As opposed to a "normal" xbox? Is it a xbox without a hard drive ?

Correct, and they have not been sold for quiet a while now.

My ex wife has bought one for my son for Christmas and has asked me to get a hard drive for it. She says they're about £10 for a 20Gb one - is that about right? What sort of thing am I looking for?

It might be an idea to find a proper XBox forum, I have a feeling the HDD fitted had a strange non-standard file system, and that only certain sizes of HDD fitted.

You cannot buy a new 20GB drive these days, and at a guess, you need an IDE drive, not a SATA drive.

Check out a XBox forum for the answers, then look for a PC fair or dealer selling 2nd hand computers for a suitable HDD.

It might be an idea to find a proper XBox forum, I have a feeling the HDD fitted had a strange non-standard file system, and that only certain sizes of HDD fitted.

You cannot buy a new 20GB drive these days, and at a guess, you need an IDE drive, not a SATA drive.

Check out a XBox forum for the answers, then look for a PC fair or dealer selling 2nd hand computers for a suitable HDD.

But these HDDs come in a casing that attaches to the outside of the Xbox. He's not looking for a bare HDD as such but the Xbox accessory of the time, 20/60 and I think 120gb units available. The 20gb are cheap. There's loads knocking about from borked Xboxes. I have one myself although I still resolve to fix it one day.

But these HDDs come in a casing that attaches to the outside of the Xbox. He's not looking for a bare HDD as such but the Xbox accessory of the time, 20/60 and I think 120gb units available. The 20gb are cheap. There's loads knocking about from borked Xboxes. I have one myself although I still resolve to fix it one day.

Correct, in fairness the 120Gb is the one to get and, new, it's £30.00 on Play.com. Alternatively google xbox removable hard drive, make sure you get a removable one!

Ah sorry!!!! I havent dealt much with the XBox, always been a PC gamer, so I didnt realise there was an external option. The remarks I made were about the internal HDD.

Even 120GB isnt much these day, with some of the new games taking up 50GB!!! For future reference, doesnt the external HDD use a standard HDD formatting system and is it replaceable with a larger HDD ??

(Just in case we get one donated to our After School Club).

The Xbox hdd is proprietary and uses a custom firmware and file system. The largest game in my hdd is 8gb and that's forza 3. The largest hdd the arcade will recognise is 120gb, which is plenty of space. Also even though you can install games to the hdd. You must place the game disk in the drive before the game will start, this is a copy protection mechanism.

There is no such thing as an internal hdd for the 360 arcade, they are all external.

Most important question is if its the older cream coloured console, or the newer black slim console. (theres a new name for the HDD less black consoles, but some people still call it the arcade)

The cream have external HDDs up to 120GB, the black slim consoles have internal HDDs.

I would advise anyone against getting a 360 without a HDD. Thats like getting a diesel Porsche.

Most important question is if its the older cream coloured console, or the newer black slim console. (theres a new name for the HDD less black consoles, but some people still call it the arcade)

The cream have external HDDs up to 120GB, the black slim consoles have internal HDDs.

I would advise anyone against getting a 360 without a HDD. Thats like getting a diesel Porsche.

The new slimline console supports HDDs of upto 250GB, and yes those are internal and are in what looks like a cartridge.

I've got a 20GB HDD sitting around here doing nothing. Drop me a PM and you can have it for the cost of postage if you want.

Still works - just a friend gave me a 60GB one for free.

You can also use USB devices up to 16GB (or partitions) for extra storage for games and profiles. I use the USB for the profile so I can use it on different consoles without swapping the HDD out, or migrating the account onto a friends HDD and the HDD for storing games on - optional, but faster to load (slightly) and quieter/cooling running