Author Topic: Original Xbox softmod - Help? (SOLVED) (Read 16413 times)

Ginsu Victim · « **on:** March 10, 2009, 03:29:31 pm »

I just bought an original XBOX v1.6. I've been going through all kinds of information at XBOX-SCENE and various other sites, but there's such a mix of old information and new that finding a good starting point seems to be a problem. The old info is TOO old, and the newer info expects you to have a grasp on what to do already.

I'm not sure what the latest advances are in softmodding, so is there anyone who has kept up with all of this? I have done mods on PSX, PS2, and did all sorts of fun stuff with Dreamcast and GBA copying, but this is all new to me.

I do have Splinter Cell and a USB adapter if needed. If I can avoid having to do any hotswaps, that'd be even better.

Thanks.

knave · « **Reply #1 on:** March 10, 2009, 04:19:53 pm »

I have only done the hotswap method. Which worked fine. I've read alot and the gamesave methods seem to be pretty straightforward. Load the game, load the hacked save and then FTP in and install your new dash and software. I recently read a few walkthroughs from scene and they looked right.

I have an xbox waiting to be moded so let me know how it turns out

Ginsu Victim · « **Reply #2 on:** March 10, 2009, 04:27:03 pm »

Yeah, I actually think I just found a decent softmod tutorial finally.

knave · « **Reply #3 on:** March 10, 2009, 05:52:26 pm »

Do share with us Please...

Hoopz · « **Reply #4 on:** March 10, 2009, 08:36:35 pm »

I think this is the easiest way to softmod:

http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=496263

I had it done in just about 15-20 minutes the first time I tried it. You do have to hot swap but it's pretty damn easy. Considering I can't solder worth a pile of poo, it was the easiest way for me.

Ginsu Victim · « **Reply #5 on:** March 10, 2009, 10:33:50 pm »

I just completed the softmod by hacking the driver for my USB thumb drive to work with the Action Replay software, then used AID with UnleashX and the Splinter Cell exploit. Worked great! Now I'm going to burn a game and test that! EDIT: Burn games work brilliantly!

waveryder · « **Reply #6 on:** March 11, 2009, 07:39:01 am »

Easier to create a USB adaptor and use a softmod installer. Make sure you've backed up your eprom.bin or your gonna have no end of grief changing out the HD.

Ginsu Victim · « **Reply #7 on:** March 11, 2009, 08:38:48 am »

That's exactly what I did.

J_K_M_A_N · « **Reply #8 on:** March 11, 2009, 08:42:39 am »

Quote from: Hoopz on March 10, 2009, 08:36:35 pm

I think this is the easiest way to softmod:

http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=496263

I had it done in just about 15-20 minutes the first time I tried it. You do have to hot swap but it's pretty damn easy. Considering I can't solder worth a pile of poo, it was the easiest way for me.

That is the one I use. I have done about 10-15 that way and all worked great. Like waveryder said, back up your eeprom as soon as you can and you can always rebuild from that.

J_K_M_A_N

Ginsu Victim · « **Reply #9 on:** March 11, 2009, 10:02:37 am »

Yep, like I said, it worked great. I had everything I needed so that I didn't have to take any risks doing a hotswap. Thanks.

knave · « **Reply #10 on:** March 11, 2009, 11:51:36 am »

So...out of curiosity what if you didn't back up your eprom.bin.

To be honest...I can't remember...It might be saved on there somewhere...I had no Idea what I was doing back then.

Hoopz · « **Reply #11 on:** March 11, 2009, 11:59:04 am »

Quote from: knave on March 11, 2009, 11:51:36 am

So...out of curiosity what if you didn't back up your eprom.bin.

To be honest...I can't remember...It might be saved on there somewhere...I had no Idea what I was doing back then.

You should back it up as soon as possible. FTP in and copy it to your hard drive on the pc. Its easy to do and will only take a couple of minutes.

J_K_M_A_N · « **Reply #12 on:** March 11, 2009, 12:46:07 pm »

Quote from: knave on March 11, 2009, 11:51:36 am

So...out of curiosity what if you didn't back up your eprom.bin.

To be honest...I can't remember...It might be saved on there somewhere...I had no Idea what I was doing back then.

It isn't the end of the world if you don't but if something goes wrong with the hard drive or if you upload something wrong and it won't boot, you will have to get a chip to fix it (if you can't boot from a slayers disc). If you have the eeprom backed up, you can rebuild a new drive easily with xboxhdm.

J_K_M_A_N

knave · « **Reply #13 on:** March 11, 2009, 04:01:43 pm »

Ok, so I can FTP in at any time and make a backup?

That is a relief. I don't plan on messing with it too much but I should probably go in and back it up sooner than later...especially now that I use it alot more.

Thanks.

Oh...and this thread has caused me to loose most of my day over at Xbox-scene...

