The Negative Edge of a Console Hard Drive

I come home from a long day of work on Friday... go into my bedroom, turn on the PC, the TV and the Xbox, then go into the bathroom to wash up. I start hearing some loud ass noises coming from the room. I finish up and walk back in. My Xbox's welcoming and nurturing green light is flickering to red and back.

Red is never a good sign.

Thinking the disc inside is spinning wrong, I open the tray. The noise continues. It must be the hard drive. I turn it off and on. Starts up fine. Ah, a fluke. A technical hiccup. I play for a few hours, turn it off, and forget about it.

Midday saturday, I click the Xbox on again. Same noise, same red flashes. Now I'm starting to worry. I turn it off and on. Red, green, red, green. Off and on and off and on. My balls start to retract as I think of all the Halo profiles, my GTA3 and Vice City progress... shit, my Burnout 2 and 3 progress... fuck! All the bullshit I did in that fucking Spider Man 2 game. Oh god. One more try. Nothing.

I call MS to see what they can do. Long story short, pay for shipping, pay $80 for service, and there's no guarantee they can recover my save games. "Nigga please," I reply. I try it out one more time: success. I hang up on that buster, leave the Xbox running, and head out to the local EB for an Xbox memory card.

They didn't have it. I end up having to drive out to the mall and back, now with a memory card and DOA:U in hand (don't ask =/ ). I start copying saves. Most of the big ones are safely preserved and will make the trip over to my new Xbox when this one completely stops responding. A lot of stuff won't be... not because it doesn't fit, but because it can't be copied. It just can't. I made a save in MY Xbox and I can't copy it because the people that made the games are fucking tools.

My Ninja Gaiden saves. My Burnout 2 and 3 saves. All my soundtracks that took, cumulatively, hours to put in. Assorted other game saves that don't really matter in the greater scheme of things.

I'm going to open her up soon. I have hope that there's something glaringly wrong: a large errant screw, some alien bit of technology holding up a small white flag, but I know in my heart it's a false one.

Good bye, my first Xbox. I never even saw your counter change from 50,000+ blocks.

PWNED!

Are you sure that one of the connections in the back just wasnt firmly in? When one of those is a little out, it's flashes red and shit

*bows head in silence*

It was bound to happen...someday, it will happen to all of us.

No save game can last forever :(

Consumer-level hard drives have a mean time between failure of about five to seven years. The number of Xboxs that still work when the PS4 and Xbox3 (or whatever the hell they are called) launch will be quite slim due to this, outside of replacing the dead hardware.

I guarantee that all of the "classic" Xboxes 15 years from now will be modded -- they simply will not work otherwise. May not be an issue if everything stays backwards compatatible with everything else, but who knows. Disturbing in a way...

(That and if I lost my PGR2 save with everything unlocked I would probably start shooting schoolchildren. That shit took me forever!)

-Dippy

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Originally Posted by Dipstick

(That and if I lost my PGR2 save with everything unlocked I would probably start shooting schoolchildren. That shit took me forever!)

-Dippy

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PGR2 is one of the saves I could copy over =D

I love how gamers are slaves to their own consoles and the companies that make them. If my XBox dies, I will not buy another one. Microsoft should have made a solid, quality product in the first place. I think I can forego a bit of gaming instead of getting fucked up the ass by a company that knows we'll just buy replacements when their shitty consoles die.

This is one regard where Nintendo is truly a superior company to its competition.

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Originally Posted by dave is ok

Are you sure that one of the connections in the back just wasnt firmly in? When one of those is a little out, it's flashes red and shit

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Yeah, I did. Plus, it's making that weird noise. It's not a CABLE NOISE, pay attention.

Am just shocked that the Xbox hard drive sucks. I read threads like this before ( same details cept he lost everything) The way Microsoft talked about this it weas like the 2nd coming of christ or something and it breaks.

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Originally Posted by remnant

Am just shocked that the Xbox hard drive sucks. I read threads like this before ( same details cept he lost everything) The way Microsoft talked about this it weas like the 2nd coming of christ or something and it breaks.

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It's not the standard, but yeah. I've seen Gamecubes break for no reason (including our display one at EB). It just happens sometimes, I'm not that pissed. Bad luck, I guess.

