How to softmod your Xbox and install XBMC for free

Korvanica

Got everything working after. Yay !!

Delicious retro emulator goodness...

(getting a 2nd xbox tonight, so will be doing the same to that)

Hangover

You cant go past coinops3 for emulators on the xbox.

Korvanica

Did the 2nd xbox last night, went off without a hitch. Only took me 50 minutes (that includes ftping over about 7GB of emulators/roms and xbmc.

Didnt know about coinops until just there, think ill download that and stick it on them.

Myrddin

Korvanica wrote: »

Did the 2nd xbox last night, went off without a hitch. Only took me 50 minutes (that includes ftping over about 7GB of emulators/roms and xbmc.

Didnt know about coinops until just there, think ill download that and stick it on them.

How was your ftp speed? I never get decent speed from modded Xboxs. 360 seems to have much better speeds despite both being 10/100

Hangover

If you get the full coinops 3 its just over 50gig for 3077 roms plus more that have been added recently so it probably comes out to about 5000 all up.

I agree about the 360 being faster for ftp, my jtags and rgh consoles see up to 8.8mbs while transferring games.

Korvanica

I actually never looked, I started it and forgot about it. Took about 20 mins maybe for about 6/7Gb although I cant be sure.

Ill let you know when im doing coinops.

Cherry_Cola

For those of you who've put in a SATA drive using a converter, how do you find the speeds? Is it noticeably slower than using the IDE drive?

I was gonna buy an IDE drive but I have a spare 500GB SATA lying around so might as well use that. I've also seen some reports that the DVD can stop working if this is done, did anyone have this issue?

Hangover

Cherry_Cola wrote: »

For those of you who've put in a SATA drive using a converter, how do you find the speeds? Is it noticeably slower than using the IDE drive?

I was gonna buy an IDE drive but I have a spare 500GB SATA lying around so might as well use that. I've also seen some reports that the DVD can stop working if this is done, did anyone have this issue?

Sata is quicker except if you have a large hdd like 1-2TB then it will be slow till it fills up a bit (still faster than an old ide i reckon), never heard of any problems with the dvd drive not working so thats not a concern.

Only a few sata adapters work with the xbox so be sure to buy one from a known source.

Cherry_Cola

Hangover wrote: »

Sata is quicker except if you have a large hdd like 1-2TB then it will be slow till it fills up a bit (still faster than an old ide i reckon), never heard of any problems with the dvd drive not working so thats not a concern.

Only a few sata adapters work with the xbox so be sure to buy one from a known source.

Thanks for that. It's just I've seen some videos where the boot time was quite slow, but they were the bigger drives so I'll give it a go.

Hangover

Cherry_Cola wrote: »

Thanks for that. It's just I've seen some videos where the boot time was quite slow, but they were the bigger drives so I'll give it a go.

Boot time is a bit slower but still less than 10 seconds on my tsop flashed Halo Le with 2TB hdd using ind5003 bios and config file on c: to remove startup sound and intro flubber.

noelma

Wow ... what a lot of stuuf in this forum!!
I have an old Xbox, and I would love to connect it to my home network, then use it to play movies I already have on my pc, on the TV connected to the xbox.
I dont want to open the xbox, or the pc.
Isn't there a REALLY simple way to set this up??

If you can still locate the necessary parts then this might help.

Sparks43

noelma wrote: »

Wow ... what a lot of stuuf in this forum!!
I have an old Xbox, and I would love to connect it to my home network, then use it to play movies I already have on my pc, on the TV connected to the xbox.
I dont want to open the xbox, or the pc.
Isn't there a REALLY simple way to set this up??

This is the easiest way of getting everything you need

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Xbox-XBMC-save-transfer-kit-USB-adapter-memstick-help-Splinter-Cell-disc-boxed-/150771603597?_trksid=p4340.m185&_trkparms=algo%3DDLSL%252BSIC.NPJS%26its%3DI%26itu%3DUCI%252BUA%26otn%3D10%26pmod%3D150730791933%252B150730791933%26po%3D%26ps%3D63%26clkid%3D7154344144608462549#ht_3838wt_1185

sstavross

Hi!
Please I need some help. I have follow the guide in the first post but after the hot swap I get the message:

Looking for CD-ROM in /dev/hda...
Looking for CD-ROM in /dev/hdb...
No disk drive found on /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:/3

I have tried everything with no success... The xbox hard drive is in IDE1 (last connector of the cable) the DVDrom in IDE2. What to do? Is there any new guide or any update? I have kernel 5838.

sstavross

Update:

I managed to bypass the message above by disabling the auto detect in bios of my pc. But now I can't have my xbox drive unlocked in order to do the hotswap. I tried several times the method of playin a song and pause it, and the other one to make error 12. I do the hot swap ans as soon as I hit option 1, run the linux , I see the error messages and when I type xboxhd I get the message "Drive is locked" .
Am I doing something wrong? I have seen all the videos in youtube and they succeded, why can't I? Is there a possibility that my drive can't be unlock inside the xbox? Or my pc transmits a mesage and it locks it before I can access it?

witnessmenow

hey try following the first few steps from here

Turn on your PC, and then turn on your xbox. When the xbox gets to the screen with the green X unplug the IDE cable from the xbox's hard drive.

