Try cloning whatever ssd is in the expansion card onto the 3rd party SSDs maybe there's an identifier or something that tells the Xbox whether it's a certified storage medium or not. Also try looking in a 4x to 2x PCIE adapter maybe?
Xbox is pretty well known for doing this, everything from disc drives to storage needs to be flashed with the proper code for the Xbox to acknowledge it
Yeah I'm betting that if you could clone the bios of the Xbox drive you might be able to fool one of the PCIE 4 drives into working. Maybe even just basic info like drive name and mac address
@@link1565V2 . My friend got around the disc drive security by removing the security chip and soldering it onto the drive he was installing. The 360 was none the wiser...but that was the original 360. None of us tried it on the revisions.
@@UFDTechnice to know. So maybe cloning the SSD in the Xbox expansion card into the new one might work? Not very practical but interesting experiment :)
Having to make storage propriatary really isnt a smart idea looking back at the PSVita, having this BS System of storage upgradability really will bite MS in the ass for the coming generation.
@@shap7296 right now that may be the case but later in the life cycle of that Generation that may change completely and you're forced to buy expensive first party storage exclusively licensed by MS
Love down and dirty videos like this. leaves no confusion what does and doesn't work. I have so many friends that spout wrong info about the ps5 ssd because some news outlets are vague or speculative.
Try cloning the filesystem off of the official SSD and clone it to one of the 4.0 drives. It is failing because the Xbox is looking for specific files or ids.
Try this: go SSD to USB. The Xbox should pick it up, format it, and claim it as its own. From there, go ahead and plug it into the CF Express reader. See if the Xbox will recognize it then.
You need to mod the actual SSD firmware, probably windows xbox has a white list of PCI devices, eg. The Seagate expansion and the OEM western digital drives.
As far as i know, there is nothing in the firmwire, there's a partition that has some data that validates the drive that can be cloned, just like what happened with the OG Xbox. Hope they patch it out in the future, as they did whith the the 360 and One consoles. They'll probably do it, i wonder why they didn't yet.
I thought this same thing. Just like replacing the drives in pretty much all the previous consoles. Hard drive firmware needs flashing to be compatible.
Thank you for doing this test. You got the beginning wrong(or at least whatever article you read was wrong), he used the same SSD that is in the XBOX series, not the one in the Seagate card. The Seagate card is a custom CFExpress card, it does not have an M.2 inside. Jeff Grubb had done in opening of the Seagate card that is easy to find on the internet. The Chinese post was reusing those pictures when he was talking about the Seagate card being a CFE.
From what I read, on the NVMe.. the partition matters... You should try with an 'Unallocated Partition', an 'allocated partition with no format', try formatting fat32 & NTFS... also I have seen from watching videos there is a windows tool to prepare a drive for xbox (cant remember the name offhand).. its run from command line... you may have to do that to be recognized within the xbox.. then please post an updated video.. I'm curious what happens.
It could be in an odd byte sector format. A lot of drives in datacentres are set up as 520 and 528 byte sector sizes as opposed to the pc and nvme standard 512. You CAN reformat the sector sizes on drives so maybe setting it to the 520 or 528 might get the drive to be recognised, just a thought.
I've been working in enterprise space for 20 years, and I've never seen anything beside 512 and 4k sectors. If anything, it may have some preformatted non standard partitions with some Xbox specific data written on it.
@@RunTheTape Perhaps as a software mask? Like the physical sector is still 512 bytes, but controller passes it forward with some extra metadata attached so it's 540 or 538 bytes? I don't think that IBM would chose to alter hardware on that level, neither would Microsoft, it doesn't make sense from performance standpoint. Of course I mean we are talking about SSDs? Because for rotational media it's freestyle basically. Remember CDs have 1570+ bytes, or so, for example.
use shorter adapters , pcie gen4 is much more sensitive to signal noise and so the shorter the adapter the better chance u have for it to work , his adapter worked cus the tracks were not long but ur one is not working cus its probably made for gen3 signals and the length this effecting it
just curious, but what if MS didnt block the device itself but its expecting a particular format or hidden partition structure, I wouldnt put it past them. maybe a quick check would be to extract an SSD from the official game expansion card chuck it in ur adapter, throw that into a PC and load up a partition editor to see what structure it has on there. Also, here is something that I bet no-one will try (but since your going nuts with the external storage and adapters), but might be fairly interesting. The internal XBox Series X SSD appears to be M.2 but in like a 2230 or 2240 formfactor, with the MB outside of it's chassis and the cooling jerryriged on, maybe a 2280 NVMe drive will work in that slot (with the PCB overhanging the edge of the MB. Pitty that MS decided to face the socket towards the edge of the case instead of towards the centre of the PCB, if it was towards the centre one would be able to fit a 2280 SSD in there without removing the MB from the case* * some Duct tape or cloth tape may be required to hold the drive in there, or insulate the SSD from the MB/original SSD screw mount :)
I remember 360 needed to flash a custom bios to a normal hdd, in order to work prior of installation and format through the console, probably that’s what’s missing
My only thoughts would be because the length of the cables it might need an amplifier because voltage could be dropping. If the full voltage isn’t passing through it may not run. I’m not expert by any means but I did go to trade school
There is a RAW partition that allows the internal/ external to be recognized by that Xbox. I have seen ways to recover and install to other SSD’s but each Xbox SSD is locked to that system. A security measure implemented by Microsoft. So what I am saying is that you can not take an internal ssd from one Xbox X and put it into another Xbox X they are not interchangeable. The RAW partition is checked on startup and if it does not have the linked system info it will not be recognized.
