Tutorial written by : Sandman

Important: This document is outdated.
It is only kept online for historical reasons.

Section I : Setting up Evolution-X on a modded XBOX

Note: this section assumes you have a WORKING modchip installed previous to attempting this, if you do not, stop now.

IMPORTANT NOTE: This tutorial has been made for EvolutionX v1.8.458. (a new installation tutorial for EvolutionX v1.8.2594 can be found here)

This section will cover the following items:

Ø Running Evolution-x for the first time
Ø Setting up the network address in Evolution-x
Ø Connecting to the XBOX via FlashFXP
Ø Backing up the original XBOX Dashboard
Ø Copying the Evolution-x dashboard to the XBOX hard drive

Hardware required for the section:

Ø XBOX
Ø PC DVD drive (Liteon’s tend to work the best for me)
Ø Torx driver (I use a T10 and T15, the T10 for opening the XBOX Cover, and the T15 for removing the hard drive)
Ø Crossover cable if connecting directly to the pc
Ø Standard LAN cable (CAT5) if connecting to a hub
Ø Television with at least RCA Jacks (so we can see what we are doing)
Ø Original XBOX game
Ø CD-RW with the Evolution-X burned on it (must be a cd-rw as cd-r’s don’t seem to work for me)
Ø Standard Y power cable (usually found in your pc, if you don’t have one you can buy them for about 3 dollars at the local RadioShack)

Software required for this section:

Ø FlashFXP

Procedures:
1) Opening the XBOX: Turn the XBOX upside down, there are six screws that need to be removed in order to open the console, one under each rubber foot (in each corner of the unit), and one under two of the three stickers (one at the front and one at the back of the unit, directly in the middle). Remove these six screws. Once the screws are out, turn the XBOX over and gently lift the top away from the bottom half (this will be tight so apply pressure without being barbaric).

2) Unplugging the drives: Looking at the unit from the front, the DVD drive is on the left and the hard drive is on the right, notice that the hard drive has a standard four wire molex plug while the DVD drive had a custom power plug (the wires are usually colored yellow). Unplug the molex plug from the hard drive while leaving the DVD drive’s power connector plugged in. You will also notice that each drive has a data cable (these are usually grey in color and very flat), unplug the data cable from the DVD drive.

3) Plugging in the PC DVD drive: Place the PC DVD drive on top of the original XBOX DVD drive, plug in the data cable that you removed from the original DVD drive. Take the standard Y power connector, plug one end into the power cable coming from the XBOX. There are two connectors left, one for the hard drive and the other one for the PC DVD drive, plug both of them in. We are now ready to plug the XBOX in and boot it up.

4) Connecting the XBOX cables: Plug the power cable from the wall into the connector in the back of the XBOX, plug in the video cable from the television into the video port, plug a controller into the controller port, and last but not least, plug in the Crossover cable (if connecting directly to the pc) or the CAT5 cable (if connecting through a hub). Once all the cables are connected as they should be, turn the unit on by pressing the power button (the small grey button in the front of the XBOX). When it boots up, you will probably get the red/green flashing error, don’t worry about that (assuming again that your modchip was working BEFORE we did any of this).

5) Loading the Evolution-X dashboard for the first time: After the XBOX has powered up, press the eject button on both DVD drives, place the original XBOX game into the original XBOX DVD drive, while placing the Evolution-X cd-rw into the PC DVD drive. Close both drives, once they have both closed, turn the XBOX off by pressing the power button (the small grey button in the front of the unit). Turn the XBOX on again, it SHOULD now load the evolution dashboard, if it doesn’t don’t worry, you may have to do it two or three times (three seems to be my lucky number).

6) Editing the network settings in Evolution-X: Once at the main menu, you will see: “Network” menu item, scroll down using your D-pad on your controller and press the “A” button. This will open the network setting screen, you will see two places for ips in the middle of the (television) screen. The first ip is the static ip for the XBOX, set it to: 192.168.000.002 (this will translate to:192.168.0.2 in Windows). The second ip is for the gateway we are going to use, enter: 192.168.000.001 (this will translate to:192.168.0.1 in Windows). You can change the ips by moving up or down on the D-pad on the controller. Once both ips are changed from 000.000.000.000, press the “Back” button (the black button in the left-middle of the controller). Reboot your XBOX (leave the cds in both drives for now as they are still needed).

7) Connecting to the XBOX via FLASHFXP: Once the XBOX has rebooted and is at the Evolution-X screen again, load up FlashFXP on your PC, After that has loaded, press the “F4” key on your keyboard. This will open the site manager (where we are going to add the XBOX as a site), click on the “New Site” button, this will open a small screen asking for the site name, enter anything you like, I use: XBOX (original I know but easy to remember) and click the “OK” button. The right hand side of the site manager screen will now be enabled, this is where we will enter the ip of the XBOX as well as the port and username & password. For the field labeled “IP Address”, enter : 192.168.0.2. For the port, leave the default port of 21. To the right of the field labeled “Username” you will see a checkbox labeled “Anonymous”, by default this is checked, leave it checked. Once you have those settings, click on the “Apply” button located at the bottom of the site manager screen. Click the “connect” button. If you have done everything according to this guide, you should now see the drives on the XBOX in the window on the right side.

8) Backing up the original XBOX dashboard: Double click on the “C” drive on the XBOX, once this is open, right click in the window (doesn’t matter where) and click on the menu item labeled “Make Folder”, once the make folder screen opens, enter whatever you like (I use something like “xboxorigdash”) and click the “OK” button, this will create the said folder. Once the folder is created, locate the xbe named “Xboxdash.xbe” on the root of the “C” drive and transfer it to your PC. Once it has been transferred to the PC, change directories on the XBOX to your new directory (double click on the folder), transfer the “Xboxdash.xbe” from your pc to the new folder on the XBOX. You are now ready to copy the Evolution-X dashboard to the XBOX.

9) Copying the Evolution-X dashboard to the XBOX: While still connected to the XBOX, go to the parent directory (you can do this by double clicking on the link labeled “Parent Directory” at the top of the “C” drive), once you see all of the drives, double click on the “D” drive, there will be an xbe named “Default.xbe” there, transfer that to your PC, once it is on your PC, rename it to “xboxdash.xbe” and transfer it back to the “C” drive (I am assuming you can find your way back to the root of the “C” drive now :P). Once you have copied this file over to the XBOX hard drive, you will also need to copy the menu.ini file that came in the rar file over to the root of the “C” drive of the XBOX so that the menu options will work correctly. If you want to use the menu option of connecting to the original Microsoft dashboard from Evolution-X, you will need to make a copy of the “xboxdash.xbe” file you placed in that new directory, rename it to “msxboxdash.xbe” and place it in the root of the XBOX “C” drive as well. You can now disconnect from the XBOX by clicking the button at the top of the right window that looks like two cables almost joined (blue in color). Once you have disconnected from the XBOX, turn the power to the XBOX off (by pressing the small grey button in the front of the XBOX).

10) Disconnecting the PC DVD drive: Once the XBOX power is off, unplug the molex connector and the data cable from the PC DVD drive, unplug the standard Y connector from the hard drive and the power source from the XBOX. Plug the data cable back into the original XBOX DVD drive, and plug the molex connector back into the hard drive. Once you are finished, Turn the XBOX on again by pressing the eject button (the large greay button in the front of the XBOX) once the tray is open, remove the original game. After it is done loading, you should see the Evolution-X screen if everything was done according to this section of the guide.

go to : Section II : Replacing the original Hard drive on the XBOX