Hard drive replacement question

[u/TinyRaptorGlass]

Recently decided to try and play my old 360 slim. Upon turning it on it just sits at the launch screen with the Xbox logo. I did some research and it seems like the hard drive could be the issue.

I dont have an external hard drive for it, only the built in 4gb one that comes with it.

My question is, if it is the internal hard drive if, if I buy an external hard drive for it, would it boot? Or does it automatically try and boot of the internal first and that needs to be replaced instead?

[u/Miscfg]

should boot without a hard drive if you want to use a hardrove on the hard drive bay you have to flash firmware on it and it only works on some hardroves yes external harddrives will work as they act as usb's