Xbox hard drive upgrade WITHOUT modding?

Hi

I am hoping to prolong the life of my original Xbox, but modding (to me, someone with learning difficulties) appears to be a long complicated process. I did see the Modern Vintage Gamer's video which does make it look easier, but I will have to rewatch and be shown where in the UK where I can buy the parts I need for replacing the hard drive.

However, I posted this video last year:

and James Carter posted this in the comments: Microsoft only locked the hard drive so technically, using a copy of Splinter Cell and some homebrew software you can back up the key and then unlock the hard drive and use a computer to backup the drive, once backed up you could copy the data to any hard drive including modern hard drives and then lock the drive using the original key. Of course if you update to a more modern drive that's SATA you'll have to buy an adapter to be able to use it.

Anyone know anything about this? It would be nice if there was an easier way to replace the hard drive in my original Xbox. Thank you!

 

There is no way to directly swap a drive without that key or a modchip.

 

That's the way you'd need to do it, without a modchip or flashed bios the system won't use the drive if it hasn't been re-locked with the appropriate key