Help

Get help about a specific field by moving the mouse pointer over the field name to the left.

Brand (Required)

Manufacturer of the drive, usually marked on top of the drive or on the package.



All the trademarks mentioned on this web site are properties of their respective owners.

Model number (Required)

The model number is usally printed on top of the drive, or on the box if it's a retail kit. If you own a retail kit hard drive please post the retail number as the model number and put the model number printed on the hard drive as a comment.
If connected to a PC the model number can bee seened in the...

BIOS startup screen

Device Manager in Windows

cat /proc/ide/hdX/model in Linux

Fujitsu	Seagate	Western Digital
Maxtor	Samsung

Click for larger pictures

Model name

The model name is the retail or casual name for the drive without the brand name.

For example:
Caviar for Western Digital drives
DiamondMax and MaXLine II for Maxtor drives
Barracuda for Seagate drives.

Use google and your model number to find this data.

Size (Required)

This is the advertised drive size, not what the operation system detects.

Sometimes there are two different sized listed on the drive, i.e 10.2 GB and 10 GB. The first is the actual data size, and the latter is the advertised size of the drive. Enter the advertised size.

RPM

Rotations per minute. Higher RPM normally equals to lower accesstime, but when used in the PS2 overheating can be a problem.

Use google and your model number to find this data.

Buffersize

Lot of new hard drives come with a large buffers, usual 8 MB. Regular/older drives got a buffer of 2 MB or 512 KB.

Use google and your model number to find this data.

Firmware

The firmware is a microprogram stored in the ROM on the hard drive, and tells the host operation system what the drive is capable of. If there are reported lots problems with a specific model, supplying the firmware may filter out any firmware specific problems.

You can find the firmware either printed on top of the drive, or use software to extract it, such as ATAPWD.

Manufacture date

The manufacture date is printed on top of the drive, usually it's pretty easy to spot. Don't post date codes thats hard to figure out.

Use this format: YYYY-MM-DD (year-month-day)

Lockable (Required)

This indicates if the drive has "ATA Security Mode", or if you prefer the casual "Lockability". ConfigMagic, Evox, eepromer, unlockx, hdlock, are some of the programs able to lock or unlock a drive.

Evox: In the "Settings / Info" menu you can check just right above the drive space if your drive is locked.
ConfigMagic: On the main screen, at the bottom you can check if you drive is locked.

Please don't make assumptions, unless you have tried atleast two different methods.

Fitting (Required)

Make sure the network adapter fits/aligns to the IDE interface. Here are the two possible situations:

Not fitting/aligning correctly:


Fitting/aligning correctly:

I've seen reports that it's possible to modify the network adaptor but don't select 'Yes' if you have done such modification. Comment it instead.

Working (Required)

If the hard drive is successfully installed and formatted on the PS2, and you are able to copy things to and from the hard drive, then I would consider that it works.

Note: Using HDD Tool on drives smaller than 40 GB usially report "invalid argument", try DMS HDD Format tool instead.

Installation, Foratting, and Testing Guide

Program (Required if the drive fits)

Program(s) used to format and install the drive.

PS2Ownz HDD Tool, DMS HDD Format Tool (yes, it works without the chip), and HDLoader are the most used programs. Also include any games you successfully did a hdd install of. Please comment if the game is hdd-enabled but the hdd install option wasn't available (The drive wasn't detected).

Separate with commas.

PS2 version

Version of the PS2 version used to test the drive. You can probe your PS2 version here [psxservices.co.uk] and here [chipzone.com].

The PS2 version may help finding any console specific conflicts.

Network Adaptor (Required)

You either have the Ethernet Only Adaptor or the Ethernet and Modem Adaptor.

Credit to hdloader.com for the picture

Your name/nick (Required)

This is used to distinguish between identical enteries by different contributors.

Your email

Enter your e-mail address if you want to be able to edit your post later on, or want to be available for other people to contact you.

You can check the "Show publicly" box if don't want show your e-mail address publicly on the drive's profile.

NOTE: I will never publish your e-mail address if you don't agree to do so, never give your e-mail address to other parties, or spam your e-mail address with junk.

Anti-spam-spiders techniques are in use if you show the e-mail address publicly.

Extra comments

Any additional comments that's related to the installation of the drive or may help other people.

Why didn't the drive format?
Any know problems with the drive, bad clusters?
What is the noise level of the drive?
Does the drive generate a lot of heat?
Did a 'HDD Install' of a hdd-enabled game succeed?
How fast are the transfer speeds and installation times of hdd-enabled games?

Thanks to xbox-linux for inspiring me to use this brilliant menu system.