To those who say that it’s less expensive to buy a regular expansion card, it’s not about now it’s about later. As the m.2s become more available they will go down in price. That’s why the ps5 is a better upgrade path in my opinion. If the drive fails it will be cheaper and easier to find because it’s a standard issue part unlike the Xbox expansion card
I was able to make a Seagate 2TB Firecuda 520 work completely as an external storage device. It plays X/S games from the USB 3.1 port on the back of the Xbox.
@brett much like xbox one and 360 and before you may need to copy the partitions from an official drive to the new drives to avoid the errors. The internal drives were NOT plug and play and needed a specific format and the new xbox may be treating it as internal storage due to it being pcie
Kinda shocked that the adapter didnt work, maybe you could try seeing if you can get a 4x to 2x adapter sonewhere so only 2 lanes are connected to the xbox
@@thesmashtvnetwork Not on PCIe hardware IDs on a PCIe NVMe. The controller on the SSD had a physical ID from the manufacturer. It is not like a SATA bus that had layer between. The controller has the ID in a non flashable area. The problem is a hardward in between would not function. Your only option is to change the firmware on the X Box. The PCIe ID is check with every transfer. The hardware ID cannot effectivly spoofed with out droping down to SATA or SAS speeds. If is not like block firmware on Hard Dribes.
@@thepoliticalstartrek this can be fake it is just not as easy as plug drive-in and flashing it you need to run wire to the chips and flash it ben done to get data off dead mac books im sure it be hell to do it but you see drive mods form china that do this
Considering getting the latest generation of Xbox is still next to Impossible I'm not surprised they haven't put in any effort into making it easier to use other expansion memory I would be shocked if I would say probably by next Christmas not this coming one that there wasn't a adapter expansion card to let you use whatever Jen for SSD you want
If you have a usb to nvme adapter on hand you could try plug it in via that first to format the storage device then to the cfe adapter. I have seen reports of this working but have not tested it myself.
from what i remember, the driives are supported, they just need stupid xbox firmware on them, so if you clone the format of the Expansion cards or the internal Series console one, it'll work
You didnt open it and put it in the internal slot maybe that would work Possibly downloading the Xbox software onto it, first could help it boot rate from the internal hard drive slide with whatever adapters you need to set it up
This is great and all. But unfortunately its cost prohibitive. The Seagate expansion card is $220 for 1tb. The adapter alone is $179. And another $180+ for a gen4x4 1tb ssd. More if you wanna go higher. Not cost effective for me at this time . EDIT : Glad you covered my concern in the video. Thank you.
The issue it is not working is because your CFe to m.2 Adapter only Supports nvme gen 3. You need gen 4 to get it working. Next Thing i saw in Videos someone switching the internal ssds between different consoles is: you have to clone the entire Partition to the New ssd to be recognized. Otherwise the ssd will be incompatible to the xbox.
As a ex console gamer of 20+ years if you're considering this, get a gaming PC with Steam and don't look back. interesting video but i don't think it's worth the hassle compared to PC since once you get to this point you're ready
I'm not sure how I feel about that, just because formatting is a very easy operation for xbox to do on it's own, although maybe they expected to never need to...
more than likely because the SSd's aren't formatted to the SX format type with the correct partitions on, on the Xbox one if you wanted to change the HDD to a SSd drive you had to have the correct partitions on it for it to work, if you could read an official SSd and copy it to one of those it might work
The problem is the fact that the X Box uses hardware PCIe ID to limit the cards that can be used. We need to pressure MS to unlock these. Almost all Gen 4 or Gen 3 cards can run at 1x to 4x. I work with lenovos that use these ID whitelists. The problem these are hard coded in the controller chip. So no flashable firmware. You will have to modify the X Box firmware.
Forget that method and try to clone a M.2 2230 1tb card and see if it works on a Series S and if it does maybe in the future we can get higher version of M.2 2030 size MVNE like 2TB to fit into a Series X.
Not surprised it didn't work, MS have been locking the storage solutions since the Xbox 360 days, when you had to clone the drive to fool the OS to make it think it as a official drive. This is still interesting, maybe in the future someone will crack the firmware to fool the system like they did during 360 days, or MS just allow other manufacturers to make their own cards, right now I think having a single chip storage solution to keep the card compact is adding to the cost, that and no competition.