Ginsu Victim · « **Reply #14 on:** March 11, 2009, 04:22:52 pm »

Quote from: knave on March 11, 2009, 04:01:43 pm

Oh...and this thread has caused me to loose most of my day over at Xbox-scene...

Yeah, that can happen easy.

J_K_M_A_N · « **Reply #15 on:** March 11, 2009, 04:27:17 pm »

Quote from: knave on March 11, 2009, 04:01:43 pm

Ok, so I can FTP in at any time and make a backup?

That is a relief. I don't plan on messing with it too much but I should probably go in and back it up sooner than later...especially now that I use it alot more.

Thanks.

Oh...and this thread has caused me to loose most of my day over at Xbox-scene...

I like to use evox to make a backup of the eeprom. Just install it and run it from XBMC in the filemanager. Then it has an option for backup and just ftp in and get the backup folder from the directory in evox. Inside that directory is a file called eeprom.bin. That is what you need to be safer.

J_K_M_A_N

Ginsu Victim · « **Reply #16 on:** March 11, 2009, 04:29:17 pm »

Now I just need to go read up on all this FTP business, especially if I'm going to use XBMC to its full potential.

Hoagie_one · « **Reply #17 on:** March 26, 2009, 10:07:33 am »

Once I got XBMC setup, I almost never use ftp'ing. I samba everything...unless you are copying iso's or something, then you should use the avalaunch / qwix combo to copy iso's over.

Ginsu Victim · « **Reply #18 on:** March 26, 2009, 10:55:25 am »

I still haven't put XBMC on there. I just have UnleashX as the softmod. FTPing works fine for me. Samba, avalaunch, qwix....all foreign to me.

ChadTower · « **Reply #19 on:** March 26, 2009, 12:37:06 pm »

Is it really samba or raw SMB? A samba mount to my xbox would be really convenient.

Hoagie_one · « **Reply #20 on:** March 26, 2009, 01:19:39 pm »

Chad.
You can access smb shares on the network. I dont know the difference in samba and SMB. I thought they were the same.

Ginsu.
Samba, as far as I was aware, is a way to access windows network folders. You can share a folder on your network, give it a share name and access it within XBMC using Samba shares, allowing you to stream MP3's or Avi's, etc etc. You can even transfer files.

Avalaunch is an alternative dashboard instead of unleashX. It works the same and has no extra use except for the transfer of large ISO files. IF you run a windows program called Qwix and have Avalaunch running on your xbox, the two programs run together and increase the transfer speed of installing ISO files to your xbox harddrive. Only useful if you upgraded the harddrive though.
Details on avalaunch here

ChadTower · « **Reply #21 on:** March 26, 2009, 01:29:42 pm »

Quote from: Hoagie_one on March 26, 2009, 01:19:39 pm

Chad.
You can access smb shares on the network. I dont know the difference in samba and SMB. I thought they were the same.

I'll have to look into that. Thanks for the tip. samba is a client that works on the SMB protocol, sort of how cuteftp is a client that works via FTP.

Quote

Samba, as far as I was aware, is a way to access windows network folders. You can share a folder on your network, give it a share name and access it within XBMC using Samba shares, allowing you to stream MP3's or Avi's, etc etc. You can even transfer files.

Yeah, that's what I was talking about. It uses SMB much of the time to READ shares on other machines to pull content for streaming... I haven't seen the ability to transfer files to the Xbox hard drive that way, though, which would be pretty nice.

Ginsu Victim · « **Reply #22 on:** March 26, 2009, 01:46:54 pm »

My XBOX is in the same room as my PC, so I have no use for playing MP3s or watching movies on it. I mostly just burn games and play them. Nothing fancy.

Hoopz · « **Reply #23 on:** March 26, 2009, 03:02:28 pm »

What's the fun of that? If your television is bigger than your monitor, you may find streaming videos is better. And if you have surround sound on the tv, but not the pc, that will help also.

If none of these apply, then ignore all this.

Ginsu Victim · « **Reply #24 on:** March 26, 2009, 03:08:01 pm »

I have a dedicated HTPC in the living room for all that fun stuff on my 32" LCD with surround.

In the room where the XBOX and computer are, both screens are the same size (19"). The PC and XBOX are only running through surround, and since I'm hooking the XBOX through a CRT television, I can play House of the Dead III and XMAME (eventually) with the lightgun.

ChadTower · « **Reply #25 on:** May 03, 2009, 10:12:42 pm »

Quote from: Hoopz on March 10, 2009, 08:36:35 pm

I think this is the easiest way to softmod:

http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=496263

I had it done in just about 15-20 minutes the first time I tried it. You do have to hot swap but it's pretty damn easy. Considering I can't solder worth a pile of poo, it was the easiest way for me.

I just spent two hours of fail trying this...