I want an XboxOne or something to buy.

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Originally Posted by remnant

Am just shocked that the Xbox hard drive sucks. I read threads like this before ( same details cept he lost everything) The way Microsoft talked about this it weas like the 2nd coming of christ or something and it breaks.

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It happens to everybody. Almost all 1st generation Sony hardware is dead after much hype. GameCubes randomly sputter out, 'specially after the release of Metroid Prime and those lovely disc read errors.

I have never had a system break on me, knock on wood, but that's just luck and care I guess.

Also I got all three of the currect gen consoles at least a year after they launched, so I missed the shitty batches I think.

Only ones to ever BARF! on me are the DC and now the Xbox.

Mine was a 2002 JSRF/Sega GT bundle one, btw.

Yeah, I got mine in 2003.

My Sony systems are the only ones I ever had major problems with, although the DC did need replacing a time or two as well, which was odd, as every Sega system I ever owned kept working. Hell, my Genesis, Sega CD, and Saturn still work perfectly. The DC I have now has worked flawlessly for about four years now, and hopefully, that will stay true.

Was it like a clunking sound? Like metal tapping metal?

If so thats a classic HD failure. Time to mod it an drop in a 160 gigger.

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Originally Posted by remnant

Am just shocked that the Xbox hard drive sucks. I read threads like this before ( same details cept he lost everything) The way Microsoft talked about this it weas like the 2nd coming of christ or something and it breaks.

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Yep we all know how Microsoft builds Harddrives. :rolleyes:

Excuse me while I go home an replace my NES cartridge port YET AGAIN.

Mod the Xbox get a nice big hd for it. That or try to trade it in for about 80 bucks at EB games (if it starts up the first time they try it) and buy a new one, be cheaper either way.

You can get at the saved games if your xbox happens to be a v1.0 or a v1.1 if the drive isn't dead. Harddrive errors can be caused by motherboard failures as it was when I went through somethign similar (just this weekend). There are programs to unlock those drives and make them able to be read by a modded xbox or a PC running some special tools. From there, you might be able to get the contents off the xbox drive and use a similar process to get them onto your new xbox's drive. This all goes a lot easier if the second xbox is modded (since that's the scenario I worked through), but it might also work without modding anything...

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Originally Posted by Mzo

Good bye, my first Xbox. I never even saw your counter change from 50,000+ blocks.

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yea, i always wondered about that 50,000+ block thing..

has that ever gone down for anyone?

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Originally Posted by Wildkat

Was it like a clunking sound? Like metal tapping metal?

If so thats a classic HD failure. Time to mod it an drop in a 160 gigger.

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Bingo. I have a spare HD lying aboot, actually. I may just do that.

Any way to replace the HD and log on to Live?

You'd have to copy everything over from the old hdd to your comp, then from the comp to the new hdd, and for that you'd need a chip... I think.

Sucky man.

I recently lost both my PS and PS2 memory cards. Soooo many RPG saves gone... :(

And Shinobi. The first game that made me proud to beat it in awhile.

The fact that I think you can import your saved game into Xenosaga 2 makes me even more upset.

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Originally Posted by lithium

Microsoft should have made a solid, quality product in the first place. I think I can forego a bit of gaming instead of getting fucked up the ass by a company that knows we'll just buy replacements when their shitty consoles die.

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Thats very nice, however, chances are you also bitch when a system is too expensive, too. If the Xbox cost $500 then Im sure it would last forever. However, when you gotta put together a top-notch gaming system and charge $150 you gotta cut corners somewhere. Same thing with PS2.

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This is one regard where Nintendo is truly a superior company to its competition.

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GameCubes dont break as much as Xbox or PS2 because their owners dont play them that much. A system cant get that much use from 2 good games a year.

Yea, GameCube is shit.

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Originally Posted by diffusionx

Yea, GameCube is shit.

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*high five*

ibtn 100%

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Originally Posted by diffusionx

A system cant get that much use from 2 good games a year.

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You're being too generous.