IIRC, the CF express used by the modder was a Dummy CF express meaning there are no internals inside that dictate what protocol to use. just a direct connection from the Series X to the M.2 slot.
It's not Dummy cfexpress...cfexpress is a connection standard like m.2, meaning it just routes the pci express pins to different spots. Cfexpress is hot swappable pci express. M.2 is screw in pci express. They both can carry the NVMe protocol and can both fallback from pci express 4.0 to 3.0 to 2.0 etc. Because pci express is backwards compatible,what matters is the firmware on the ssd not the wires connecting it to the pci express lanes. So to answer your question, pass through are normal, no active cfexpress adapter is needed because it's not a chip or protocol or bus, it's a connector shape.
I find it so weird that Microsoft is messing up on the hardware compatibility front and doing great on the upgrade path front while Sony is doing exactly the opposite in both.
@@TheObsesedAnimeFreaks That's like saying that PCs should have proprietary hardware because people will mess it up and blame the companies. Luckily, that isn't the case. Adapters abound and dongles are amazing. And saying 'there's no middle ground between idiot proof and total freedom', I can kinda get behind, but it's definitely not one of the other. However, we can look at one of Microsoft's other products; Windows. It is widely compatible with a huge array of hardware and software, much of it wasn't even built at the time it was released and it somehow stays together. We can take a look at another hardware Microsoft sold that had proprietary hardware though, the Zune. It didn't go so well for them. Granted, it wasn't just the hardware that screwed them on that one...
@@TheObsesedAnimeFreaks While I agree with your points, the main contention with the proprietary drive is the unnecessary cost. You can buy a good 1TB PCIE Gen 3 SSD for right about $90, while the Xbox drive is retailing for $220+ I understand there should be a small premium to pay for that proprietary tech, and ease of use solution. But more than double is just a quick cash grab IMO
@@TheObsesedAnimeFreaks I agree, I think the benefits of proprietary is actually really good. And yeah the more I give it thought, Sony hasn't done a good job with the M.2 upgrade. They just released the FW update allowing anyone to install a drive, but didn't release a compatibility list, which is really a big oversight. I personally like that I can choose what drive to get, but I'm into building computers and stuff so it's easy. For the average consumer, it'll be a confusing mess. You can use an external drive for the PS5 but only to play PS4 games and store PS5 games, but that is only half a solution too. You would have thought by now Sony would just partner with a brand like Seagate or Western Digital and come out with a "PS5 Ready" drive or something. But nope!
maybe the expansion cards are formatted in some way so that it works right out of the box and doesn't require any formatting once you put it in. So maybe that's what makes it pop up with the error message because the m.2 drive isn't readable in the first place. And it is also possible to make some sort of software that can do this for you, and it might be similar to that Linux bash script for formatting Xbox one hard drives.
That's such a wasted effort. You should being with a CF adaptor and the SSD that works, then use the same adaptor with other SSDs and see what happened. In addition also dd/cloned the "working" seagate SSD to the other SSDs. Without that, this experiment serves no purpose of answering the very question at the beginning of this video.
just make the adaptor go from 4 lands in nvme slot to 2 lanes on adaptor cabel so you dont need to flas the harddrives do to if you pluk it in to a adaptor in a PC and go to bios you can set it to only use 2 lanes on the 4x port and still work so the must be a workaround that can fit in a adaptor whit out bracking the bank
3rd party adapters will not work ... try using the internals of the external card with ssd's as i frankinsteined a 2tb ssd onto the expanstion card internals and it worked
Won't have any Microsoft handshake software on the blank drive either. Official cards will so it can check if it's official. Why not clone an official expansion card onto the 980 pro? Edit: Nevermind, reading further they have anti cloning software lol
@@UFDTech I dunno. That video shows a successful clone between matching internal SSDs and it only fails when trying to clone using a fairly limited cloning box. A PC with dual M.2 drives should be able to clone more flexibly. Also, the goal isn't to clone the internal drive, but to clone one of those 1st party seagate expansion drives onto a 3rd party drive. The linked video seems to further confirm that microsoft isn't doing a hardware check on these drives and is instead looking for specific data to allow a drive to work.
@@UFDTech a PC probably can't read the xbox's file format but it should still be able to do a bit-level clone (dd in linux, or maybe norton ghost in windows). Cloning that partition and partition table over to an NVMe SSD might be what gets past the security feature.
Only thing i can think of is buy a broken xbox S/X and get the SSD out of that and try it with the expansion card or try and clone it to the new SSD that not support it but this is not the best way to do it as a broken xbox S/X is more expensive than the SSD xbox sell so not the best option but if can buy one for cheaper then the SSD xbox sells worth a shot.
When we buy a XSX, but they lock it down like this do we really own it? Steam Deck isn't like this, so I feel I own that...you would think they would let you do this.