Hoopz · « **Reply #26 on:** May 03, 2009, 10:25:03 pm »

Quote from: ChadTower on May 03, 2009, 10:12:42 pm

Quote from: Hoopz on March 10, 2009, 08:36:35 pm
I think this is the easiest way to softmod:

http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=496263

I had it done in just about 15-20 minutes the first time I tried it. You do have to hot swap but it's pretty damn easy. Considering I can't solder worth a pile of poo, it was the easiest way for me.

I just spent two hours of fail trying this...

What was the issue? Getting it unlocked or connecting it to your pc or

?

ChadTower · « **Reply #27 on:** May 04, 2009, 07:56:46 am »

Not sure yet... I'm 100% certain I had that thing on my primary master. I tried it on every IDE channel in every config, actually, many times. No matter what it would tell me "This machine is no Xbox". I am going to try the audio track unlock method, and if that doesn't work, it will have to be another motherboard. I tried 40 pin cables, 80 pin cables, everything I could think of with this motherboard.

Hoopz · « **Reply #28 on:** May 04, 2009, 09:18:00 am »

I've only used the audio unlock method not the save game method. If J_K_M_A_N sees this, he may have another route to go.

With your other Xbox mods, did you go with a chip?

ChadTower · « **Reply #29 on:** May 04, 2009, 09:20:18 am »

Quote from: Hoopz on May 04, 2009, 09:18:00 am

I've only used the audio unlock method not the save game method. If J_K_M_A_N sees this, he may have another route to go.

The tutorial above says it can be done swapped from sitting at the dashboard. Damn if I could get that to work, though.

Quote

With your other Xbox mods, did you go with a chip?

All of them.

Ginsu Victim · « **Reply #30 on:** May 04, 2009, 10:21:28 am »

Hmmm, I've been playing Jade Empire just fine. (Edit: Though mine is a DVD-5 rip version, so it's probably had that fixed)

ChadTower · « **Reply #31 on:** May 04, 2009, 10:38:00 am »

Odds are pretty low that I'll ever do much gaming on this one. It's going into the movie projector cart I am building for quick rollouts of movie night. This is going to be the media source.

knave · « **Reply #32 on:** May 04, 2009, 11:52:50 am »

When I did mine I had a number of hurdles. Getting an audio track on the Xbox with a defective DVD drive, Getting the hard drive unlocked took me quite a few tries I think I had to let the song play for a while, then let it sit on pause for a minute and then do the swap. Then the first time I FTP'd in to run the mod software I got an error. I checked my settings and tried again and it worked. I wish I had turned off the clock.

I use it everyday now though.

ChadTower · « **Reply #33 on:** May 04, 2009, 12:00:18 pm »

I'm booting from UnleashX now. I had to change the PC motherboard I was using. It worked on the first attempt with a different motherboard.

Ginsu Victim · « **Reply #34 on:** May 04, 2009, 12:21:53 pm »

Glad you got it going!

Hoopz · « **Reply #35 on:** May 04, 2009, 12:33:08 pm »

Quote from: ChadTower on May 04, 2009, 12:00:18 pm

I'm booting from UnleashX now. I had to change the PC motherboard I was using. It worked on the first attempt with a different motherboard.

How did you determine that it was the pc mobo that was the issue? That's not one I would have thought of at all. I probably would have tried a different pc eventually.

Good job though.

ChadTower · « **Reply #36 on:** May 04, 2009, 12:39:10 pm »

Quote from: Hoopz on May 04, 2009, 12:33:08 pm

How did you determine that it was the pc mobo that was the issue? That's not one I would have thought of at all. I probably would have tried a different pc eventually.

Good job though.

Saw a couple of references to that as a possibility on the tutorial thread. I have enough spare parts here that it took 60 seconds to swap and there wasn't anything left I could think of to try with the other one.

Hoopz · « **Reply #37 on:** May 04, 2009, 12:49:25 pm »

And that's why they say to RTFM. As many times as I read through that, it seems like I spent 10x more time on reading it as I did on doing it.

ChadTower · « **Reply #38 on:** May 04, 2009, 12:54:09 pm »

Quote from: Hoopz on May 04, 2009, 12:49:25 pm

And that's why they say to RTFM. As many times as I read through that, it seems like I spent 10x more time on reading it as I did on doing it.

Well the thread is 100 pages. And the front page tutorial is from 2006 - since then the version of Ndure has changed. A couple of other things have changed, too. So it took some digging, as always, to come up with the exact combo that hits.

EDIT: BTW, this current build of XBMC is spiffy, as is the version of UnleashX. The ones I have been running for main house use here are fairly old. This one has some nice features, like adding sources through the gui, and it autoboots to XBMC without me having had to configure that.

Ginsu Victim · « **Reply #39 on:** May 04, 2009, 02:01:07 pm »

My 1.6 is setup to boot to UnleashX if the power is pressed, or the regular Xbox dashboard if eject is pressed.


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