FATXplorer

FATXplorer is a Windows-based PC utility that allows users to format, read, and write a hard drive. Its main use is to construct new hard drives for use in a modified Xbox. Version 3.0 of FATXplorer is the first version to support the original Xbox, with previous versions only supporting the Xbox 360.

A secured drive must be unlocked before its contents can be read. Later FATXplorer builds include the functionality needed to do this, as well as to lock an unsecured drive for use with an Xbox. SATA and IDE hard drives are supported. All SATA-to-IDE adapters that work with Windows will work with FATXplorer, although not every such adapter allows the use of ATA security commands.

Notably, FATXplorer is the first tool capable of formatting up to 16 TB. Previously, attempting to format a 3 TB hard drive would result in 2.2 TB of usable space.

Formatting an Xbox Hard Drive

These steps can be followed to format a hard drive.^[1]

1. On a Windows PC, download and extract FATXplorer 3.0 Beta.
   • The beta builds are free but expire eventually, while the full releases can be purchased.^[2]
2. Open FATXplorer and click Formatting Tools.
3. Select Original Xbox HDD.
4. Select your Xbox drive. Do not select a drive that contains your personal data or operating system on, because the contents of the drive will be erased. Press Next once selected.
5. Depending on the size of the hard drive, different prompts will be displayed at this step. For hard drives less than 2 TB, select LBA Increasing Bios Partition Table, and then press Next. For hard drives greater than 2 TB, read the prompt and answer with Yes or No.
   • For hard drives with a capacity of more than 2 TB, FATXplorer can format up to 16 TB, but this capacity beyond 2 TB can only be used by an Xbox modified with Cerbios^[3][4] or Titan^[5].
   • For hard drives with a capacity of 2 TB or less, FATXplorer offers an explanation of the benefits, drawbacks, and requirements of each choice. LBA Increasing Bios Partition Table is usually the most desirable choice.
   • Almost all modified Xboxes use a BIOS will respect a hard drive's partition table, and they will fall back to the BIOS built in partition table if a hard drive does not have its own partition table. In contrast, the unmodified retail Xbox BIOS does not read a hard drive partition table and requires that the hard drive conform to the BIOS partition table.
6. Change partitions as desired. Then press Next.
   • The changes that can be made in this screen depend on what option was selected in the previous step; a choice of LBA Increasing Bios Partition Table for a <2 TB hard drive or Yes for a >2 TB hard drive allows the most freedom to make desired changes.
   • The default settings should be kept for the C and E partitions; changing those partitions will cause compatibility issues with the Microsoft Dashboard and some homebrew software.
   • The settings for the F and G partitions (and all other storage partitions that are not C and E) are safe to change. Note that the maximum partition size should be 927.78 GB, and the allocation unit/cluster size for these partitions should always be 65536 bytes.
     • It is possible to use a 1 TB partition size instead of 927.78 GB, but this may cause compatibility issues.
     • The allocation unit/cluster size is technically allowed to be smaller when using small partition sizes, but there is really no need to change it.
   • The cache partitions X, Y, and Z are formatted by default to 750 MB each. This cannot be changed, as the cache partitions are required in order for Xbox software to function.
7. At this point, you are given the option to preload partitions. You can create a zip file with the desired contents of a partition, and tell FATXplorer the location of the zip file for each partition that you want to preload. Then press Next.
   • The preload step may be useful for setting up the C and E partitions. If you skip this step, you can still add the files later by mounting the partitions through the Devices section in FATXplorer.
   • If you would like a pre-made zip for the C & E partitions of a hardmodded console, you can check out Hazeno's packs on Google Drive.
8. A summary is presented. Make sure everything looks right, then choose Format. The formatting process is complete.
   • If the C and E partitions were preloaded, then the hard drive is ready for use in an Xbox. If the C and E partitions were not preloaded, or if you want to add files such as games, then continue reading.

Adding files to an Xbox Hard Drive

1. If you want to add content, or if you did not preload anything at all, then select Devices in FATXplorer.
2. Select a partition to mount.
   • Only one partition can be mounted at a time.
3. A Windows Explorer window will open. You may add files in the normal manner.
4. Go back to the Devices menu in FATXplorer to unmount the current partition and mount another partition, then add files. Repeat until all files are added as desired.