When replacing an xbox one hard drive you could download files from xb to format the new hard drive fir the xbox. Could it be the way the drives are formatted? Try cloning the original drive to the "replacement/upgraded" drive.
You can buy a 1T Western Digital CH SN530 on ebay for about $120 friends in China have verified that it works it is a modified version of the drive for the Surface PRO it is the same drive as the extension from Seagate
Hmm this could work, IF the SSD is formated like the internal SSD, like when we tried to make a clone or a bigger internal for the XBOX ONE family, the SERIES family need the internal SSD broken down and then make a formatter :D, then you should use that as an expansion. Overall no matter what you want in the end, PCIe4 gen NvME are not cheap :(
@@JoshuaHooks-ih1hh Mr. Hooks, my Series X arrived late November 10th, 2020 unlike my Project Scorpio launch on November 7, 2017. I am quite familiar with Xbox Series expansion and know that MS and Uncle Phil will open more options for Series X so their expansion options do not seem as locked down as the PlayStation Vita was. You will see other options sooner than you think. Here in Canada the expansion is $279 - $299 while a Series S console is $80 more at $379.00.
Did anyone expect it to be formatted like a normal drive? MS dont want their special cards being accessed on PC easily. Im not sure if this applies to PS5 too.
Try cloning whatever ssd is in the expansion card onto the 3rd party SSDs maybe there's an identifier or something that tells the Xbox whether it's a certified storage medium or not. Also try looking in a 4x to 2x PCIE adapter maybe?
second this
Xbox is pretty well known for doing this, everything from disc drives to storage needs to be flashed with the proper code for the Xbox to acknowledge it
Yeah I'm betting that if you could clone the bios of the Xbox drive you might be able to fool one of the PCIE 4 drives into working. Maybe even just basic info like drive name and mac address
or just a 2x SSD
@@link1565V2 . My friend got around the disc drive security by removing the security chip and soldering it onto the drive he was installing. The 360 was none the wiser...but that was the original 360. None of us tried it on the revisions.
The first thing that made me click this video was the custom skin on the Xbox. It looks great.
Same. Looks amazing
Maybe it's because it has to be formatted in a weird way, or it has to contain a certain file to tell the Xbox it's a card?
More than likely. The Xbox One consoles were also massive turds about this, whereas the PS4 could be upgraded to any 2.5" drive.
@@UFDTechnice to know. So maybe cloning the SSD in the Xbox expansion card into the new one might work? Not very practical but interesting experiment :)
@@FAB1150 nope, they have anti-tamper firmware, and a hardcode copy is only possible with 2 exact same ssds, TronicsFix tried cloning the ssd
What I was thinking maybe formatting first will allow the Xbox to read the drive.
@@lndnfsu2 was this on the internal ssd or an external card? I can see why the internal card has that but the external shouldn’t need to (in theory)
First: You have to format disk under USB port. Second: After format connect to expansion port.
More storage capacities and more brands are coming. Seagate just had a 1 year exclusivity deal. That ends in 2 months
Having to make storage propriatary really isnt a smart idea looking back at the PSVita, having this BS System of storage upgradability really will bite MS in the ass for the coming generation.
@@maxklassen254 not really you can just plug a drive In the usb
@@shap7296 not without Custom firmware and special adapter. Also you need to flash zzblank of some sorts too.
@@maxklassen254 no I’m saying you can just plug it in to the console and use that as storage not all next gen games are required to be on the ssd
@@shap7296 right now that may be the case but later in the life cycle of that Generation that may change completely and you're forced to buy expensive first party storage exclusively licensed by MS
Love down and dirty videos like this. leaves no confusion what does and doesn't work. I have so many friends that spout wrong info about the ps5 ssd because some news outlets are vague or speculative.
Try cloning the filesystem off of the official SSD and clone it to one of the 4.0 drives. It is failing because the Xbox is looking for specific files or ids.
This is what you need to do to replace the internal HDD in the xbox one - so id assume it tracks to the expansion cards too.
i talked about this on reddit about a year ago and found these camera mods that could possibly work. glad someone is trying it.
Try this: go SSD to USB.
The Xbox should pick it up, format it, and claim it as its own.
From there, go ahead and plug it into the CF Express reader. See if the Xbox will recognize it then.
Works with the CH SN530 M.2 2230 SSD 1TB
You need to mod the actual SSD firmware, probably windows xbox has a white list of PCI devices, eg. The Seagate expansion and the OEM western digital drives.
As far as i know, there is nothing in the firmwire, there's a partition that has some data that validates the drive that can be cloned, just like what happened with the OG Xbox. Hope they patch it out in the future, as they did whith the the 360 and One consoles. They'll probably do it, i wonder why they didn't yet.
I thought this same thing. Just like replacing the drives in pretty much all the previous consoles. Hard drive firmware needs flashing to be compatible.
Which means the 4.0 drives would all likely work with a software update.
