Anybody who’s owned a recreation console from the final couple of generations will inform you that the machines are  changing into more and more like set-top computer systems  —  outfitted with USB ports, Bluetooth, detachable arduous drives, and their very own on-line software program repositories. However whereas this overlap theoretically presents appreciable advantages, corresponding to the flexibility to make use of your personal USB controller quite than being caught with the system’s default, the producers haven’t at all times been so accommodating.

Take for instance the detachable arduous drive of the Xbox 360. It was a lavatory normal 2.5″ SATA drive inside a flowery enclosure, however as defined by [Eaton], Microsoft went to appreciable lengths to stop the consumer from upgrading it themselves. Which wouldn’t have been such an enormous deal, if the Redmond big wasn’t placing an enormous markup on the issues; even in 2005, $99 USD for 20 GBs was freeway theft.

So how did the drive lockout work? Real Xbox drives had an RSA-signed “safety sector” at sector 16, which contained data just like the drive’s serial quantity, firmware revision, and mannequin quantity. The RSA signature would stop tampering with the fields saved within the safety sector, and also you couldn’t merely copy this sector over to a clean drive, as a result of when the console in contrast the info with what the drive self-reported, it wouldn’t match.

After all, industrious hackers did finally determine some workarounds. A DOS software referred to as HDDHackr was created which might allow you to plug in no matter figuring out data you wished into drives from Western Digital. All one needed to do was seize a duplicate of a safety sector from the seedier elements of the Web, spoof the values it contained to the drive with HDDHackr, and also you had been golden. There’s cause to consider Microsoft may detect this — tons of or hundreds of Xbox consoles phoning into the mothership with similar drive serial numbers was absolutely a crimson flag — however apparently no motion was ever taken to cease it.

In a while, as soon as it was attainable to change the console’s firmware with JTAG entry, the RSA examine on the safety sector was patched out, mainly permitting you to make use of no matter drive you wished. However that is the place Microsoft apparently drew the road, as modifying your console on this manner meant you could possibly not signal on to Xbox Dwell.

As an attention-grabbing facet impact of with the ability to modify the safety sector, [Eton] notes it’s attainable to interchange the Microsoft emblem with no matter picture you want, which can present up on the console whenever you examine the drive’s capability. Why have a emblem saved on the drive in any respect? He theorizes Microsoft could have deliberate to let third-party corporations produce drives, wherein case you’d have seen their emblem as a substitute. It’s solely conjecture although, since ultimately, Microsoft was the one firm to provide drives for the 360.

Nowadays, Sony helps you to set up your personal M.2 SSD within the PS5, and even the historically tech-adverse Nintendo will allow you to retailer your video games on generic SD playing cards. The scenario hasn’t modified a lot for Microsoft although, as their newest Collection X console makes use of customized NVMe-based storage units that solely Seagate makes. That mentioned, they’ve adopted a significantly extra enlightened method in direction of letting the consumer run their very own software program on the console, which is actually a step in the best path.