any of the writing. Has anyone else ever had this problem?
It's probably best to start by explaining why this was done in the first place - when MS released the Xbox, the supplied boot ROM only supported the original (28 bit) LBA mode, which restricts drive sizes to 137GB. Since the drive wasn't intended to be user-replaceable and was only 8GB, this wouldn't have seemed like much of a restriction. Later, after the Xbox was completely hacked, the boot ROM was heavily rewritten and one of the things that was added was support for LBA48, which allowed the use of the drive space above 137GB. The reason for the F+G partitioning was that it allowed the drive to be used both on boot ROMs that only supported LBA24 and ones that supported LBA48 - the LBA28 ones would only see the F partition and would just ignore the G partition since it was in a part of the drive that wasn't accessible. Putting all the remaining space into F works fine on systems supporting LBA48, but if you ever switched over to a boot ROM that only supported LBA28 but still knew about the F partition then writing to F would risk damaging the F partition data. So basically, the only reason to use F+G is if you think you may ever be using an older hacked boot ROM version that doesn't support LBA48. And yes, you normally have to reflash to change over between the two partitioning schemes.
Thanks for the reply. That makes sense, I have no problem just using both partitions as long as it works since I can just put games on both. About the fonts though, that's not the only problem. I can't seem to get it to boot into XBMC either. It seems to just hang then the Xbox eventually reboots. I tried to use a Hexen disc to install it and the HDD that came with the Xbox seemed to have an older version of XBMC but that worked. Does the IND BIOS work with the extra RAM automatically or is there a different modified version for an upgraded Xbox? I'm kind of wondering if it's a bad flash considering the font problem and XBMC not working but I'm not entirely sure. EDIT: I found out I have an ST electronics chip. EDIT 2: OMG unbelievable. The Thomson DVD drive is just broken. I used my Samsung drive from the other Xbox and now the fonts are there