That worked for me everytime.

sstavross

It doesn't work for me... I have tried every method I have read! Yours, others, nothing! I am not a noob, I know pretty much about pcs, cables etc, I have even build a pc myshelf. But I can't make this hotswap work. I have tried 4 different PCs! Always I get the read erros and " drive is locked" when I run the xboxhd. My drive is seagate 10GB ST310014ACE. Any other suggestion?

m8

Are you leaving the PC's HD connected when booting from the CD?

The hot swap has worked for me every time it never fails so I think you need to check every step to see where you are going wrong.


If you are doing every thing right then maybe try another PC.

Myrddin

Use a different IDE cable also.

sstavross

This is getting strange more and more. Today I tried the solutions you say above. But when at first I pussed the button to turn on the xbox I get erroe 07. I can feel that the xbox hd is not spinning at all. Like dead, But when I put it on the PC it starts spinning and my PC recognise it. When I put it back in the xbox ( power and IDE cable) not spinning again. When I put power from PC and ide from xbox, spinning but again error 07. Now what??

Myrddin

sstavross wrote: »

This is getting strange more and more. Today I tried the solutions you say above. But when at first I pussed the button to turn on the xbox I get erroe 07. I can feel that the xbox hd is not spinning at all. Like dead, But when I put it on the PC it starts spinning and my PC recognise it. When I put it back in the xbox ( power and IDE cable) not spinning again. When I put power from PC and ide from xbox, spinning but again error 07. Now what??

Xbox Error Code 7

7 - kernel - HDD timeout

Most of the times, the IDE cable is not properly connected when you see this error. Please reattach the ide cable. Not only to the harddisk drive but also to the dvd drive. ALso try to reconnect the ide cable to the motherboard.

Press pretty hard so it goes all the way in. Make sure it is seated straight and proper in the drives and the motherboard. If you still have an error 7. Try another ide cable. If that won't work try another harddisk. If there is still no go, try to set the jumpers on the rearside of the harddisk drive. Set it to master or cable select. If still no succes, good luck and sell your xbox

http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/210562

sstavross

Yes my friend, I read this before posting here. But It didn't help me. I checked the cables etc. My xbox still doesn't start. Is there a chance my xbox hd been locked somehow, after all these failed hopswaps I did?

Myrddin

sstavross wrote: »

Yes my friend, I read this before posting here. But It didn't help me. I checked the cables etc. My xbox still doesn't start. Is there a chance my xbox hd been locked somehow, after all these failed hopswaps I did?

Sure if the HD was locked, the unlock key is in the eeprom so I don't see the Xbox having trouble unlocking its own hdd. It's more likely the IDE cable is borked from constant tugging.

Have you checked the jumper settings on the hdd?

sstavross

When I first took out the hd it was set to cable sellected. Then I put it to master. I have tried now both but no luck....

Myrddin

sstavross wrote: »

When I first took out the hd it was set to cable sellected. Then I put it to master. I have tried now both but no luck....

1 - Try a different IDE cable in the console
2 - Double check jumper settings
3 - ?

If the console cannot detect the hdd, & the above are correct, you've likely borked the drive somehow.

sstavross

Finally I gave up and decide to make the eeprom reader. Success!! I managed to take the eeprom.bin file and unlock the hd and softmod my xbox by the xboxhd. I want to thank all you guys that helped me. Sometimes it is not the problem itself and the success solution or not, it is that you had the will to help me, and this is what matters more! Thank you all, espesially EnterNow!

tomrevs

BOOM! XBMC FTW!

rapidwiz

Guys,

For the life of me, none of the tricks worked, the pausing of the music, the listening to the HD, random pulling the cable out .. but after 1 day of unsuccess, I found this which worked the first time and I hope it does for you.

http://xtreview.com/review90.htm

* Connect an available power connector from the PCs power supply to the XBOX HDD.
* Connect the IDE cable from XBOX to the the XBOX HDD.
* Power up the PC and hit the "Pause" key before it autotypes the drives.
* Power up the Xbox to the idle Dashboard.
* During the Xbox startup, the Xbox transmits the password via the ATA Unlock Command, and the drive is unlocked.
* Now, carefully disconnect the Xbox IDE cable from the Xbox hd.
* Plug the PC IDE cable into the Xbox hd.
* Hit any key on the PC keyboard to let it continue to boot.
* Now the drive is unlocked and reconnected to the PC, ready for read(/write?) operations.


The key here is NOT power off your hdd. You power your XBOX HDD from your PC, boot it (I didn't even have to play music, just booted to the default dash). Switch the IDE cables and boom, it was unlocked.

Hope this helps ..


Yes I know it is 2012 and why the hell am I messing around with an original XBOX .. ROFLMAO .... pretty sad I know.

Korvanica

Not sad at all, They're a good machine and great for using as old arcade systems etc.

m8

We need more projects for the Xboxes. Best arcade setup or something.