[TUTORIAL] Copy & Play XBOX 360 ISO Files From An External Drive Using Freestyle 3

As a newcomer to XBOX Jailbreaking and JTAG, it was very difficult for me to find any clear tutorials on how to get my downloaded XBOX 360 ISO files onto my external hard drive. I am lucky to live in a country where dubious services are easy to come by and I had someone do all of the aforementioned tasks for me. So to return the favor here is my simplified tutorial on getting your precious ISO files onto your external HD for you to enjoy some good ol’ fashioned pirate-friendly gaming!

Please note this tutorial is NOOB friendly so the more experienced can skim through and get things done faster.

!!! UPDATED for use with Freestyle 3 !!!

Requirements

• – A Jailbroken and JTAG-ed XBOX 360 (I have the 4GB Slim version)
• – An external hard drive formatted as FAT32 and not NTFS – Your XBOX 360 can only read drives formatted in this archaic mode. (I have a 500GB Seagate drive with a 100GB FAT32 partition for my XBOX needs)
• – FAT32 Format – this is for formatting your large external drive as FAT 32
• – 7Zip or WinRAR – to extract the Freestyle Dash files
  
• ISO of your XBOX 360 game of choice (TPB)
• – XBOX Backup Creator – This will let you unpack those yummy ISO files into the file structures that your XBOX 360 can read and play. 
• – Freestyle Dash 3 – this was the custom dashboard used by the guys who set my XBOX 360 and external HD up. (link updated to Freestyle3.0.483.7z Dec. 21, 2012)

Step One – Formatting your external drive

One of the drawbacks with the FAT32 file system is that it technically cannot be used for drives larger than 32GB or recognize files larger than 4GB. This is where FAT32 Format comes in and it’s as simple as it gets.

• – Open up the FAT32 Format application.
• – Choose your drive from the top drop-down menu, make sure Quick Format is checked, then click Start at the bottom. You should have a FAT32 formatted drive within a few seconds.

Step Two- Installing Freestyle Dash on your external hard drive

•  [Updated] Go to the root of your external drive and create a folder named FSD3 (you can name it whatever you want but we’ll use FSD3 for the purposes of this tutorial). Now open up the TeamFSD.Freestyle3.0.483.7z file you downloaded and you should see another zip file inside that one called FreestyleRev483.7z. Open that and extract all files to the FSD3 folder you recently created.

• – Now open up Notepad and copy and paste the following code into a blank document then Save As LAUNCH.INI (make sure its file name extension is .INI and not .TXT). Save this file in the root of your external hard drive (NOT the FSD3 folder) and your FSD is all set. The purpose of this launch.ini file is to tell your JTAG XBOX to load FSD on boot up.

[QuickLaunchButtons] BUT_X = Hdd:\Content000000000000000\C0DE99990080000\C0DE99990F586558 Default = Usb:\FSD3\default.xex [Settings] pingpatch = true contpatch = false fatalreboot = true regionspoof = true dvdexitdash = false xblaexitdash = false fatalfreeze = false nxemini = true noupdater = true exchandler = false debugout = false liveblock = true livestrong = false remotenxe = false signnotice = true

Step Three – Unpacking your XBOX 360 iso

• – Open up XBOX Backup Creator and click on the Image Tools tab.
• – Click on Image Browser. This will open up the XBOX Image Browser sub-app.
• – Click on File then Open Image File.
• – From here navigate to the iso game file you downloaded and click Open.
• – Next, right click on the iso file that appears on the left pane of the app and click on Extract.

• – Now choose the location you want to save your game in. This can be anywhere you fancy but I highly recommend putting it in an appropriately named folder INSIDE the GAMES folder which now sits in your external HD (eg h:\games\halo reach\) This will start the lengthy extraction process so take a break and come back after a few minutes.

Another option for file extraction would be to use ISO2GOD. I wrote a tutorial for that here (coz I’m a swell kinda guy)

Step Four – Loading up your game using Freestyle Dash on your XBOX 360 

Unfortunately, I cannot take screenshots of my XBOX 360 display so please bear with the all-text tutorial from hereon-in.

• – Plug in your external hard drive to a USB port on your JTAG XBOX360. Your console will now boot up straight into Freestyle Dash. Before you can play your games you need to tell FSD where they should be loaded from.
• – From the main screen, choose Settings and then Content Settings and then Game Path
• – Select Choose Path and then locate your games folder on your hard drive. Choose USB0, press A, choose GAMES, press A, and then press Y to select this folder.
• – Next, press X to save your game path and it should appear on the right pane of the screen.
• – Get back to the main menu and choose XBOX 360 Games and you will be taken to the game selection screen where your precious extracted ISOs can finally be enjoyed.

Note: There is a minor glitch where not all the games you have in your Games folder will turn up in the game selection screen. Oddly enough some games find their way in the other menus such as HOMEBREW GAMES/APPS. So simply choose that option from the main menu and you should see your ‘missing’ games there. If you are finicky like me, you will want to highlight the misplaced games there and press Y for options. Choose MOVE from the menu that pops up and select XBOX 360 Games as the new location and all your lovely games should now be in the main XBOX 360 Games selection screen.

Voila! I hope that help all the newbies like me. Please leave a comment if you run into any trouble. Enjoy!
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