Sweet Mary and Joseph, if it isn't the holy ghost himself.
You are in the UK, correct? You should look at this drive for your PC:
Samsung SH-D162
C. There are hacked "Kreon" firmware so that you can create images with that drive, instead of using your 360's drive.
-Site 1
-Site 2
Next, you should get Xbox Backup Creator v2 to use with that drive.
-
Info
Yah, its link to xbox-scene, but the post is technically the offical site.
I know you have a Hitachi drive, but I think the firmware is split up between drive versions. Like there is version 32, 36, 46, 47, etc... Newer firmware may support them all but I don't know for sure. I haven't gotten around to modding my drive yet.