Game Console Hard Drives

Back in 2005, I bought an Xbox 360 that had a 20GB hard disk.  A few years after purchase, I bought a refurbished 120GB drive from Microcenter.com for $90...it was a nice upgrade.  I swapped out the little drive for the bigger one and continued to play my games (putting the 20GB drive in my parts bin...I never throw anything away when it comes to computer parts).

Later, the Xbox 360 experienced the Red Ring of Death (RRD).  I took it apart with the idea that maybe the CPU needed new thermal paste.  It did, as the old paste was pretty much done.  I removed the old and put on some new paste, but this didn't solve the issue.  I think by the time it experienced the RRD, the CPU was cooked.  So I bought a new hard drive.

I transferred my data from the old drive to the new drive and put the 120GB into the parts bin.

Around the RRD issue, the PS3 also died.  It was an original PS3 (80GB drive version).  The Blu-Ray stopped reading, which meant that I couldn't play any games, since it couldn't read disks.  We put the system to the side and bought a new one.  Well, maybe 2 months ago, I decided to trash the system (removed the drive for privacy reasons).  I've decided to keep the drive.

So, I've three (3) hard drives from 3 different gaming systems.  The 20GB is probably next to useless, but I'll  probably end up using it somewhere (somehow).  I might be able to use the 160GB drive (a WD unit) in my Macbook, since it only has an 80GB drive and I keep maxing it out.  Or, I can use it as a backup drive instead.  Same with the 80GB Seagate that was in the PS3.

Now, did you see what I just stated?  Did you notice that I stated in the first paragraph that the Xbox 360 had a 120GB drive and in the paragraph above, I stated that it was a 160GB drive?  Well, surprise.  I opened the HDD case, which was labeled "120GB HDD", and found that the drive is actually 160GB in size!  It has model WD16000BEVT on the label, and a big "160GB" in bold.

I just need to find out which cabling I need to turn these into external drives, which means I'll need some external HDD cases, as well.

I love my toys.  :)

Power adapters and other news

Wouldn't it be nice if the laptop empire joined forces and standardized laptop power adapter cords? I've several laptop and each requires a dedicated cord. I forgot my cord for my Mini today...fortunately, it has a decent charge, but I now have to watch consumption of power. Good thing my Macbook is in my truck. May have to go get it!

Other news:

I'm still trying to script FW log parsing. I've pretty much nailed it for my BSD machine, but will need to edit what I have, as the script parses and adds IPs to a block list. Sometimes, I just want to parse and find the top 10 offenders. I also still need to do this on my Linux machines. I've a script that parses (for Linux) but it is very rudimentary. And, I still want to port the script to Perl or Python.

Patiently awaiting Slackware v11.0, Recent Snort Logs...

Yeah, I'm awaiting the release of Slackware v11.0. I should try to rsync my -current machines, which are on v10.1, I believe. That why I'll only have a short sync when v11.0 is released.

I also am scrubbing my logs on wigglit.ath.cx since I've been vacationing and had to attend a funeral in the last two weeks. I saw the below:

[**] [1:485:4] ICMP Destination Unreachable Communication Administratively Prohibited [**]
[Classification: Misc activity] [Priority: 3]
07/19-11:06:44.523876 0:B0:4A:6C:76:53 -> FE:FD:40:3E:E7:DC type:0x800 len:0x46
64.65.236.206 -> 66.160.141.30 ICMP TTL:246 TOS:0x0 ID:28020 IpLen:20 DgmLen:56
Type:3 Code:13 DESTINATION UNREACHABLE: ADMINISTRATIVELY PROHIBITED,
PACKET FILTERED
** ORIGINAL DATAGRAM DUMP:
66.160.141.30:43212 -> 64.65.236.206:113 TCP TTL:53 TOS:0x0 ID:15954 IpLen:20 DgmLen:56 DF
Seq: 0xB4CEF72C Ack: 0x10001
** END OF DUMP

I believe I've seen this before in my logs but I want to further investigate it to get a better understanding of what it means.

I've been neglecting my Slackware installs the last month, as I've recently purchased a white Mac Book (2.0 GHz). I'm currently trying to get used to the internal file structure and commands, as they sometimes differ from FreeBSD's typical commands. I've also started a blog documenting my Mac experiences ... see it at http://whitemacbook.blogger.com .