XBOX is sensitive to HD brand.

[Punky]

Hey Guys.
Thought I'd share something with ya.
I went to go replace my Harddrive in my xbox.
I go and prep a new drive and format it and everything. It was a 40gb IBM drive.
Copied some games to it and edited the EVO menu so I could launch it.
Played one game, no prob... (I used Xplorer by the way instead of doing the ftp thing)
Went to play another... (Ghost Recon 2) and it wouldn't play. The logo screen came up but never asked me to hit Start and kind of went into demo mode. The buttons on the controller seemed dead. Swapped controllers and noises were then made when I hit the buttons but still couldn't actually start a game. Thought I'd try from my backup DVD.. same result. I put in the old HD (the old one isn't the original Xbox drive either but it is a Western Digital drive) and tried the DVD again - worked fine.
So I redid the new IBM drive again (formatted etc.) and before doing anything else to it tried the DVD again. Same result - would not work.
I saw the same thing happen with several of the games (but not all).
I've concluded that there is something about certain hard drives that the Xbox does not like. Don't know what it is but it's annoying as hell.

Has anyone ever experienced this before?
Are there certain brands which are known to be better than others? I am assuming Western Digital are good, but what about Maxtor or Fujitsu? Anyone have experience with these brands?

[Frito]

There's something I can't exactly recall right now but Xplorer doesn't copy permissions or something like that properly. That may be the reason it's not working. What happens if you try copying via FTP?

[Quall999]

It's probably not the HDD. It is either the game, a setting with the xbox, or the dashboard. Delete the files on X, y, and Z, make sure the time is set correctly and if you are using evox, turn off the IGR's. The game might also require a patch. As Frito said, try different ways of vopying the disk. Like use dvd2xbox, Avalaunch, or ftp.

[Punky]

Now picture this.
Sitting in front of the xbox with 2 HDs.
Put one HD in. Put in a backup of say Ghost Recon 2.
Turn the Xbox off then on. Viola - you're playing no problem. You see the "Press Start" message on the title screen and so forth.

Now replace the HD with a FRESHLY made one. Put the SAME disc in and reboot the xbox.
No go. After some momentary stuttering (like a fraction of a second) the opening video starts but you can't stop it and you can't start a new game.
Pushing the controller buttons do nothing. Unplug the controller and plug it back in. Aha - now Xbox is giving some audio feedback to the button pushing (different sound for each button), but alas - nothing else changes.

Put the other HD back in. It all runs fine.
For fun backup the appropriate folder from E: Put the other drive back in and transfer it over. Nope. Still no go. Nothing.

Now go try a dozen other games. About half will experience the same sympoms as Ghost Recon 2. Fable being another one for example. It makes no different if it's on the HD or running from DVD (with F empty). Same symptoms.

See what I'm talking about?
It's got nothing to do with X: Y: Z:, cuz the HD that doesn't work is fresh.
It's got nothing to do with the game, since many games do the same thing.
It's got nothing to do with running games from the HD, since we're talking about running from the disc.
It's got nothing to do with the transfer method (ftp) since the same disc will work when one HD is plugged in, but won't when the other HD is plugged in.

Oh. And did I mention.... I saw the exact same thing on the New HD when the C drive was IDENTICAL to the original in terms of files and so forth. When I thought I screwed something up, that's when I tried preparing the drive from scratch but soon realized that didn't make a difference.

I'm a pretty technical guy (I'm a lead programmer by profession), everything is pointing to something taking a look at the HD. Maybe the drive needs to have the capability of being locked (which perhaps the new IBM drive in question here does not) - even if you're not going on line or anything like that.

[Punky]

So I threw in the original HD that came with the xbox.
SAME DEAL.
Half the bloddy games won't run (from DVD).

Go Figure?
What da hell?
I wiped out XYZ
I cleaned out Cache.
I even cleaned out UData and TData.
Still no go.

Someone hand me a gun.

[Punky]

OH MAN
Well I went to the drive that worked and wiped out the X drive.
Guess what it stopped working.
Well that made no sense right?
Well, that allowed me to connect the dots.
The first time a game is run, you have to let it run through all of the opening video and stuff (not all games, but GH2 and Fable at least).
Once it's done that.
No problem.
Eventually the start menu did appear for me - but I ws impatient and did not wait long enough at first. Once I let it get to that point. Everytime after that I can click start and skip the opening video no problem.
Can you spell smart?
SMRT
SMRT
I am so smart
SMRT
Ug.