Installing a Softmod to an Xbox Hard Drive

With FATXplorer, it is also possible to directly install a softmod to an Xbox hard drive without needing to exploit the console itself. This is essentially the "hotswap" method of softmodding, though the HDD unlock method of swapping the IDE connections while the console & HDD are turned on is strongly discouraged due to safe methods of HDD unlocking now being accessible.

You can use HDD vendor commands to directly retrieve the password from the HDD itself, or use an EEPROM/HDD Key backup from the console itself to lock/unlock hard drives for the console. It could be directly be installed on a new HDD if you have the matching password or HDD key for the Xbox, but the XBHDM installer tends to have issues on fast drives, so it's best to use the stock 8 GB HDD to do the initial installation first, then back up the C & E partition contents to a new drive.

1. On a Windows PC, download and extract FATXplorer 3.0 Beta and XBHDM Build.zip to their own folders.
2. Disassemble the Xbox in order to access the hard drive, and connect it to your PC.
3. Open FATXplorer, and select HDD Security Tools.
4. Select the Xbox hard drive, and unlock it with either the HDD password or the EEPROM backup from the console, whichever you happen to have.
5. Select your hard drive, mount the C partition, and make a backup of its contents.
   • It's highly recommended to make a backup of the E partition as well, as it will contain save data and potentially unarchived DLC.
6. Drag and drop the contents of the XBHDM softmod to your Xbox's hard drive, replacing any original files.
7. Use FATXplorer to re-lock the hard drive to your Xbox in the HDD Security Tools menu, go to Devices to safely unmount the partition from the computer, then remove it from the computer so it can be installed back into the Xbox.
8. If the process was done correctly, the Xbox should boot into a softmod installer when powered on. Go through the installation process.

Once the softmod installation has finished, you can proceed to doing a Upgrading your Hard Drive to have more space for installing content.

FATXplorer is a Windows-based PC utility that allows users to format, read, and write a hard drive. Its main use is to construct new hard drives for use in a modified Xbox and managing Xbox 360 hard drives. Version 3.0 of FATXplorer is the first version to support the original Xbox, with previous versions only supporting the Xbox 360.

Notably, FATXplorer is the first tool capable of formatting up to 16 TB. Previously, attempting to format a 3 TB hard drive would result in 2.2 TB of usable space.

Modifying Western Digital HDDs to work on Retail Xbox 360 consoles

For stock consoles, you must have a 500GB, 320GB, 250GB, 120GB, 60GB or 20GB Western Digital hard drive that was manufactured before 2020.

If using Bad Update, you will also have the ability to use the full capacity of odd sized capacities like 40 GB or 80 GB, in addition to any size between 600 GB to 2 TB with Bad Storage.^[6]

1. Download & install the latest FATXplorer beta if it isn't already on your computer.
2. Connect the compatible WD HDD to your computer.
3. Open FATXplorer and click Xbox 360 HDD Maker.
   1. In this window, you may want to go to Options → View Compatibility List, as it has a list of nearly every HDD model known to be compatible with the modified firmware.
4. Select the HDD you are going to modify, and click Backup & Flash. FATXplorer will ask you a location to store the UNDO.BIN file so you can revert the modified HDD firmware in the future.
5. Once the custom firmware on the HDD has been flashed, it should be good to go for the standard formatting process for an Xbox 360 HDD shown below. If FATXplorer popped up with an error about not being able to restart the hard drive, simply eject the hard drive from the computer, and safely reconnect it.

Formatting an Xbox 360 Hard Drive (3.0 Beta)

The following steps can be followed to format an internal hard drive, either with or without XL patches.

