Functionality of Xbox : Hardrive Issue

[vodanh]

My xbox does not boot up anymore, my friend fried it somehow. It may be a power issue but I really suspect the hardrive. It creates a loud beeping noise (or a zzZZ sound from over spin ) when connected. My question is does the hardrive hold any OS related files or purely save files ? If the xbox boots and runs everything from bios and the hardrive is just for storage i can simply try to replace the hardrive, but if there are files on the drive required to run the xbox then I'll have to copy it off someone elses xbox.

[kosmiq]

The harddrive does this:
Keeps your saves
contains your dashboard
boot-files for the dashboard
uhhhh... a few more things? :P

Do you have a chip or not?
Getting any video or sound?

If you do not have any video at all I am suspecting something more serious than harddrive failure... :-\
If you have a chip try booting with an install disc such as SlaYers or Auto-Installer Deluxe.
The sound you're talking about is also bad, as you should hear slight HDD spinning and some fan noise...

Lets say that your xbox boots and gives video and your HDD is bust AND you have a chip. Then it will be piece of cake switching hdd... Depending on chip it will be from easy as h*ll to very easy...
Here are 2 links that can help you out with the hdd switching...
HDD with modchip
No modchip hdd switch

Good luck!
If you do not have any video please reply and describe the problem a little more, also ask your friend more specific what happened.

Edit:
Oh, if you have an Xecuter 3 or Xenium ICE or similar 4th gen modchip you will most likely have an HDD upgrade wizard in the modchip boot menu.

[vodanh]

When i boot it the light flashes green 3 times and then starts alternating green and red. after each flash is a very loud beep that happens if the hardrive is connected on the first 3 green flashes and the noise stops after that while its blinking green/red.

My friend describes a mushroom cloud over the power box area when he pluged it in and fried it. I had an x-chip in it but have since moved the chip over to a new xbox we bought. the xbox now doesn't load at all. Is it worth trying to get a new power source for it and replacing it with a small hardrive that i may find laying around 4-8gigs. Im interested in trying to fix it more out of interest than necessity since we bought a new xbox for the apt.

I would also like to thank you very much for the quick reply, that was awesome and informative.

*will an xbox boot without a hardrive or a corrupt one ?

[kosmiq]

Ypi can indeed boot an xbox without an hdd but you will not get far. You will get an error code after the flubber animation (the one that starts as something and becomes an X :P).

The beep between each flash is kinda strange as I have never heard of that before. Green/red flashing is called "frag" and can occur for different reasons.
And as you say it occurs when the HDD is plugged in. That should make the HDD faulty yes.

The fact that it does boot and then frags can be seen as uhhhm... Good or something... Because then the PSU is working to power it up atleast.
On the other hand some recistor could have gone bust in the 'cloud' and therefore making a hard time for the PSU.

Your friend talks about and mushroom cloud at the moment he plugged it in? Thats kinda strange actually. But what you can do is open up your xbox and take a look at the PSU. Check for a brand there and report back..

Frag is most often caused by bad chip or something similar. Any chip is not the problem right now as the chip has been moved. The D0 might have been damaged upon chip removal or similar though.

You say the xbox wont boot at all know when you have moved the chip. Then your old xbox is most likely to suffer from "console coma".
It is unknown why this happens but the eeprom get busted for no reason at all. I would say that it happened long before the cloud thing and that the chip kept you from noticing.

Please describe the "wont boot at all" thing a little more specific so I know what you mean... It is like "I press the power button nothing at all happen", "I press the power button it turns on, then off, then on again 3 times and then starts to frag" or something else?

[vodanh]

Power box is a foxlink and i have read about how faulty they are, but i checked the smoldering on the pins and they seem ok.

when i push power there is no video response, nor audio, i only hear the xbox start up and the hardrive start to make the noises, the power button flahes green 3 times and then frags. Now that yo mentioned it you're probably right that i's in a coma now.. aroudn the time before all this happened the xbox was having problems booting up the xchip bios, i had to try to flash it again a few times and check the D0 pin but the xchip was operating fine. The D0 slot is not damaged im very careful with my hardware. I was hoping the problem was small so i could fix it i didn't want the whole xbox to go to waste. i was just about to buy a convertor for the 20 pin power boxes to 12 pin that the version 1 uses to try and revive it but since u said that it should boot without a hardrive anyways it is probably dead, thanks for the correspondance. Hardrive is definately busted though.
-_- At the time I really didn't know what the best mod chips were and I got the x-chip and i must say it works well so far when the xbox is operating normally. Its running quite well on the new xbox even after being in a burnt one, but yeah Xecuter next time ?

[kosmiq]

IMO the chip does not matter THAT much as some wants you to think...
I have an Aladdin Advance 32 in my xbox and it does its work great... Got it installed before the clone rush though... So aladdin is no good choice today...
DuoX 2 has gotten real popular as the #1 cheapmod today.

But if you want to be on the safe side and make sure that you get a good chip that works I would recommend Xenium or xecuter...

I think that the xbox could be revived if you would have some expert take a look at it or something... But that could cost some money and may not be worth it.