How to softmod your Xbox and install XBMC for free

Tea_Bag

ok found ndure.txt attached to the post (!), and wrote iso. at the hotswap stage now, and went through the boot procedure and it told me i could type xbrowser (or xboxhd).

problem now is that im getting a message saying

root@xbox-HDM:/1 xbrowser

looking for CDROM in /dev/hda
Please connect a drive and try again!!



we will now search /dev/hda for an xbox partition table...

no xbox partition table found on /dev/hda




Done!!!
root@xbox-HDM:/2

what next? what did i do wrong?

thanks in advance.

Hangover

Tea_Bag wrote: »

ok found ndure.txt attached to the post (!), and wrote iso. at the hotswap stage now, and went through the boot procedure and it told me i could type xbrowser (or xboxhd).

problem now is that im getting a message saying



what next? what did i do wrong?

thanks in advance.

Quote from the first page -

***IMPORTANT*** - The Xbox hard drive MUST be connected to the primary ide cable at the end otherwise it wont be seen by xboxhdm (cd rom on the secondary ide cable)

This is important and is quite often overlooked- i know i did on the first softmod i did.

Jackobyte

Is it easy to brick/break your xbox doing this. I am quite tempted to try. Might try pick up a cheap one around and have a go. Are the torx screwdriver and the IDE hdd connections easy to pick up and will a usual built in PC CD burner work?

Hangover

Jackobyte wrote: »

Is it easy to brick/break your xbox doing this. I am quite tempted to try. Might try pick up a cheap one around and have a go. Are the torx screwdriver and the IDE hdd connections easy to pick up and will a usual built in PC CD burner work?

If you follow the guide it is pretty straight forward and if you muck it up there are ways to recover it, ideally you need to have an older pc with ide cable and an ide cdrom. Should be able to get the torx drivers at any good hardware or tool store.

guldtand

nice guide! (Y)

Im screwed tho Im getting stuck at the hotswap..
I have a cdrom in my computer, and the hd in my xbox. Idk what settings both of the jumpers should have (slave, master ect.) ;s
and im also pretty confused about the IDE cables. The ide cable which was connected to my cd rom, has 2 IDEs. The first says 1 and the 2nd says 2.
Which of these cables should be connected to the cd and xbox hd? :S:S:S
Soooooo confused.. help me guys.

Hangover

guldtand wrote: »

nice guide! (Y)

Im screwed tho Im getting stuck at the hotswap..
I have a cdrom in my computer, and the hd in my xbox. Idk what settings both of the jumpers should have (slave, master ect.) ;s
and im also pretty confused about the IDE cables. The ide cable which was connected to my cd rom, has 2 IDEs. The first says 1 and the 2nd says 2.
Which of these cables should be connected to the cd and xbox hd? :S:S:S
Soooooo confused.. help me guys.

CDROM on secondary ide and hdd on primary, doesnt matter which position on the ide cable the cdrom is and i think it will work as either master or slave as long as they are on separate ide cables.

guldtand

can you please explain a bit more? and what about harddisk..

Hangover

guldtand wrote: »

can you please explain a bit more? and what about harddisk..

I suggest you read the tutorial from the start carefully, it will be easier than me just repeating what is already there.

Tea_Bag

Thanks. after attemping it again on the primary IDE(i thought i had it on the primary IDE cable already, but they were misslabled, my xbox kinda blew up, there was a massive spark and a really loud bang. now it want power on anymore.

sigh*


time to trawl adverts for another one again..

Hangover

Tea_Bag wrote: »

Thanks. after attemping it again on the primary IDE(i thought i had it on the primary IDE cable already, but they were misslabled, my xbox kinda blew up, there was a massive spark and a really loud bang. now it want power on anymore.

sigh*


time to trawl adverts for another one again..

Dont know what you did but ide cables dont carry any power so you must have shorted something.

Jackobyte

Hangover wrote: »

If you follow the guide it is pretty straight forward and if you muck it up there are ways to recover it, ideally you need to have an older pc with ide cable and an ide cdrom. Should be able to get the torx drivers at any good hardware or tool store.

Can i be done on a more modern system though? All I have is an Inspiron 1300.

EDIT: Also, what size is the basic built in hard-drive? Should I be upgrading that too?

Hangover

Jackobyte wrote: »

Can i be done on a more modern system though? All I have is an Inspiron 1300.

EDIT: Also, what size is the basic built in hard-drive? Should I be upgrading that too?

You have to have at least 1 ide connection for the xbox hdd and there is a USB version of XBOXHDM but i have never used it, the original hdd is either 8 or 10gig but you have to do the softmod first before you can upgrade - unless you have an eeprom reader. If you intend to stream all your media off a pc then the stock hdd is fine.

LukeV15

Finally got it to work. First problem I ran into was sheer oversight, I neglected to notice that the ISO was more than 700mb, so when I burnt it it dropped the installer, which as it turns out, wouldn't you know, is very important.

Secondly, the only way I could get the unlock to work is to not pause the audio track, just leave it going, and when disconnecting the IDE make sure you're pulling it straight out and not to the side.

Also, to upgrade after the softmod, do you just copy all the files off the modded HDD onto the bigger drive?

