My original XBOX is having troubles reading the 55 games on the HD.

[Zorlon]

Thankyou for your helpful post. So I think i will just get a new one.

Yup

[Shadow989]

I have a few questions to ask...
1) My dad has 4 160GB IDE HDD's at his work, he was running CHKDSKS on them, but what should he format the drives to, to work on the XBOX?

2) In the XBOX are there room for 2 HDD's?

3) What do I do when all CHKDSK's are done and the HDD's are at home? Do I download Slayers Disk to rebuild the HDD and once thats done do I FTP my games to them?

Thanks.

[deadlegion]

I have a few questions to ask...
1) My dad has 4 160GB IDE HDD's at his work, he was running CHKDSKS on them, but what should he format the drives to, to work on the XBOX?

2) In the XBOX are there room for 2 HDD's?

3) What do I do when all CHKDSK's are done and the HDD's are at home? Do I download Slayers Disk to rebuild the HDD and once thats done do I FTP my games to them?

Thanks.

1. You have a chipped console so slayers disc can format them for Xbox.

[Zorlon]

2) nope
3) yup (what deadlegion posted)

[Ichijoe]

First off, if you decide to replace the HDD or not to. You will have to at some point open up your XBOX, to remove the Old Drive.

To do so you will need some special Torx Bits, to do so.

Spoiler warning:

TORX-20 for the Six External Screws plus a
TORX-10 for the Internal Screws (i.e. HDD Cage)

Secondly, it doesn't matter a fetid pair of Dingos Kidneys as to what OS your running. Whats more important is that you have a PC. e.g. An x86 (AMD/Intel) Computer. That's still basically old enough to still have at least One P-ATA (IDE) Interface inside it. Unfortunately it seems that the newer stuff of recent Years, has omitted a huge chunk of Legacy (PCI, COM, LPT as well as the P-ATA), Ports. So chances are slim to none if you have an Intel i3/5/7 with Windows 8 as an OEM Install that you even have such a Port on your Main / Mother -- board.

This is what a P-ATA Interface looks like...

Spoiler warning:

Third, ITS HIGHLY ADVISABLE TO MAKE A USB DOS BOOT STICK!!
On this Stick you should then add some Tools to it, like:
You can find ATAPW ->There since I seem unable to give you a direct Link to it.

With that Program its probably a safe bet that you can then use it to unlock your HDD from the PC using the Master Password of "TEAMASSEMBLY" (Again without the ""'s!), to unlock the Drive.
It is also worthwhile to figure out who made your HDD, and there are so many possibilities here that I'm not even gonna run down a short list for you here. But each and, every One of 'em probably has, or at least had, (Time to fire up that Google!), a DOS Tool that you could use to set certain Drive Parameters, like S.M.A.R.T monitoring for example. Such Tools can also be used to scan the Disk for such bad Sectors, as exist on any given HDD. And, since your booting into a real MicroSoft DOS ca~Windows98 there's no need to worry about whatever OS you have installed.

Now if your on a Mac, or some Laptop, or you really do have an i3/5/7 Machine that has since omitted everything then.... I guess your kinda SOL on that front then.

Your only real option then is to download a Program called ImgBurn... (If you haven't already!), and have a DVD-R ready. PLEASE NOTE THE "-" as in -R, and to not use +R's, as most XBOXes can NOT read +R Discs! Then download this Slayers EvoX Auto Installer Disc v2.7

After your finished burning that Disc. Insert it into your XBOX, and follow the On Screen Instructions, to reformat your Drive. You will of course get a warning that this will destroy whatever you still had on the HDD (DUH!), and if you want to think twice about it. In short like I said before... Backup whatever, where ever you can first. Then pull the trigger on it. Since I did this recently myself. I'd estimate that its gonna run you the best part of an Hour. ~ca. Forty-Five Minutes for it to finish.

Hopefully at which point the HDD will behave itself again. But, without actually being able to physically being able to scan the HDD on a PC, its not gonna be simple to tell if the Drive is still well or not.


One last thing.... If you do decide to go for a new Drive... Go with a cheaper, and larger S-ATA One, and get a S-ATA (HDD) to P-ATA (XBOX) Converter this should net you a nice 1TB HDD for about the same Cash as a 320GB P-ATA Drive. It should, also make finding a new HDD that much simpler too.

[Tosnic]

Some files on my 2 Xboxes seem to get corrupted randomly after some time. I doubt the HDDs to be faulty since I bought especially new ones some years ago, after one HDD really died. The problem actually fits the OP's quite well: Games stop working, game saves stop working, files become unreadable...
It might prove interesting to check the HDDs with a windows tool, or at least read the SMART values.