One of our interns found a sweet deal for a new 120GB HDD for the Xbox 360: $US60. Sure, the website seemed a bit shady, and it shipped from Hong Kong, but $US60 was a damn good price. So I ordered one.
A few weeks later, I get what appears to be a legit Microsoft Xbox 360 HDD. It comes in a distinctly non-legit box, but everything else looks OK. The problem? It’s just the HDD, meaning I can’t transfer anything over.
So, of course, I order a transfer cable from eBay. Only $US10 this time, yet again from Hong Kong. This time, it doesn’t come with the necessary disc to make the transfer.
So now I have a choice: either download an ISO of the transfer disc from any number of shady torrent sites, risking my computer and my Xbox in the process, or eat the $US70 I’ve spent and just buy a legit HDD. At this point, I’m not even sure I trust the HDD I bought to work.
Is this a huge problem? No. Am I whining about something that I should have avoided by doing even a little bit of research first? Yes. Am I still annoyed and frustrated with this? Yes. So let this be a lesson to you: if you think you can outsmart Microsoft into paying less than their obscene HDD prices, you may not be.
Smiley Guy
Tuesday, October 20, 2009 at 8:45 AMHi,
I did the exact same thing, bought a HDD from HK. Although mine was bundled with the trasnfer cable.
I actually called Microsoft and explained the situation as follows: “I bought a 120 GB HDD from an online retailer and was not provided the transfer disc, I was advised to download some third party software to transfer that data to the new HDD, which I am reluctant to do. Is it possible to source or purchase the transfer disc from Microsoft?”
I was transferred to a supervisor from the “Support” area, I explained the situation and after confirming my details, I was sent a transfer kit, containing the transfer cable and the transfer disc for free, because I had registered my console online.
Ultimately I had presumed that Microsoft could not do anyhitng to assist, but if I didn’t ask I would never know. I am glad that I did!!
Score one for Micrsoft.
Death Duck
Tuesday, October 20, 2009 at 8:57 AMYou’re crying because you’re saving US$90 and all you had to do was order from two sites and torrent something?
And don’t get all “any number of shady torrent sites, risking my computer and my Xbox in the process” like you’ve never torrented anything before.
Slow news day much?
camel_racer
Tuesday, October 20, 2009 at 9:36 AMYou do realise you can order transfer cables directly from MS for free…
James McClimont
Tuesday, October 20, 2009 at 10:16 AMTo get the cable all you had to do was call Xbox support and they would have sent you one for free.
wshinji
Tuesday, October 20, 2009 at 10:57 AMNo Offence but thats why some people buy legit and others just know where to look for cheaper alternatives.
If your unsure on what your doing and not prepared to check up on the stuff you’re buying. Best if to just stick with legit retail.
John Smith
Tuesday, October 20, 2009 at 11:00 AMCry me a river, you got a good deal and your whinging man like a bitch.
lawman
Tuesday, October 20, 2009 at 11:04 AMDoesn’t the next xbox live update disable third party hard drives? I’m pretty sure most of the cheap Ebay/HK hdds are just microsoft shells with hacked hdds inside. I’ve got one too, not looking forward to next update :(
http://majornelson.com/archive/2009/10/16/unauthorized-xbox-360-storage-devices.aspx?PageIndex=10
egon
Tuesday, October 20, 2009 at 12:44 PMI learnt the same lesson slightly differently – rather than buying Microsoft’s overpriced and crummy quality HDMI cable, I thought I’d be smart and buy a better one from DSE for the same price (along with a HDMI -> DVI adapter). Feeling quite smug in my purchase I got my new 360 + friends home, plugged everything in and then realised the proprietary cable that comes with the xbox with composite video + RCA audio is too fat to be able to have the HDMI plugged in next to it, leaving me with the option of having HDMI video (to my DVI projector) and no audio, or composite video with audio.
The official MS HDMI cable comes with an audio dongle that goes in the proprietary connector slot and DOES fit next to the HDMI.
FFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-
glennc
Tuesday, October 20, 2009 at 1:26 PMyou work for a damn internet tech blog and you don’t research before you buy???
Salmonpie
Tuesday, October 20, 2009 at 3:30 PMI nearly did the same thing and now I’m glad I didnt. I just bit the bullet and bought a 120gb from EBgames. What do you think happened a day later RROD for the 5th time!
Jess
Sunday, December 26, 2010 at 2:05 AMYeah I did the same thing a couple months ago. I was on buy.com and I saw a 250g hdd for $80 bucks. And I thought that was a great deal. I got the harddrive a few days later and it came on box similar to yours but it was green and it came with a small gamecube sized disc. I was getting suspicious. So I tried it out and the xbox couldn’t read the disc all it says was “mixed media disc” and only 16.gb was available from that piece of shit hardrive, I plug it to a computer and it reads as having 240 gb available. I bought to the post office the next day and got a refund. So I just went and got an official harddrive and transfer kit from gamestop. Learned a lesson from all this. Just get first party products from now on.