Thank you for doing this test. You got the beginning wrong(or at least whatever article you read was wrong), he used the same SSD that is in the XBOX series, not the one in the Seagate card. The Seagate card is a custom CFExpress card, it does not have an M.2 inside. Jeff Grubb had done in opening of the Seagate card that is easy to find on the internet. The Chinese post was reusing those pictures when he was talking about the Seagate card being a CFE.
From what I read, on the NVMe.. the partition matters... You should try with an 'Unallocated Partition', an 'allocated partition with no format', try formatting fat32 & NTFS... also I have seen from watching videos there is a windows tool to prepare a drive for xbox (cant remember the name offhand).. its run from command line... you may have to do that to be recognized within the xbox.. then please post an updated video.. I'm curious what happens.
It could be in an odd byte sector format. A lot of drives in datacentres are set up as 520 and 528 byte sector sizes as opposed to the pc and nvme standard 512.
You CAN reformat the sector sizes on drives so maybe setting it to the 520 or 528 might get the drive to be recognised, just a thought.
I've been working in enterprise space for 20 years, and I've never seen anything beside 512 and 4k sectors.
If anything, it may have some preformatted non standard partitions with some Xbox specific data written on it.
@@Vatharian Well, I've seen a couple. Especially on IBM Power machines.
@@RunTheTape Perhaps as a software mask? Like the physical sector is still 512 bytes, but controller passes it forward with some extra metadata attached so it's 540 or 538 bytes? I don't think that IBM would chose to alter hardware on that level, neither would Microsoft, it doesn't make sense from performance standpoint. Of course I mean we are talking about SSDs? Because for rotational media it's freestyle basically. Remember CDs have 1570+ bytes, or so, for example.
use shorter adapters , pcie gen4 is much more sensitive to signal noise and so the shorter the adapter the better chance u have for it to work , his adapter worked cus the tracks were not long but ur one is not working cus its probably made for gen3 signals and the length this effecting it
just curious, but what if MS didnt block the device itself but its expecting a particular format or hidden partition structure, I wouldnt put it past them. maybe a quick check would be to extract an SSD from the official game expansion card chuck it in ur adapter, throw that into a PC and load up a partition editor to see what structure it has on there.
Also, here is something that I bet no-one will try (but since your going nuts with the external storage and adapters), but might be fairly interesting. The internal XBox Series X SSD appears to be M.2 but in like a 2230 or 2240 formfactor, with the MB outside of it's chassis and the cooling jerryriged on, maybe a 2280 NVMe drive will work in that slot (with the PCB overhanging the edge of the MB. Pitty that MS decided to face the socket towards the edge of the case instead of towards the centre of the PCB, if it was towards the centre one would be able to fit a 2280 SSD in there without removing the MB from the case*
* some Duct tape or cloth tape may be required to hold the drive in there, or insulate the SSD from the MB/original SSD screw mount :)
I think a possible solution would've been to make sure the drives are formatted in NTFS. I'd love to see this get a second look!
I remember 360 needed to flash a custom bios to a normal hdd, in order to work prior of installation and format through the console, probably that’s what’s missing
My only thoughts would be because the length of the cables it might need an amplifier because voltage could be dropping. If the full voltage isn’t passing through it may not run. I’m not expert by any means but I did go to trade school
There is a RAW partition that allows the internal/ external to be recognized by that Xbox. I have seen ways to recover and install to other SSD’s but each Xbox SSD is locked to that system. A security measure implemented by Microsoft. So what I am saying is that you can not take an internal ssd from one Xbox X and put it into another Xbox X they are not interchangeable. The RAW partition is checked on startup and if it does not have the linked system info it will not be recognized.
To those who say that it’s less expensive to buy a regular expansion card, it’s not about now it’s about later. As the m.2s become more available they will go down in price. That’s why the ps5 is a better upgrade path in my opinion. If the drive fails it will be cheaper and easier to find because it’s a standard issue part unlike the Xbox expansion card
I would like to have seen the SSD they use in your test rig through the adapter to validate the adapter first.
I was able to make a Seagate 2TB Firecuda 520 work completely as an external storage device. It plays X/S games from the USB 3.1 port on the back of the Xbox.
@brett much like xbox one and 360 and before you may need to copy the partitions from an official drive to the new drives to avoid the errors. The internal drives were NOT plug and play and needed a specific format and the new xbox may be treating it as internal storage due to it being pcie
Kinda shocked that the adapter didnt work, maybe you could try seeing if you can get a 4x to 2x adapter sonewhere so only 2 lanes are connected to the xbox
It is not the 2x vs 4x. It is PCIe hardware ID white list.
@@thepoliticalstartrek Makes sense
@@thepoliticalstartrek you can spoof the id white list
@@thesmashtvnetwork Not on PCIe hardware IDs on a PCIe NVMe. The controller on the SSD had a physical ID from the manufacturer. It is not like a SATA bus that had layer between. The controller has the ID in a non flashable area. The problem is a hardward in between would not function. Your only option is to change the firmware on the X Box. The PCIe ID is check with every transfer. The hardware ID cannot effectivly spoofed with out droping down to SATA or SAS speeds. If is not like block firmware on Hard Dribes.
