Are the 360 hard drives on ebay from Chinese sellers legit?

[SAWYER]

I see several 250 gig drives for 39 bucks but fear they are fakes or knockoffs that may not work right. Has anyone here tried one of these drives?

 

[AstroManLuca]

I got a cheap 120 GB 360 hard drive from eBay and it worked fine. Only problem was it didn't have the original Xbox emulator on it.

 

[Gillbot]

It's likely that they are knockoffs. From what i've seen, they work fine but who knows if MS will ban consoles over their use.

 

[AstroManLuca]

It's likely that they are knockoffs. From what i've seen, they work fine but who knows if MS will ban consoles over their use.

I've had mine for well over a year now, no issues. I guess it's possible but from what I understand they are using an identical model of drive to the one MS uses and loading a firmware onto it that makes it indistinguishable from an official hard drive.

That doesn't mean it's completely risk-free. I've never heard of someone getting banned for a knockoff hard drive, but it's not inconceivable. It's probably only safe if it's done correctly but who knows if it was.

MS seems more interested in banning consoles with knockoff optical drives. I've heard of a lot of people getting banned because they replaced their optical drive.

 

[Dulanic]

I also bought one since mine died and it works very well. I just had to rename it lol it was all chinese characters when I got it.

 

[smackababy]

They are probably knock offs. Considering the WD drive I used (250gb) cost $55 OEM, I would be wary of these. Reminds me of the micro SD cards that were 64gb being sold, but were really 16gb...

MS has the ability to ban you for using a knock off drive (even one flashed with original firmware like mine), but I highly doubt they will. Also, from what I've heard (and this has worked for my Xbox with the DVD drive flashed and my friends) if you just don't come online during the times when they ban (the big firmware updates), you will be okay. Of course YMMV and I'm sure someone will come in saying they were banned before or after and for all kinds of reasons.

 

[Slick5150]

I'm assuming they are just buying regular WD Scorpio Blue drives and flashing the firmware with the Microsoft firmware.

It's what I did to put a 250gb drive in my new Xbox slim, and it works fine and the Xbox can't tell the difference as it shows up as a legit Microsoft branded hard drive in the dashboard.

 

[smackababy]

I'm assuming they are just buying regular WD Scorpio Blue drives and flashing the firmware with the Microsoft firmware.

It's what I did to put a 250gb drive in my new Xbox slim, and it works fine and the Xbox can't tell the difference as it shows up as a legit Microsoft branded hard drive in the dashboard.

The problem lies in that WD Scorpio Blue costs like $55 OEM... I wish I knew where to get them for cheaper, but I can't find them anywhere.