Getting a 360. Can I put my own hard drive in? Which games to buy

[johnnq1]

after doing lots and lots of reading, i'm going with the 360. the wii can't be found anywhere and only a few ps3 games interest me.

so, can i put my own 250gb samsung in without voiding the warranty? how do they get installed? does it have to be in an external shell (then stuck inside??)

in hopes of getting a falcon, i'll be looking for: team FDOU, manufactured after august 28?, and something higher than lot 734. and once i get it i'll look for a 175w power brick, two copper rings and no heatpipe by looking through the fans, and a benq drive.

so now, lets pretend i didn't get that falcon revision that i wanted. i could possibly return it depending on store policy or just keep it. if i keep it, should i get an extended store warranty? from what i read on the internet, people get refurb consoles back from microsoft and they break over and over. how much money is "worth" spending on an extended warranty?

what are the difference between the premium and the elite? the elite comes with a bigger hard drive, the hdmi cable, and a different color scheme...is that it? how much does that hdmi cable cost on it's own? does it have to be a microsoft 360 hdmi cable? yea i'm a little out of the loop...


what games should i get?! (besides halo)

 

[DaveSimmons]

As long as you get a console with HDMI it's at least a Zephyr, and you'll get a Zephyr or Falcon refurb if it ever breaks.

The people getting refurbs that die on them had consoles without HDMI, and got non-HDMI refurbs in exchange. You're safe from that.

No on the hard drive, MS uses DRM to make you pay $100 for 20GB or $180 for 120GB. That's the drawback to the 360: the base unit is cheaper but they gouge you on the wifi, HD, and (until recently) the HD-DVD.

 

[johnnq1]

ah thanks. would i find any use for the bigger hard drive other than demo downloads? i never used xbox live before and i plan on only using it for games (or music if it's free). what about the hdmi cable?

 

[gorcorps]

HDMI is nice to have if you have an HD tv or ever plan to that supports it. The 20 gig drive is fine for most folks, unless you want to download music/videos and lots of arcade games and save them on there. Or have a large amount of games with large amounts of downloadable content.

 

[fitzm]

Go for the Elite. And as far as the extended warranty from microshaft = 2-3 weeks. We bought one (399.00 one) from Best Buy and the optical drive tray malfunctioned, brought it back and upgraded to the Elite for 52.00 more than a full year later - brand spankin' new, right off the shelve immediately. It was the upgraded cpu cooler but I don't think it was a falcon.

 

[DaveSimmons]

I'm pretty sure you can't play movies from the internal HD (except ones bought / rented from Live). You can rip music to the HD, not sure about photos.

For games there are demos, xbox-1 BC "profiles", maps and other added-later content, patches, and Arcade game purchases. Most people are fine with 20GB and just need to clear off old demos once in a while.

You can use any $10 HDMI cable (monoprice.com is popular) as long as you don't also need optical digital out. HDMI to your receiver is OK, HDMI to the TV plus optical to a reciever is a problem. Then you have 3 choices:

1. snap apart and remove the hood on the AV connector plug so it will fit alongside the HDMI connector. I've read this won't work with HD-DVD since it disable HDCP (hi def copy protection)
2. Buy the $50 cable set from MS, it includes HDMI cable plus a special dongle for optical digital
3. Buy an Elite instead of Premium/Pro, it comes with the $50 cable set.

Again, if you can route the HDMI cable to your receiver for audio + video (and not use an optical digital cable) you're fne with a $10 monoprice cable.

 

[holden j caufield]

I've taken it out it's just a sata laptop drive. The last time I checked you can only get the retail 120gb WD, get an image and you're good to go. Note the the screws on the HD case when you remove the stickers are small hex screws, so you need to find that screw driver type first. Oh yeah 120gb is overkill for the 360. The demos you keep for a day or two and music and video you stream from your PC. I think you only have 12gb free from default and I've used maybe 1gb for some free XBL games they offered.

 

[biggestmuff]

The 120 GB HDD could be useful if you rent HD movies from the XBOX Marketplace. I have three or four demos on my 20 GB HDD, then rented the new PotC movie in HD. It's a 168 minute long movie and is 7.7 GB. I ended up with 835 MB of free space on my HDD. So, if you rent multiple movies to watch at later times or like to save numerous demos, then the larger 120 GB HDD could be useful.

 

[Jules]

Originally posted by: holden j caufield
I've taken it out it's just a sata laptop drive. The last time I checked you can only get the retail 120gb WD, get an image and you're good to go. Note the the screws on the HD case when you remove the stickers are small hex screws, so you need to find that screw driver type first. Oh yeah 120gb is overkill for the 360. The demos you keep for a day or two and music and video you stream from your PC. I think you only have 12gb free from default and I've used maybe 1gb for some free XBL games they offered.

Good Luck with that.

 

[SoundTheSurrender]

http://www.crunchgear.com/2007...ox-360-120gb-hdd-hack/

Here's a hack although it's limited to one hard drive.