1. On a Windows PC, download and extract FATXplorer 3.0 Beta.
   • The beta builds are free but expire eventually, while the full releases can be purchased.^[7]
2. Open FATXplorer and click Formatting Tools.
   • If you want to format a standard HDD that is 2 TB or less, select Xbox 360 HDD.
   • If you want to format an internal HDD up to 16 TB for a modded console with XL patches, select Xbox 360 XL HDD. A USB HDD would instead use Xbox 360 XL USB.
3. Select your Xbox 360 hard drive. Do not select a drive that contains your personal data or operating system on, because the contents of the drive will be erased. Press Next once selected.
4. You will be asked to provide the original security sector for your hard drive if you're formatting it as an internal drive. The security sector contains information about the hard drive's serial number, firmware, make, and model.^[8]
   • If you are formatting a hard drive for a JTAG/RGH console, you can tick the checkbox on the bottom left and skip it.
   • Retail consoles require a hard drive with the original security sector in order to be detected. If the security sector doesn't exist or is invalid (i.e its information doesn't match the hard drive's firmware), the hard drive will be undetected on the console. If you have a Western Digital HDD that's manufactured before 2020, you can try using FATXplorer's Xbox 360 HDD Maker wizard to make it compatible with retail consoles before going through the formatting wizard.
5. Change partitions as desired, then press Next.
6. Change the hard drive's name as desired, then press Next.
7. At this point, you are given the option to preload partitions. You can create a zip file with the desired contents of a partition, and tell FATXplorer the location of the zip file for each partition that you want to preload. Then press Next.
   • If you need the original unmodded files for the backwards compatibility partition, they can be downloaded from the FATXplorer website. Extract the Compatibility folder from the zip file to somewhere on the computer, click Browse for Folder in FATXplorer, and navigate to the extracted Compatibility folder to select it.
8. A summary is presented. Make sure everything looks right, then choose Format. The formatting process is complete.

Managing Files on Internal Xbox 360 Hard Drives

The following steps can be followed to manage or add new files to a hard drive.

1. If you want to add content, or if you did not preload anything at all, then select Devices in FATXplorer.
2. Select a partition to mount. On Xbox 360 hard drives, you only need to worry about the Content and Backwards Compatibility partitions.
   • Only one partition can be mounted at a time.
   • The Content partition is the main partition for Xbox 360 content, and can also be used for homebrew applications or plugins. Save files and DLC for original Xbox games are stored in the Compatibility/Xbox1 folder as well.
   • The Backwards Compatibility partition is for the original Xbox emulator, and is also where the emulator's stripped down dashboard files are.
3. A Windows Explorer window will open. You may add files in the normal manner.
4. Go back to the Devices menu in FATXplorer to unmount the current partition and mount another partition, then add files. Repeat until all files are added as desired.
   • If you access an Xbox 360 formatted HDD in FATXplorer for the first time, the program will ask you to create a cache folder. Enable it for faster transfer speeds while accessing it on the computer.^[9]

FATX limitations

Xbox hard drives are formatted with the FATX file system. FATXplorer automatically prevents users from exceeding the limitations of the file system when adding files.

The FATX file system has the following limits:^[10][11]

Partitions larger then 128 GB require a bios to have an LBA48 patch.

Partitions larger then 1TB (927.78 GB) are not supported on any Xbox based formatting tool at this time, and are only supported on newer bios like Cerbios^[3][4] or Titan

Troubleshooting

• When trying to unmount the hard drive, FATXplorer says that the drive is being used
  • This can usually be ignored, meaning you can just unmount the drive anyway.
  • This issue seems to be caused by having any Windows Explorer window open, even if the window is not viewing a directory on the Xbox hard drive. So, you can close all instances of Windows Explorer, and FATXplorer will no longer say that the drive is in use.
• A file does not copy to the Xbox hard drive, and an error message about file size, filename characters, filename length, etc. is presented.
  • This is caused by the FATX file system used by Xbox hard drives. The FATX file system has different limits compared to typical file systems that you may be used to. Review the FATX limitations.
  • This can be solved by changing the file attributes or destination as appropriate for the given limitation.
• "Failed to set password" when trying to lock a drive
  • May present as Custom ATA command [out] 0xF1 failed: IOCTL_SCSI_PASS_THROUGH_DIRECT failed, Error=1. Generally, this is an issue with the connection to your drive. USB3.0-to-SATA adapters generally don't support all drive commands, but USB2.0-to-SATA ones do. Even direct connecting to SATA on a motherboard may present issues. Try a different adapter or leave the drive unlocked if you have a TSOP flashed or modchipped console capable of using unlocked drives.

See also

• Xbox Hard Drive Maker (XboxHDM)

References