This may be a good idea. I wish I had remembered everything about it the other day, but from what I remember and reading now, it seems the Action Replay for Xbox can transfer saves from your Xbox to your PC, and visa-versa. I'm going to take a stab in the dark and says it works with all games since it uses it's own program to transfer the saves. I'll see if I can find out more info.

The GC is too solid-state to break more often than the Xbox, regardless of usage.

Forget what I said about the Action Replay for Xbox. I just found this on Datel's webpage:

Q: I can't get the Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball, Phantasy Star Online, Burnout 2, or KungFu Chaos save to work.

A: Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball, Phantasy Star Online, Burnout 2, and Kung Fu Chaos are all games that are designed to make a save that is tailored to your Xbox only, and this makes the save unable to be copied or transferred. If you see a save for these games then they are from the Community and are unofficial and will not work if downloaded.

This sucks.

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Originally Posted by Mzo

Bingo. I have a spare HD lying aboot, actually. I may just do that.

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Canadian! You've been lying to us this whole time!

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Originally Posted by OmniGear

The fact that I think you can import your saved game into Xenosaga 2 makes me even more upset.

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Really? Awesome. Well, for me, anyway. Obviously not you.

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Originally Posted by Dipstick

(That and if I lost my PGR2 save with everything unlocked I would probably start shooting schoolchildren. That shit took me forever!)

-Dippy

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I lost my PGR2 save when my first X Box crapped out on me, and it was kind of refreshing to play through the single player again. This time I actually beat platinum too (my first save I was about 3/4's throug), and it was in far less time than it took me the first time.

Tecmo and Team Ninja make non-exportable savegames on purpose.I can't remember their descision for doing this though. It is possible to resign the save to your new xbox though. You should have modded it on day 1 then you could have made backup of the savegames folders ;)

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Originally Posted by MechDeus

Really? Awesome. Well, for me, anyway. Obviously not you.

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Yeah well, our god is a god of vengence... and horror... and action!

I recently had to get a new XBox. My old box just staring clicking and wouldnt even load the menus. Goodbye saves, goodbye hours and hours of soundtracks.
I really like the hardrive still. If the next systems dont have HD they better have those 1 gig mem sticks.

MZO, Did you get an error code screen? If you did, then what was the number in the upper left corner of it? I had an error and my light flashed red,green,red,green. I was on xbox scenes web site and they explained the error code numbers. Hope this helps.

I really don't understand the whole locking game saves so they can't be copied BS

thats pretty lame

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Originally Posted by Shin Johnpv

I really don't understand the whole locking game saves so they can't be copied BS

thats pretty lame

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Neither can I. I can see connecting a save file to an Xbox Live account (For, say, PSO or Ninja Gaiden), but completely locking something like DOA Xtreme Beach Vollyball? That's just stupid.

Situations like this are why I think First party Memory Cards (good quality flash memory) will always > Hard drives for console saved games.

For game saves, you need three things:

1. Reliability of the saves themselves. (no corruption)

2. Reliability of the device itself (HD = moving parts, Flash memory = no moving parts)

3. Portability (so you can take your saves anywhere - like to your new system when the first one dies -_-)

Lets hope next time (Xbox 2), they forget the hd and give you a LARGE memory card
:-) (with no copy protection)

Better yet a HD and large mem cards.

Have you tried the hammer technique? It works for fax's and photocopiers. It may work here if you're lucky.

Mzo, why don't you get the new Crystal Xbox?

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Originally Posted by Opaque

Better yet a HD and large mem cards.

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Yeah, I'm down with this. As nicer in a more permanant sense as memory cards may be, I'm a huge fan of not having to delete saves to make room for newer games.

Harddrive Headcrash in 5...4...3...

ug. yes this is depressing.

i have the same model xbox (SegaGT/JSRF bundle), so its less than 2 years old. but mine was showing sings of problems over the last few months and finally pretty much died. it was very well taken care of, but the HD is a fragile thing i guess...

really really sucks about the saves though. i had a ton of them on there and dont even want to think about spending all of those hours trying to get back to where i was in all of those games. that is if i decide to purchase another xbox. a very depressing though.

my cube on the other hand was bought on launch day, played extensivly, dropped hard over 5 times, traveled with often, and hasnt so much as stuttered. of course all of my GC saves are safe and well on the mem cards, so if i had to replace the system, id still be all set.

my 1st DC, and a few old NES systems are the only other consoles ive had die on me (and those were treated very rough).

the HD idea was GREAT! but it also sucks hard.

now im much less concerned that xbox2 may not have a HD. :/

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Originally Posted by Opaque

Better yet a HD and large mem cards.

