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How to Backup the Xbox Hard Disk

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Published in 
xbox
 · 7 months ago

written by Michael Steil, 8 May 2002

With the Xbox hard disk conntected to your linux computer, you can just make an image by running the following line as root:

dd if=/dev/hdc of=xbox-image.raw bs=1m

Note that you need kernel 2.5 or above and a file system that supports files bigger than 2 GB (e.g. not ext2 or FAT), because the image size will be about 10 GB. It is possible to split the image into 1 GB files:

dd if=/dev/hdc bs=1m | split -b 1024m

If you want to experiment with the image contents, it might make sense to read the partitions into single files, as described in the table below. (It might be a good idea to compress the files and backup them to a CD-R. A bzip2-compressed backup of an Xbox hard disk that has never seen a game or audio CD will only be about 250 MB.)

No split, filesystem without 2 GB limitSplit, filesystem with 2 GB limit
Backup

dd if=/dev/hdc of=00head.raw           count=1    bs=512k 
dd if=/dev/hdc of=0.raw skip=1 count=1500 bs=512k
dd if=/dev/hdc of=1.raw skip=1501 count=1500 bs=512k
dd if=/dev/hdc of=2.raw skip=3001 count=1500 bs=512k
dd if=/dev/hdc of=3.raw skip=4501 count=1000 bs=512k
dd if=/dev/hdc of=4.raw skip=5501 count=9790 bs=512k
dd if=/dev/hdc of=5.raw skip=15291 bs=512k

dd if=/dev/hdc of=00head.raw         count=1    bs=512k 
dd if=/dev/hdc of=0.raw skip=1 count=1500 bs=512k
dd if=/dev/hdc of=1.raw skip=1501 count=1500 bs=512k
dd if=/dev/hdc of=2.raw skip=3001 count=1500 bs=512k
dd if=/dev/hdc of=3.raw skip=4501 count=1000 bs=512k
dd if=/dev/hdc skip=5501 count=9790 bs=512k | split -b 1024m - 4
dd if=/dev/hdc skip=15291 bs=512k | split -b 1024m - 5

Compress

bzip2 -9 *.raw

bzip2 -9 *.raw 4* 5*

Restore all

cat *.raw > /dev/hdc

cat *.raw 4* 5* > /dev/hdc

Restore all (compressed)

bzip2 -cd *.bz2 > /dev/hdc

bzip2 -cd *.bz2 > /dev/hdc

Restore single partition/s

dd if=00head.raw of=/dev/hdc            bs=512k 
dd if=0.raw of=/dev/hdc seek=1 bs=512k
dd if=1.raw of=/dev/hdc seek=1501 bs=512k
dd if=2.raw of=/dev/hdc seek=3001 bs=512k
dd if=3.raw of=/dev/hdc seek=4501 bs=512k
dd if=4.raw of=/dev/hdc seek=5501 bs=512k
dd if=5.raw of=/dev/hdc seek=15291 bs=512k

dd if=00head.raw of=/dev/hdc            bs=512k 
dd if=0.raw of=/dev/hdc seek=1 bs=512k
dd if=1.raw of=/dev/hdc seek=1501 bs=512k
dd if=2.raw of=/dev/hdc seek=3001 bs=512k
dd if=3.raw of=/dev/hdc seek=4501 bs=512k
cat 4* | dd of=/dev/hdc seek=5501 bs=512k
cat 5* | dd of=/dev/hdc seek=15291 bs=512k

Restore single partition/s (compressed)

bzip2 -cd 00head.raw.bz2 | dd of=/dev/hdc            bs=512k 
bzip2 -cd 0.raw.bz2 | dd of=/dev/hdc seek=1 bs=512k
bzip2 -cd 1.raw.bz2 | dd of=/dev/hdc seek=1501 bs=512k
bzip2 -cd 2.raw.bz2 | dd of=/dev/hdc seek=3001 bs=512k
bzip2 -cd 3.raw.bz2 | dd of=/dev/hdc seek=4501 bs=512k
bzip2 -cd 4.raw.bz2 | dd of=/dev/hdc seek=5501 bs=512k
bzip2 -cd 5.raw.bz2 | dd of=/dev/hdc seek=15291 bs=512k

bzip2 -cd 00head.raw.bz2 | dd of=/dev/hdc            bs=512k 
bzip2 -cd 0.raw.bz2 | dd of=/dev/hdc seek=1 bs=512k
bzip2 -cd 1.raw.bz2 | dd of=/dev/hdc seek=1501 bs=512k
bzip2 -cd 2.raw.bz2 | dd of=/dev/hdc seek=3001 bs=512k
bzip2 -cd 3.raw.bz2 | dd of=/dev/hdc seek=4501 bs=512k
bzip2 -cd 4* | dd of=/dev/hdc seek=5501 bs=512k
bzip2 -cd 5* | dd of=/dev/hdc seek=15291 bs=512k

This will result in the following files:

File NameSizeDescription
00head.raw5 MBDisk Config Area
0.raw750 MBGame Cache A (FATX)
1.raw750 MBGame Cache B (FATX)
2.raw750 MBGame Cache C (FATX)
3.raw500 MBSystem Files (FATX)
4.raw
or
4aa,4ab,4ac,4ad,4ae
4895 MBMusic, Saved Games (FATX)
5.raw
or
5aa,5ab
1896 MBunused/empty

If you want to extract data from the FATX partitions stored in single files using the program xboxdumper , you will have to modify the array partitionAddresses[] at the beginning of the file main.c as follows:

u_int64_t partitionAddresses[] = { 0, 0, 0, 0, 0 };

Now always pass the corresponding image file to xboxdumper as a parameter, for instance:

./xboxdumper list 3 3.raw

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