@@thepoliticalstartrek this can be fake it is just not as easy as plug drive-in and flashing it you need to run wire to the chips and flash it ben done to get data off dead mac books im sure it be hell to do it but you see drive mods form china that do this
Spoiler alert, nothing works.
Considering getting the latest generation of Xbox is still next to Impossible I'm not surprised they haven't put in any effort into making it easier to use other expansion memory I would be shocked if I would say probably by next Christmas not this coming one that there wasn't a adapter expansion card to let you use whatever Jen for SSD you want
If you have a usb to nvme adapter on hand you could try plug it in via that first to format the storage device then to the cfe adapter. I have seen reports of this working but have not tested it myself.
Thanks for going through all that hassle Brett!
Hopefully, Microsoft opens up the expansion slot to third party adaptors and vendors.
Xbox confirmed when they showed the expansion cards that 3rd party options would be allowed.
First make sure the CF adapter is actually pcie 4.0 then fresh format nvme to MBR not GPT
from what i remember, the driives are supported, they just need stupid xbox firmware on them, so if you clone the format of the Expansion cards or the internal Series console one, it'll work
I wonder if it's simply just that there is DRM in the firmware of the official drive or if a Seagate SSD would work.
It's most likely something in the firmware.
You didnt open it and put it in the internal slot maybe that would work Possibly downloading the Xbox software onto it, first could help it boot rate from the internal hard drive slide with whatever adapters you need to set it up
Nice you got the gen4 riser fast!
Idea for this, getting the original ssd and cloning it to the Evo.
This is great and all. But unfortunately its cost prohibitive. The Seagate expansion card is $220 for 1tb. The adapter alone is $179. And another $180+ for a gen4x4 1tb ssd. More if you wanna go higher. Not cost effective for me at this time .
EDIT : Glad you covered my concern in the video. Thank you.
The issue it is not working is because your CFe to m.2 Adapter only Supports nvme gen 3. You need gen 4 to get it working.
Next Thing i saw in Videos someone switching the internal ssds between different consoles is: you have to clone the entire Partition to the New ssd to be recognized. Otherwise the ssd will be incompatible to the xbox.
try formatting the drive with a USB connection first, then re-inserting the SSD into the adapter?
As a ex console gamer of 20+ years if you're considering this, get a gaming PC with Steam and don't look back. interesting video but i don't think it's worth the hassle compared to PC since once you get to this point you're ready
I think this error is about the partition format...
I'm not sure how I feel about that, just because formatting is a very easy operation for xbox to do on it's own, although maybe they expected to never need to...
Maybe they'll open it up in a firmware update?
@@UFDTech fingers cross
more than likely because the SSd's aren't formatted to the SX format type with the correct partitions on, on the Xbox one if you wanted to change the HDD to a SSd drive you had to have the correct partitions on it for it to work, if you could read an official SSd and copy it to one of those it might work
The problem is the fact that the X Box uses hardware PCIe ID to limit the cards that can be used. We need to pressure MS to unlock these. Almost all Gen 4 or Gen 3 cards can run at 1x to 4x. I work with lenovos that use these ID whitelists. The problem these are hard coded in the controller chip. So no flashable firmware. You will have to modify the X Box firmware.
I'm assuming you need to format it correctly with the right partition scheme, then try it
I've heard that's it's only mini WD SN530 SSDs that work, as they're the exact same speed as the official Seagate ones.
You have to clone the boot partition from the original SSD for it to work
Forget that method and try to clone a M.2 2230 1tb card and see if it works on a Series S and if it does maybe in the future we can get higher version of M.2 2030 size MVNE like 2TB to fit into a Series X.
Even the official cards won’t show up if you just plug them in. You have to reboot the console before they will.
Cool tests, thanks for showing us.
Not surprised it didn't work, MS have been locking the storage solutions since the Xbox 360 days, when you had to clone the drive to fool the OS to make it think it as a official drive. This is still interesting, maybe in the future someone will crack the firmware to fool the system like they did during 360 days, or MS just allow other manufacturers to make their own cards, right now I think having a single chip storage solution to keep the card compact is adding to the cost, that and no competition.
Been watching your videos and man what you do is bad ass. I like see these kinds of stuff and seeing what happens next.
IIRC, the CF express used by the modder was a Dummy CF express meaning there are no internals inside that dictate what protocol to use. just a direct connection from the Series X to the M.2 slot.
It's not Dummy cfexpress...cfexpress is a connection standard like m.2, meaning it just routes the pci express pins to different spots.
Cfexpress is hot swappable pci express.
M.2 is screw in pci express.
They both can carry the NVMe protocol and can both fallback from pci express 4.0 to 3.0 to 2.0 etc. Because pci express is backwards compatible,what matters is the firmware on the ssd not the wires connecting it to the pci express lanes.