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I'm thinking a large memory card and a hard drive for everything but game saves. I think that would be best of both worlds.

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Originally Posted by Geen

I'm thinking a large memory card and a hard drive for everything but game saves. I think that would be best of both worlds.

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Not really. If you want a memory card for saves, then buy one for saves. Let us who really want to save our games to the HDD do so.

Yeah, I don't understand locking game saves to the hard drive and not letting me bring them over to the new Xbox. I guess they're trying to keep sharing down, so everybody unlocks the secrets, costumes, whatever themselves... but that's still lame.

Well, she didn't give me any trouble last night, started up Vice City just fine (I back up to the memory card after every session). I know its days are numbered, but I'm going to ride it until it's gone.

I think now would be a great time for a new, sexy LE Xbox to be released.

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Originally Posted by Tracer

Not really. If you want a memory card for saves, then buy one for saves. Let us who really want to save our games to the HDD do so.

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Yeah, Geen. You asshole.

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Originally Posted by Changeling

MZO, Did you get an error code screen? If you did, then what was the number in the upper left corner of it? I had an error and my light flashed red,green,red,green. I was on xbox scenes web site and they explained the error code numbers. Hope this helps.

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Yeah, I did... the code was 07.

I called tech support and it sounded like I was screwed paying through the nose with no guarantee of my saved games being, well, saved.

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Originally Posted by diffusionx

when you gotta put together a top-notch gaming system and charge $150 you gotta cut corners somewhere.

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Well the system came out at $300.

I recently had to buy a new Xbox because of constant disc drive errors. Had to scourge through every Xbox at my best buy to find a Samsung drive one (serial numbers are a different font). Which is the other bogus aspect of Microsofts Xbox, they did not make everyone the same. They used like 3 different companys for drives. The Thompson ones will take a nose dive in like 2 years, while the Samsung ones have extra features like being able to read CD-Rs and DVD-Rs out of the box.

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Originally Posted by Opaque

I have never had a system break on me, knock on wood, but that's just luck and care I guess.

Also I got all three of the currect gen consoles at least a year after they launched, so I missed the shitty batches I think.

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The only system to die on my was my 1st DC. Fucker died when it was not even year old. Rest of my consoles still chugging along, including 1st generation PSX, which continued working even after falling from good heights twice, and having friggin Power button fall in :p

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Originally Posted by Mzo

Yeah, I don't understand locking game saves to the hard drive and not letting me bring them over to the new Xbox. I guess they're trying to keep sharing down, so everybody unlocks the secrets, costumes, whatever themselves... but that's still lame.

.

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This is something i have been complaining about for a while, kind of screws you over when you want to bring a fighting game to a friends house and use the characters you unlocked. My only system to ever break on me was my launch gamecube that broke late last year, so far everything else has kept working fine.

BTW, Mzo, if you've got a friend with a modded xbox, you could borrow his to use as an intermediary on the file transfers. Unlock your old hdd by hot swapping it or using the programs I mentioned earlier (hddunlock, hddisable), back it up using the modded xbox, have the new drive put into the modded box, put backup of old drive on new drive, run configmagic on the new drive (after you put it in your pc) and lock it according to your old xbox's bios (not sure if you need the actual backup of that bios, which would totally ruin this plan), put drive back into original xbox and you're done.

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Originally Posted by Mzo

Yeah, I did... the code was 07.

I called tech support and it sounded like I was screwed paying through the nose with no guarantee of my saved games being, well, saved.

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Here are the error code numbers explained here:
http://www.xbox-scene.com/articles/errorcodes.php

Your Harddrive is timing out. Save what you can. :(
I just got one recently , 12 , and I read that I should try to hit the XBOX or jarr it or whatever, so I did and it worked. For how long, I dunno.

EEK