Hangover

LukeV15 wrote: »

Finally got it to work. First problem I ran into was sheer oversight, I neglected to notice that the ISO was more than 700mb, so when I burnt it it dropped the installer, which as it turns out, wouldn't you know, is very important.

Secondly, the only way I could get the unlock to work is to not pause the audio track, just leave it going, and when disconnecting the IDE make sure you're pulling it straight out and not to the side.

Also, to upgrade after the softmod, do you just copy all the files off the modded HDD onto the bigger drive?

I dont use an audio track anymore i just wait till the flubber is finished then unplug the hdd. There are a number of ways to replace the hdd, you can use a program called chimps and set the new hdd in place of the dvd rom and copy all the files across or retrive the eeprom from the xbox hdd and using xboxhdm build a new hdd from scratch. Have a look on xboxscene for guides on hdd upgrades.

AntiRip

Does anybody have suggestions with this issue. I have an avi on a dvd and it plays fine on the xbmc. But when I add the file to the E drive using ftp and play it, all the colours are messed up? Any ideas appreciated thanks

Hangover

AntiRip wrote: »

Does anybody have suggestions with this issue. I have an avi on a dvd and it plays fine on the xbmc. But when I add the file to the E drive using ftp and play it, all the colours are messed up? Any ideas appreciated thanks

At a guess it is because when you play a disc XBMC uses DVDplayer to decode the avi file and when it plays a file off the hdd it uses Mplayer, there have been some issues in some builds of xbmc with the file type each will play.
You can change the play by going to the avi and pressing the info/white button and select "play with "- sometimes the title button gives this option.

AntiRip

Hangover wrote: »

At a guess it is because when you play a disc XBMC uses DVDplayer to decode the avi file and when it plays a file off the hdd it uses Mplayer, there have been some issues in some builds of xbmc with the file type each will play.
You can change the play by going to the avi and pressing the info/white button and select "play with "- sometimes the title button gives this option.

Thanks Hangover, will give it a go.....Yep, got it working fine now. Messed around with the settings ;-)

lentzx

IS there a way to swap the drive to a bigger capacity

Hangover

lentzx wrote: »

IS there a way to swap the drive to a bigger capacity

There are various methods of upgraded the hdd, easiest is to use a program called chimps to clone the existing softmodded hdd onto a new larger capacity hdd. You need to install chimps as an application and you will need a molex power splitter so that both hdd's are powered up, boot your xbox and once xbmc is loaded unplug the dvd drive and plug in the new hdd to the ide cable. Then start chimps and follow the prompts, choose to clone the hdd.
Other method is to use the xboxhdm program used to mod the xbox in thew first place to clone the hdd.

lentzx

Supercell wrote: »

Here ya go, more compatible drives than you can shake a stick at:-

http://xboxdrives.x-pec.com/?p=list&sort=dateadded&desc=1

hi
i'm having problem ftp my xbox therefore I'm not able to instal XBMC. Please someone help

Hangover

lentzx wrote: »

hi
i'm having problem ftp my xbox therefore I'm not able to instal XBMC. Please someone help

Can you be more specific, are you having trouble setting up the network connection or transferring the files ? Check in the system settings in unleashx and set your network to either auto ( DHCP) or dashboard default and then reboot your xbox.

synesthesia

Hey guys, i am getting rid of my modded xbox with 40 gig HDD, but more importantly of the memory card and MechWarrior - if anyone is interested in softmodding !

pm me if interested - i am in Limerick

Myrddin

synesthesia wrote: »

Hey guys, i am getting rid of my modded xbox with 40 gig HDD, but more importantly of the memory card and MechWarrior - if anyone is interested in softmodding !

pm me if interested - i am in Limerick

Use adverts.ie, you'll have more exposure there.

synesthesia

I believe this would be against adverts rules Mister admin

No modded console are allowed !

Myrddin

synesthesia wrote: »

I believe this would be against adverts rules Mister admin

No modded console are allowed !

Sorry I didn't notice it was modded, it is indeed against advert.ie rules. Oh and I'm no admin, just one of this forums mods

synesthesia

Moderators are necessary - and it was still a friendly advise - so double thank you !

Myrddin

synesthesia wrote: »

Moderators are necessary - and it was still a friendly advise - so double thank you !

Not a prob, if I know of anyone looking for one I'll point them your way Cheers

Gitchusome

I'm new to this forum, but I just successfully got through step #10, and need to find a good working version of xbmc for the xbox. any help on where i might be able to find one? the link posted in the original post won't open for me.

hevsuit

Gitchusome wrote: »

I'm new to this forum, but I just successfully got through step #10, and need to find a good working version of xbmc for the xbox. any help on where i might be able to find one? the link posted in the original post won't open for me.

Hi,
Heres a link to the torrent site that tracks the latest version of XBMC.
http://www.aidtracker.com/

This IS a LEGAL torrent site, as it is private and no pirated material of any sort is hosted on it. ONLY Homebrew is hosted on this tracker.

I recommend to download XBMC Installer Delux 1.40.
Burn the.iso image onto a dvd with your favorite image burner.
Insert the burnt disk into xbox dvd drive and off you go!!

Gitchusome

the link on that website for v1.4 gives me nothing. when i click on the 1.41 update it downloads it like it should. will that work if i use that or is that strictly an update?