So to answer your question, pass through are normal, no active cfexpress adapter is needed because it's not a chip or protocol or bus, it's a connector shape.
Plug the ssd with an usb a adaptor and format them on the xbox. they should all work after
MS always has programming on there hard drives. Had to use an app to format a hdd for the 360.
@@117gerardle that is correct... but I wonder if they went back to the old format.
Maybe try formatting the NVME through the Xbox USB port via an adapter and THEN plug it back into the CFe slot?
Yes that working with no problem
Doesn't the expansion card have a 1 or 2 year exclusivity. Supposedly nothing is supposed to work other than the official Xbox expansion card.
I find it so weird that Microsoft is messing up on the hardware compatibility front and doing great on the upgrade path front while Sony is doing exactly the opposite in both.
@@TheObsesedAnimeFreaks That's like saying that PCs should have proprietary hardware because people will mess it up and blame the companies. Luckily, that isn't the case.
Adapters abound and dongles are amazing.
And saying 'there's no middle ground between idiot proof and total freedom', I can kinda get behind, but it's definitely not one of the other.
However, we can look at one of Microsoft's other products; Windows.
It is widely compatible with a huge array of hardware and software, much of it wasn't even built at the time it was released and it somehow stays together.
We can take a look at another hardware Microsoft sold that had proprietary hardware though, the Zune. It didn't go so well for them. Granted, it wasn't just the hardware that screwed them on that one...
@@TheObsesedAnimeFreaks Interesting take. I'm not sure that I agree with all of it, but interesting nonetheless :-) Thanks for sharing.
@@TheObsesedAnimeFreaks While I agree with your points, the main contention with the proprietary drive is the unnecessary cost. You can buy a good 1TB PCIE Gen 3 SSD for right about $90, while the Xbox drive is retailing for $220+
I understand there should be a small premium to pay for that proprietary tech, and ease of use solution. But more than double is just a quick cash grab IMO
@@TheObsesedAnimeFreaks I agree, I think the benefits of proprietary is actually really good. And yeah the more I give it thought, Sony hasn't done a good job with the M.2 upgrade. They just released the FW update allowing anyone to install a drive, but didn't release a compatibility list, which is really a big oversight.
I personally like that I can choose what drive to get, but I'm into building computers and stuff so it's easy. For the average consumer, it'll be a confusing mess. You can use an external drive for the PS5 but only to play PS4 games and store PS5 games, but that is only half a solution too.
You would have thought by now Sony would just partner with a brand like Seagate or Western Digital and come out with a "PS5 Ready" drive or something. But nope!
@@soapa4279 the SSD manufacturers have already either confirmed their SSDs as compatible or has revised their heatsinks to fit inside the PS5 bay.
This is the kind of information I been looking for. Thank you for making this video! Watching now!!
This might seem simple but did you try another seagate drive?? They might have a proprietary handshake.
maybe the expansion cards are formatted in some way so that it works right out of the box and doesn't require any formatting once you put it in. So maybe that's what makes it pop up with the error message because the m.2 drive isn't readable in the first place. And it is also possible to make some sort of software that can do this for you, and it might be similar to that Linux bash script for formatting Xbox one hard drives.
That's such a wasted effort. You should being with a CF adaptor and the SSD that works, then use the same adaptor with other SSDs and see what happened. In addition also dd/cloned the "working" seagate SSD to the other SSDs.
Without that, this experiment serves no purpose of answering the very question at the beginning of this video.
Which series x skin do u have? It really looks good
Have you tried cloning the stock, to the NVME you want to use.
If that then works, try a format.
Try a pci 4.0 raid adapter. Have the original card in the first slot so it's read and *hopefully* accepted by the Xbox.
I don't know but the SSD may need special file format, like FAT or NTFS,
just make the adaptor go from 4 lands in nvme slot to 2 lanes on adaptor cabel so you dont need to flas the harddrives do to if you pluk it in to a adaptor in a PC and go to bios you can set it to only use 2 lanes on the 4x port and still work so the must be a workaround that can fit in a adaptor whit out bracking the bank
3rd party adapters will not work ... try using the internals of the external card with ssd's as i frankinsteined a 2tb ssd onto the expanstion card internals and it worked
Is that a Dbrand skin on your series x? It looks like the design I wanted to get for my ps5
Won't have any Microsoft handshake software on the blank drive either. Official cards will so it can check if it's official.
Why not clone an official expansion card onto the 980 pro?
Edit: Nevermind, reading further they have anti cloning software lol
Was any of the cards you tested wiped? Like no filesystem at all? So the console could flash them?
Is your xbox sticker cause some heating problems?
maybe try cloning all of the partitions of an expansion card to use it here?
Use an hdd cloning tool to clone the Xbox ssd to the aftermarket ssds then try it
That doesn't work: th-cam.com/video/nyKUVmJmAGY/w-d-xo.html
@@UFDTech that sucks
@@UFDTech I dunno. That video shows a successful clone between matching internal SSDs and it only fails when trying to clone using a fairly limited cloning box. A PC with dual M.2 drives should be able to clone more flexibly. Also, the goal isn't to clone the internal drive, but to clone one of those 1st party seagate expansion drives onto a 3rd party drive. The linked video seems to further confirm that microsoft isn't doing a hardware check on these drives and is instead looking for specific data to allow a drive to work.
I'm actually interest in this kinda stuff. Did you try to format the drives before using them?
They’re brand new. The Xbox should format them, and a PC has no way to format them into the Xbox’s file format.
@@UFDTech a PC probably can't read the xbox's file format but it should still be able to do a bit-level clone (dd in linux, or maybe norton ghost in windows). Cloning that partition and partition table over to an NVMe SSD might be what gets past the security feature.
@@UFDTech Ooh. I understand. I'm new to Xbox. Idk. lol
Alot of work when they offered a expandable storage day one and turn it around you plug it in.
1. Partition table style: Guid
2. Partition Count: 1
I would be curious to see if you took the m.2 out of another XSX if it would read it as additional storage
I thought you needed to format the SSDs cause it wont properly read the firmware unless you have the proper files installed in the SSD
The front of the box looks amazing. Is that a product that is for sale?
It used to be. Dbrand skin
How can you be worse off when the SSD (which WILL eventually start dying) on the ps5 is soldered to the motherboard?
Only thing i can think of is buy a broken xbox S/X and get the SSD out of that and try it with the expansion card or try and clone it to the new SSD that not support it but this is not the best way to do it as a broken xbox S/X is more expensive than the SSD xbox sell so not the best option but if can buy one for cheaper then the SSD xbox sells worth a shot.
When we buy a XSX, but they lock it down like this do we really own it?
Steam Deck isn't like this, so I feel I own that...you would think they would let you do this.
Also I always watch what you make so never stop making it.
Would love for some emulated m2. NAS with that connector:)
When replacing an xbox one hard drive you could download files from xb to format the new hard drive fir the xbox. Could it be the way the drives are formatted? Try cloning the original drive to the "replacement/upgraded" drive.
Any possibility to Format an nvme disc like the 980pro via USB at the xbox as external USB storage? Than try to run it via expensionslot Adapter?
Okay I have a Xbox series s and going to get the best storage expansion card but I did not know a word he was saying but like 2 🤣🤣🤣
Microsoft gonna see these videos and send a update preventing this...
Did you try formating like the seagates? Maybe it's looking for a certain firmware
That xbox skin is gorgeous, where did you get it?
@Colby Von Werner I checked Dbrand but didn't see that design available.
he tested the Western Digital CH SN530 drive. This is the internal drive of xbox series x.
You can buy a 1T Western Digital CH SN530 on ebay for about $120 friends in China have verified that it works it is a modified version of the drive for the Surface PRO it is the same drive as the extension from Seagate
@@larylinks2744 but from xsx that SSD have moded sync from WD , recognize like gen4 but is gen3 24gb max
Will Microsoft use upgrade to block any unofficial storage connected in the storage slot?
what about flashing the drive firmware like it was on the 360 ? there you were able to use a WD blue and flash the firmware of it to make it working
Данные ssd не работали из-за того что он использовал ESXS CFexpress (A) адаптер , а нужно для Xbox использовать ESXS CFexpress (B) адаптер.
Hmm this could work, IF the SSD is formated like the internal SSD, like when we tried to make a clone or a bigger internal for the XBOX ONE family, the SERIES family need the internal SSD broken down and then make a formatter :D, then you should use that as an expansion. Overall no matter what you want in the end, PCIe4 gen NvME are not cheap :(
wd sn530 witch all recomend have PCIE 3
What about any other Seagate drives? Those might work. Might be locked down to Seagate only. I think it's worth a shot
I did this a few days ago, did not work. Also tried cloning the Xbox NVME but I couldn't because it has unique sectors.
I believe there is a licence agreement with Seagate till November. I have a feeling that after this time, more upgrade paths will begin to be offered.
Have you even touched the series x lol and you're already talking about external adaptations. It's built so you don't need them
@@JoshuaHooks-ih1hh Mr. Hooks, my Series X arrived late November 10th, 2020 unlike my Project Scorpio launch on November 7, 2017. I am quite familiar with Xbox Series expansion and know that MS and Uncle Phil will open more options for Series X so their expansion options do not seem as locked down as the PlayStation Vita was. You will see other options sooner than you think. Here in Canada the expansion is $279 - $299 while a Series S console is $80 more at $379.00.
the xbox will probably need to put an image on the ssd before hand
I assume it may have to do with the ssd controlers.
Did anyone expect it to be formatted like a normal drive? MS dont want their special cards being accessed on PC easily. Im not sure if this applies to PS5 too.
It doesn’t apply to the PS5. PS5 has speed requirement and that’s it. No lockdown on what drive you can use.